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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Asher's take on time travel,
By
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Cowl (Paperback)
Neal Asher has, in his Polity series, developed a reputation for writing well crafted, hyperviolent stories. In Cowl he ventures into the time travel vein. Time travel stories very often can't sustain enough believability to be immersive.
Asher manages to keep the storyline from devolving to this point although there are portions later in the novel when the time travel theme becomes a bit muddled. I particularly liked the concept of a probability slope where timelines that diverge from the main line require ever increasing amounts of energy to escape from. In terms of the characters in Cowl, much of the humor found in Asher's other novels is missing. The world of Cowl is even grimmer than the Polity universe and it comes through in many of the characters. Because of this, I felt detached from the characters and for this reason Cowl gets 4 stars.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Cowl,
By
This review is from: Cowl (Paperback)
A number of reviewers have commented that they found the story line very difficult to follow in this book. But, it's a story about time travel, where things change based upon what will happen in the future or will happen in the past. So of course it's tough to follow - that's the whole idea. I liked the book a great deal. I haven't found an Asher story yet that I don't like. And for those willing to work their way to the end, it does all come together.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great Book in a Harsh World,
By Ted Ward (Toronto, Ontario) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Cowl (Hardcover)
I've read a couple of Asher's previous books, Gridlinked and Skinner, and enjoyed his rather vicious characters and settings. Cowl follows in these fine steps with an even harsher, indifferent future and a "survival of the fittest" world.
This novel involves progressive time travel from a near future back through to a time when life on earth was beginning with machinations by forces whose goals and intentions are unclear but gradually revealed. The historic times encountered are very interesting but tantalizingly brief as they left me wanting more. My only criticism might be that the author could've created more human interest in these characters for me. I can't say I warmed up much to any of the characters, who remained rather cool and distant, but I suppose in some ways this added to the indifference of this book's universe to the individual character's existence and that of all life. I was at all times however curious to their fate and eager to follow their journeys. The best aspect of Asher's novels to me are the great ideas and original plots. Most books have some echo of another book but I can definitely say that I've never come across the likes of Asher's stories anywhere else. The story's pace is fast and the plot wraps up very satisfactorily. All in all it's a very good book.
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