The Soldier

Starred review from March 19, 2018
Asher (Infinity Engine) begins his new series set in the Polity universe with this adrenaline-charged work that brings the threat of the civilization-destroying Jain to the fore. Asher demonstrates his skill at creating alien actors with a cast of characters that does not include a single unaltered human. The action in this volume centers on the accretion disk of an exploded star that is littered with dormant Jain tech. The human-
AI amalgam Orlandine is sent to protect against any threats from
the disk, while the AI-
controlled human Polity and the king-
dom of the
crablike prador, who were once at odds, wait warily to see what happens there. Partnered with Orlandine is Dragon, a moon-size alien artifact with inscrutable motives and a fierce hatred of the Jain. When the Client, the last remnant of her species, is revived, she takes control of one of the many weapons platforms guarding the disk and disappears on her own mission. Once a Jain soldier unit is activated, all these entities and more join in combat, starting with hand-to-pseudopod fights and escalating to titanic battles that rend space. With mind-blowing complexity, characters, and combat, Asher’s work continues to combine the best of advanced cybertech and military SF.

May 1, 2018
Asher's popular Polity universe gets a little larger with this first book in the Rise of the Jain series. In the far future, humanity is almost unrecognizable amid alien species, artificial intelligence, and sentient drones. The human Polity and the crablike Prador are wary of a threat at the edge of their borders. An entity containing ancient technology of a long-dead race known as the Jain is being guarded by neutral parties, and a vindictive android named Angel is wreaking havoc in search of a super weapon. In addition to elaborate space battles between gigantic warships and spectacular descriptions of technology, Asher excels at humanizing his intelligent machines. Battle drones combat boredom, and augmented humans ponder their existence as they scheme, complain, and collaborate to face an imminent threat. While each chapter is prefaced by a snippet of history related to the Polity universe, and these expositions will aid in sorting out past story lines, readers unfamiliar with this ambitious series may be better off beginning with The Skinner (2004) or Prador Moon (2006).(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)