Cowl (Paperback)

~ Neal Asher (Author) "A STORM WAS OPENING white-hot cracks in the basalt sky and soon the rain would be etching all exposed metal..." (more)
Key Phrases: New London, Engineer Goron, Pig City (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Like "Kage Baker on steroids," says David Hartwell in his promotional letter, and indeed Asher's latest SF novel (after 2004's The Skinner) bears definite similarities to Baker's popular tales of the Company. Both involve near-immortal time travelers who pursue complex, often mysterious objectives. But where Baker tends toward the literary and satirical, Asher prefers over-the-top violence and pyrotechnic super-science. In the near-future, Polly, a prostitute, and Tack, a government-programmed killer, get caught up in a war fought by superhuman antagonists from the future, the Heliothane and the Umbrathane. Neither side is particularly sympathetic, but the latter group is allied with the monstrous Cowl, an even more advanced being that threatens all human life. Cowl has let loose the torbeast, a ravening interdimensional creature the size of a small planet, and the Heliothane have reprogrammed Tack to go back in time and assassinate the monster. Well-done battle sequences, serviceable characters and an old-fashioned sense of wonder help offset a sometimes overly byzantine plot and a too-abstract depiction of time travel. Overall, this is an excellent read and should increase the author's growing reputation. (May 18)
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Review

"Asher does time travel and he does it damn well, taking the reader on a journey that would make one hell of a theme park ride!-SFRevu.com

"Time travel, ultraviolence, big dinosaurs -- the perfect mind-blasting SF cocktail."-SFX magazine

"Asher has lit up the sky of Science Fiction like a new sun."-Tanith Lee

"Asher does time travel and he does it damn well, taking the reader on a journey that would make one hell of a theme park ride! (SF Revu.com )

"Time travel, ultraviolence, big dinosaurs -- the perfect mind-blasting SF cocktail." (SFX magazine )

"Asher has lit up the sky of Science Fiction like a new sun." (Tanith Lee )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books; 1st THUS edition (April 21, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0765315122
• ISBN-13: 978-0765315120
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #80,976 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Asher's take on time travel, May 16, 2005

By	Matthieu Hausig (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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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.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Violent Time-Travel, March 16, 2006

By	Archren (Long Beach, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This is not a book for the faint of heart. Although standing independent from Neal Asher's other books (the Polity series), it shares a few characteristics with them, including graphic (and sometimes gratuitous-feeling) violence. It also has some mind-bending time-travel science, lots and lots of mind games played on the characters and the reader, and (as always with Mr. Asher's books) excellently detailed biology.

The book mainly follows two characters from the 22nd century, Polly and Tack. They are both pulled into a three-way clash of civilizations against their will. The players in the war across time are two civilizations and one very scary individual, the eponymous Cowl. The civilizations are the Umbrathane and the Heliothane, both based in our distant future.

Cowl has set up shop at the beginning of life on Earth, and is pulling sample people back to him from across time. Thus are Polly and Tack ensnared into the plot. Tack is by far the most compelling character in the book. Starting off as a soulless government assassin, he becomes a pawn in many ways and for many people, only achieving rebirth as his own person through lots of pain and experience.

The characters travel through many times, past and future. In some of the near-past scenes, the author can't resist the temptation to randomly plunk his characters near to famous historical personages, an impulse that I wish more authors could resist. But that is quickly over, since the vast majority of our past doesn't contain humans at all. When the characters travel through prehistoric times, into the eras of great mammals, dinosaurs, and beyond, the scenes and scenery are absolutely convincing, a real strength.

Overall the book is an interesting read. It isn't the most fast paced book, and sometimes it becomes very hard to follow the rules of the game and picture how things should be working. Generally speaking, I found it better to go with the flow, trust the author and the characters, and watch the many battles unfold. Some plot twists are predictable, others aren't. As time-travel books go, this is certainly one of the best that I have read recently.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Book in a Harsh World, November 28, 2004

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.