Shadow of the Scorpion

A Novel of the Polity

By: Neal Asher

Narrated by: David Marantz

Raised to adulthood during the end of the war, between the human Polity and a vicious alien race, the Prador, Ian Cormac is haunted by childhood memories of a sinister scorpion-shaped war drone and the burden of losses he doesn’t remember. Cormac signs up with Earth Central Security and is sent out to help restore and maintain order on worlds devastated by the war. There, he discovers that though the Prador remain as murderous as ever, they are not anywhere near as treacherous or dangerous as some of his fellow humans - some closer to him than he would like. Amidst the ruins left by wartime genocides, Cormac will discover in himself a cold capacity for violence, and learn some horrible truths about his own past while trying to stay alive on his course of vengeance.

©2008 Neal Asher (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

ok, better if u kno the series

struggled to care about the story. tried to multitask while listening and it's too hard to follow changing timelines multiple times in a long chapter with very minor voice acting. Very long to an anti-climactic answer to the war drone & MC's dad.

well somebody heard about nonlinear story telling

it is a solid sci-fi action book, could have gone without the tacked on adult scenes. but it can be hard to follow when the narrative jumps around time periods.

Origin story for Agent Cormac

Neal Asher's Shadow of the Scorpion is the origin story for agent Cormac, a long running series located in his Polity universe. The main tale relates Cormac's early years from a young military grunt with his demonstration of fighting, spying, and deductive skills that gets him into the ESC (Earth Central Security). While the Prador is the alien enemy of the Polity, there is an indigenous insurgent movement that is fighting for independence from the the Polity itself. The story alternates between this present day and Cormac's childhood which involves interactions with the Polity war drone Amistad who worked with Cormac's father, missing and presumed dead during the early Prador war, but never fully explained. Cormac progressively evolves over time into the bigger than life character.

Set in the Polity universe, there's less emphasis on the AI dominated culture. At the same time, the Prador play a limited role with the insurgents taking center stage through a classic underground movement. One distinctive feature is the use of selective memory wipes as a way of dealing with painful experiences and preventing PTSD. Cormac comes to learn that he underwent several during his childhood and deals with that reintegration.

The narration is well done with good character distinction and adequate pacing well aligned with the plot.

Fascinating!

Leaves you wondering. Well played. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I can't help wondering what comes next. I'm not ready to leave these characters.

it had satisfying ending

man, Amistad is just poor misunderstood murder machine that just wanted little cormac to know the truth

The Crack Cocain of Sci Fi

Neal Asher writes such good books that are so engaging. The characters are round and the world is realistic. Can't get enough!

Excellent First in Cormac Series

Great intro to the Ian Cormac series. Necessary reading the Neal Asher fans who seek the background and origins of Cormac. Must listen!

Outstanding

This was a great book and made me wanting more. The origin story for agent Cormac, series located in the Polity universe. Lots of action and excitement. I listened to the audible version and the narration by David Marantz was outstanding. I wish more of the Polity Universe was in Audible.

Best sci-fi action writer I know

Even though the polity series is chuck full of fast pased emersive combat and gritty cyberpunk characters it is not in any sense light reading. Neal Asher is a master of epic world building and interesting character development. The science in his work often esoteric and mysterious yet with a strong foundation in the world he built.
What attracts me most to his writing is that Asher manages to capture the grit and feel of early cyperpunk works and manages to hold on to that through huge and intricate story arcs. Something most early cyberpunk writers never really mastered.

I am relistening the entire polity universe series now since it is finally complete in audiobook form. I do advise anyone with similar ambitions to google the timeline and read the series chronologically. Asher has been writing in this universe for decades, prequels sequels an all, so it can get a little confusing if you just go by audible's inferior sorting options.

Ps: A tip for you audible devs: remember my sorting preferences already, sigh.. Resorting every query to release date got tiresome years ago. The new terminology does not help either.

If you like Neal Asher go check out Peter F. Hamilton too. Not as much grit and action but seriously good at building story arcs . Takes epic out of the spectrum.
Piece

Really good book

One of Asher's best, in my opinion. Love the evolution of techno-Bond. It's great to see how Cormac got his start.