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Rise of the Jain #3
The Human
A warship is laying waste to the galaxy, making for unexpected allies in the face of incredible acts of war. This is the high-octane conclusion to Neal Asher's Rise of the Jain trilogy.
An entire galaxy hangs in the balance.
A Jain warship has risen from the depths of space, emerging with a deadly grudge and a wealth of ancient yet lethal technology. It is determined to hunt down the alien Client, and will annihilate all those who stand in its way. So Orlandine must prepare humanity's defence.
Both humanity and the Prador thought their ancient foe - the Jain - had perished in a past age. And they resolve to destroy these outliers at any cost. Orlandine wants the Client's inside knowledge to act, but the Client has her own agenda. Earth Central therefore looks to the Prador for alliance, after the Jain destroy their fleet. However, not everyone is happy with this, and some will do anything to shatter this fragile coalition.
As the Jain warship makes its way across the galaxy, it seems unstoppable. Human and Prador forces alike struggle to withstand its devastating weaponry. Orlandine's life work is to neutralize Jain technology, so if she can't triumph, no one can. But will she become what she's vowed to destroy?
The Human is the third and final book in Neal Asher's Rise of the Jain trilogy, following The Soldier and The Warship.
An entire galaxy hangs in the balance.
A Jain warship has risen from the depths of space, emerging with a deadly grudge and a wealth of ancient yet lethal technology. It is determined to hunt down the alien Client, and will annihilate all those who stand in its way. So Orlandine must prepare humanity's defence.
Both humanity and the Prador thought their ancient foe - the Jain - had perished in a past age. And they resolve to destroy these outliers at any cost. Orlandine wants the Client's inside knowledge to act, but the Client has her own agenda. Earth Central therefore looks to the Prador for alliance, after the Jain destroy their fleet. However, not everyone is happy with this, and some will do anything to shatter this fragile coalition.
As the Jain warship makes its way across the galaxy, it seems unstoppable. Human and Prador forces alike struggle to withstand its devastating weaponry. Orlandine's life work is to neutralize Jain technology, so if she can't triumph, no one can. But will she become what she's vowed to destroy?
The Human is the third and final book in Neal Asher's Rise of the Jain trilogy, following The Soldier and The Warship.
20 pages, Audible Audio
First published April 14, 2020
About the author
Neal Asher
128 books2,890 followersI’ve been an engineer, barman, skip lorry driver, coalman, boat window manufacturer, contract grass cutter and builder. Now I write science fiction books, and am slowly getting over the feeling that someone is going to find me out, and can call myself a writer without wincing and ducking my head. As professions go, I prefer this one: I don’t have to clock-in, change my clothes after work, nor scrub sensitive parts of my body with detergent. I think I’ll hang around.
Source: http://www.blogger.com/profile/139339...
Source: http://www.blogger.com/profile/139339...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 124 reviews
April 21, 2020
Wow, wow, wow.
This third book in this trilogy more than satisfied, it blew my mind.
The first two books in the trilogy brought in so many awesome story elements and high-tech goodies (and extremely low-tech Spatterjay ones) that the whole story served as a melting pot of all the most outrageously dangerous elements... only to throw them all at the even MORE outrageous Jain tech.
The Soldier referred to a nearly impossibly strong Jain soldier, The Warship ramped up the threat level to unimaginably powerful levels, and this book, The Human, is deceptive in its title...
Because it's actually a full throw-down NASTY battle that brought in every AI battleship including Earth Central itself, the whole Prador Kingdom, and it even forced our clever little subversive Jain-tech provocateur into pulling out all the stops, transforming a whole damn planet to fight the threat.
BIG FREAKING FUN.
And guess who gets trounced?
EVERYONE.
This has got to be some of the most freakishly awesome high-tech nightmare scenarios set in the far-future that I've ever read.
It requires a LOT of build-up from all the earlier novels, but damn is it WORTH it! All the previous incursions of Jain, or Dragon, or anything related to the AI ships, of Spatterjay, or even the truly great inclusions of Pennyroyal all lend itself to the making of this amazing blow-out.
I can never recommend reading this on its own, but for the fans that have come this far?
Pure Nirvana.
This third book in this trilogy more than satisfied, it blew my mind.
The first two books in the trilogy brought in so many awesome story elements and high-tech goodies (and extremely low-tech Spatterjay ones) that the whole story served as a melting pot of all the most outrageously dangerous elements... only to throw them all at the even MORE outrageous Jain tech.
The Soldier referred to a nearly impossibly strong Jain soldier, The Warship ramped up the threat level to unimaginably powerful levels, and this book, The Human, is deceptive in its title...
Because it's actually a full throw-down NASTY battle that brought in every AI battleship including Earth Central itself, the whole Prador Kingdom, and it even forced our clever little subversive Jain-tech provocateur into pulling out all the stops, transforming a whole damn planet to fight the threat.
BIG FREAKING FUN.
And guess who gets trounced?
EVERYONE.
This has got to be some of the most freakishly awesome high-tech nightmare scenarios set in the far-future that I've ever read.
It requires a LOT of build-up from all the earlier novels, but damn is it WORTH it! All the previous incursions of Jain, or Dragon, or anything related to the AI ships, of Spatterjay, or even the truly great inclusions of Pennyroyal all lend itself to the making of this amazing blow-out.
I can never recommend reading this on its own, but for the fans that have come this far?
Pure Nirvana.
September 5, 2020
This was kind of a disappointment to me. I've read 26 Neal Asher books so far and I love the sense of wonder in them, I like the smart solutions and I like the super capable creatures.
Here it was just a long space battle where the opponents were throwing appaling amounts of energies in different forms at each other. The super capable creatures all failed, all of them.
There were several story lines that were absolutely superfluous and boring.
And let's see what's interesting in the polity:
Dragon: hardly made an appearance, had absolutely no role.
EC: was not invited to the party, arrived at the very end and did some cleaning up, thanks EC.
Hoopers: they were there but didn't hoop a lot.
Prador: all augmented now so they acted exactly like humans, I mean exactly!
And let me tell you this, and it might come as a shock: the Jain are boring. We already have a hyper aggressive, xenophobic race: the Prador. The Jain are the same but even more so and they've got advanced tech, that's all.
There was so much destruction in this book, my soul hurts...
So this book and even this series is a bit of a let down.
And one more thing: everybody is building something. This is a recurring thing in Asher books, but it was even more dominant here: the Jain is building stuff, Trike is building, Orlandine is building, the Client is building, EC is building... just get on with it please, I'm fed up with mambo jumbo being packed on each other to create new mambo jumbo stuff that will kill someone.
Here it was just a long space battle where the opponents were throwing appaling amounts of energies in different forms at each other. The super capable creatures all failed, all of them.
There were several story lines that were absolutely superfluous and boring.
And let's see what's interesting in the polity:
Dragon: hardly made an appearance, had absolutely no role.
EC: was not invited to the party, arrived at the very end and did some cleaning up, thanks EC.
Hoopers: they were there but didn't hoop a lot.
Prador: all augmented now so they acted exactly like humans, I mean exactly!
And let me tell you this, and it might come as a shock: the Jain are boring. We already have a hyper aggressive, xenophobic race: the Prador. The Jain are the same but even more so and they've got advanced tech, that's all.
There was so much destruction in this book, my soul hurts...
So this book and even this series is a bit of a let down.
And one more thing: everybody is building something. This is a recurring thing in Asher books, but it was even more dominant here: the Jain is building stuff, Trike is building, Orlandine is building, the Client is building, EC is building... just get on with it please, I'm fed up with mambo jumbo being packed on each other to create new mambo jumbo stuff that will kill someone.
November 4, 2023
A rather apt ending for the Rise of the Jain Trilogy! The second volume ended with a 1000 mile Jain spaceship emerging from the sun of the accretion disk, following the 700 mile wide Species ship that the Polity and the Prador fleets just about blew away (at a huge cost). It seems the Jain were playing a deep game, with all kinds of machinations to get the Polity and Prador either at odds and/or to kill the Species ship.
As typical for Asher, he constantly rotates the POVs among a host of characters, including several A.I.s, old war drones, the Client (the last of the Species) and others. We know the Jain have come to party so to speak, but the combined fleets of the Prador/Polity are severely depleted and no help for the near future. Pretty carefully plotted, Asher moves the story right along while we await the final showdown.
Character development is not really Asher's strength, but the high tech weapons, tech and action scenes kept me interested throughout. This series also provided some insight into the mysterious Jain, whose 'wild tech' play a large role in several of Asher's polity novels. If you are looking for deep insights into the human condition, this will not rank high on the list. If you are looking for 'macho' military science fiction, you came to the right place. 4.5 stars.
As typical for Asher, he constantly rotates the POVs among a host of characters, including several A.I.s, old war drones, the Client (the last of the Species) and others. We know the Jain have come to party so to speak, but the combined fleets of the Prador/Polity are severely depleted and no help for the near future. Pretty carefully plotted, Asher moves the story right along while we await the final showdown.
Character development is not really Asher's strength, but the high tech weapons, tech and action scenes kept me interested throughout. This series also provided some insight into the mysterious Jain, whose 'wild tech' play a large role in several of Asher's polity novels. If you are looking for deep insights into the human condition, this will not rank high on the list. If you are looking for 'macho' military science fiction, you came to the right place. 4.5 stars.
May 8, 2022
Nice end to a satisfying series. I've now read twelve Neal Asher books spanning three series. My order of preference is:
1. Transformation
2. Cormac
3. Rise of the Jain
Neal Asher books fall into such a unique collection of genres, they almost qualify for a new one. Maybe "Mil-cyberpunk body horror."
My main criticism of Rise of the Jain is that it started feeling very similar to Transformation by book three, but didn't have Penny Royal's questionably sane, Machiavellian machinations to titillate my imagination. Another minor complaint is that I experienced some fatigue with the Jain story. The story was good, the cyberpunk imagery was spot-on, but twelve books is quite a span for a single story arc. Don't let my minor quibbles stop you though, this is still an excellent series in a criminally under-represented genre.
Recommended to anyone who's finished the Transformation series. It would be tough to pick this series up without reading previous series. I haven't read Spatterjay yet, and while I was able to pick up what I need to know along the way, it still would have been nice to have a deeper knowledge of those events.
1. Transformation
2. Cormac
3. Rise of the Jain
Neal Asher books fall into such a unique collection of genres, they almost qualify for a new one. Maybe "Mil-cyberpunk body horror."
My main criticism of Rise of the Jain is that it started feeling very similar to Transformation by book three, but didn't have Penny Royal's questionably sane, Machiavellian machinations to titillate my imagination. Another minor complaint is that I experienced some fatigue with the Jain story. The story was good, the cyberpunk imagery was spot-on, but twelve books is quite a span for a single story arc. Don't let my minor quibbles stop you though, this is still an excellent series in a criminally under-represented genre.
Recommended to anyone who's finished the Transformation series. It would be tough to pick this series up without reading previous series. I haven't read Spatterjay yet, and while I was able to pick up what I need to know along the way, it still would have been nice to have a deeper knowledge of those events.
May 8, 2020
Probably my most anticipated book of all time. Like a dummy I read the first two books of this trilogy last year and sincerely, for the last month it's been hell, I've been dying for this. Well, it is here, and it was worth the wait. For anyone who reads Asher consistently, this is a culmination of almost twenty other books, like fifty plus short stories, fifteen plus years, and layer upon layer upon layer of world building, characters, augmentations, aliens, tech, weapons, and don't forget the snarky-ass combat drones. This guy is seriously a magnificent ass bastard, he's one of the few authors that I get physical reactions from when I read. No, not that, more like my heart races, I lean forward in my chair, I look around quickly like: "is everyone getting this?!?!" and all other things giddy. I say about Asher what Dwight said about Miho, "You're an angel. You're a saint. You're Mother Teresa. You're Elvis. You're God." This was his biggest and baddest book yet and a blast to read from cover to cover. C'mon Goodreads and give us that half star option so I can give this five and a half stars!!!
May 9, 2020
Endings are always such sweet sorrow: whether relationship, holiday, a fabulous bottle of wine, or a story, there is such desire for a tying up of all the threads and a suitable finale for all those characters in whom the reader has invested such time and emotion. Very few authors, and I include the genius of Iain M. Banks here, have managed it; I can count on two hands the novels I have closed the last page upon and thought, yep, I'm okay with that.
On to The Human, the finale of the Rise of the Jain, and what a finale it is: gargantum ships, reality crippling energies, planet dusting explosions ...
... and that is the problem for me with this book. I lost count of the use of the words millions, billions, gazillions, googleplexes; lasers, grasers, masers, phasers, tasers, razers, blazers. In short, it all became a washing machine of terms that grew to such a level of boredom that I began to skip past these sections and onto the next step in the plot ... and that is never good.
Story must always be about plot. I love a great technical novel and abhor the misuse of science within a canon but it should never usurp or drown the plot less it turns the narrative into little more than a spreadsheet of numbers and resources being moved around; indeed there is a point in the novel where one of the AIs comes to the same realisation when describing the course of one of the engagements.
I also found the first fifty pages oddly stilted, and not up to Asher's usually golden and fluidic prose. It was almost going through the numbers, bizarrely explaining what had happened to all of the characters in the previous book, a very odd circumstance since I'd just read it, so why why I want a recap.
The plot itself is good but one of the main characters seems to vanish without trace for no apparent reason, and I do not understand why one of the characters at the end doesn't do the same thing as another of the characters, hence making the final chapter irrelevant.
I still enjoyed the book, and the series. I just think it seemed a bit rushed, lacking the usual spit and polish that puts Asher above the mass of space opera writers.
Fleecy Moss, author of the Folio 55 scifi fantasy series (writing as Nia Sinjorina), End of a Girl, Undon , and 4659 now available on Amazon.
On to The Human, the finale of the Rise of the Jain, and what a finale it is: gargantum ships, reality crippling energies, planet dusting explosions ...
... and that is the problem for me with this book. I lost count of the use of the words millions, billions, gazillions, googleplexes; lasers, grasers, masers, phasers, tasers, razers, blazers. In short, it all became a washing machine of terms that grew to such a level of boredom that I began to skip past these sections and onto the next step in the plot ... and that is never good.
Story must always be about plot. I love a great technical novel and abhor the misuse of science within a canon but it should never usurp or drown the plot less it turns the narrative into little more than a spreadsheet of numbers and resources being moved around; indeed there is a point in the novel where one of the AIs comes to the same realisation when describing the course of one of the engagements.
I also found the first fifty pages oddly stilted, and not up to Asher's usually golden and fluidic prose. It was almost going through the numbers, bizarrely explaining what had happened to all of the characters in the previous book, a very odd circumstance since I'd just read it, so why why I want a recap.
The plot itself is good but one of the main characters seems to vanish without trace for no apparent reason, and I do not understand why one of the characters at the end doesn't do the same thing as another of the characters, hence making the final chapter irrelevant.
I still enjoyed the book, and the series. I just think it seemed a bit rushed, lacking the usual spit and polish that puts Asher above the mass of space opera writers.
Fleecy Moss, author of the Folio 55 scifi fantasy series (writing as Nia Sinjorina), End of a Girl, Undon , and 4659 now available on Amazon.
May 9, 2020
Can’t finish this book
Sorry I usually love this author but I found the interminable discussion of technology boring. In my view imagined Technoly should push a story a long but when it becomes front and centre it’s too much.
Sorry I usually love this author but I found the interminable discussion of technology boring. In my view imagined Technoly should push a story a long but when it becomes front and centre it’s too much.
May 5, 2020
Neal Asher is Iain M. Banks on steroids.
This is mayhem on a cosmic scale. Sassy drones like Sprag, Knobbler, Cutter are at their sarcastic best. Scheming Earth Central's has convoluted plans. Familiar 'faces' like Orlandine, The Client, Cog, Trike, Orlik rise to new 'heights'. The rapacious Jain are spreading like the Coronavirus...............
The trilogy has the possibility of a sequel/s.
This is mayhem on a cosmic scale. Sassy drones like Sprag, Knobbler, Cutter are at their sarcastic best. Scheming Earth Central's has convoluted plans. Familiar 'faces' like Orlandine, The Client, Cog, Trike, Orlik rise to new 'heights'. The rapacious Jain are spreading like the Coronavirus...............
The trilogy has the possibility of a sequel/s.
March 3, 2021
When this book arrived I contemplated for several days going back to reread at the very least the first two books in the arc if not further back into the Polity series since many characters and situations are echoed in Ashers Polity works.
After a while I just started reading the book anyway. The beginning was very slow going as I spent a lot of time trying to remember details about characters and interactions and details from previous books. I should have probably gone back to re-read the previous books. In any case, I pressed on. At about the half-way point I was reading at my normal speed and completed the book the next evening.
Asher shines in his portrayal of action scenes both in space and on the ground and this book because of the setup requires a lot of action scenes to resolve the conflicts that have been stirred up. It's a four or five sided conflict between, Orlandine, the Prador, the Polity (in the person of Earth Central or commanders of Polity fleets), the Client, and the Jain. Each of these groups are seeking to protect their own interests and not let any of the others get advantage over them. That brings them into and out of conflict several times through the book as the plot shifted.
I was disappointed in the Earth Central copy that was used in this book, he seemed very short sighted compared to the long thinking Earth Central I remember. The undercurrent of this whole book and even this three book arc is at what point when you become enhanced with power and abilities can you no longer be called human. The ultimate example, of course, is the Jain who seek to destroy or subsume all others. Each party in the conflict responds differently to these levels of power some more human-like than others.
The ending shows quite a few of them reverting to previous levels of power and finding some humanity again, either through self realization or having it forced upon them.
After a while I just started reading the book anyway. The beginning was very slow going as I spent a lot of time trying to remember details about characters and interactions and details from previous books. I should have probably gone back to re-read the previous books. In any case, I pressed on. At about the half-way point I was reading at my normal speed and completed the book the next evening.
Asher shines in his portrayal of action scenes both in space and on the ground and this book because of the setup requires a lot of action scenes to resolve the conflicts that have been stirred up. It's a four or five sided conflict between, Orlandine, the Prador, the Polity (in the person of Earth Central or commanders of Polity fleets), the Client, and the Jain. Each of these groups are seeking to protect their own interests and not let any of the others get advantage over them. That brings them into and out of conflict several times through the book as the plot shifted.
I was disappointed in the Earth Central copy that was used in this book, he seemed very short sighted compared to the long thinking Earth Central I remember. The undercurrent of this whole book and even this three book arc is at what point when you become enhanced with power and abilities can you no longer be called human. The ultimate example, of course, is the Jain who seek to destroy or subsume all others. Each party in the conflict responds differently to these levels of power some more human-like than others.
The ending shows quite a few of them reverting to previous levels of power and finding some humanity again, either through self realization or having it forced upon them.
June 13, 2020
It was okay, but I think the author wrote himself into the corner by advancing the technology too far and it leant towards scf-fi gibberish in some points.
June 22, 2020
This whole trilogy could have been two books. Certain plots and subplots with characters over the three books could have been cut away completely and the only result would be two books with a more concise, compact and tight narrative with excellent characters and insanely well described and huge space battles.
But that is not the case. Neal Asher has numerous characters and almost all of them have their own sections and viewpoint pieces. There are five or so main characters and they share the most page space, but there are numerous secondary and tertiary characters who do not need to have their own POV sections, but have them. Thus there is a lot of head hopping because Asher decided everyone needs to have their own sections. This disrupts the flow of the plot. Some sections do nothing for the story, some characters sections are superfluous they could have been a part of someone else story.
However, some of the character are interesting , and though they fall into something is happening to them and are transforming and building things slowly, this reveals new things about established elements in Asher's Polity series. Orlandine, one of the many main characters, goes through interesting things and carries on the her story that started all those years ago in Polity Agent. It was great that Asher decided to pick up on her story that seemed for a while one that would never be explored again. Trike has a similar arc, but goes on a bit too long. The Client, again similar arc, but sections seem to be wheel spinning. But they are interesting enough.
This is about the Jain, the big bad of the Polity. This book reveals a lot more of their history, how they became what we know them to be, goes into more about their tech and how it works. For the most part this was very, very good. It didn't take away anything form the threat that they pose, it added to it. The revealing of more of how the tech works makes it more threatening and dangerous. And the threat it does pose and what the Jain do in this book is incredible.
The space battles described in this prove to me that Neal Asher is the master of book space battles. The scale of this battle is huge, the destruction is on a scale that surpasses most things I have read or seen. The descriptions are spot on, the wording is excellent. A couple of times Asher gets bogged down in too much detail, but that is few and far between. Just sit back and revel in the insane destruction.
But, there is a lot of connecting things together and retcons, which if you haven't read any Asher books before may not be a big thing, but as a fan and reading all his books, this retconning and revealing things that shouldn't be known given the timeline, is very frustrating. This alone drops this rating because it messes up other books, causes not so much continuity problems, but makes things messy.
Could have been a higher score, but too many characters with their own sections, retcons and connections galore, and a couple of boring sections, makes this an OK Asher book, not his worse, but not up their with his best.
But that is not the case. Neal Asher has numerous characters and almost all of them have their own sections and viewpoint pieces. There are five or so main characters and they share the most page space, but there are numerous secondary and tertiary characters who do not need to have their own POV sections, but have them. Thus there is a lot of head hopping because Asher decided everyone needs to have their own sections. This disrupts the flow of the plot. Some sections do nothing for the story, some characters sections are superfluous they could have been a part of someone else story.
However, some of the character are interesting , and though they fall into something is happening to them and are transforming and building things slowly, this reveals new things about established elements in Asher's Polity series. Orlandine, one of the many main characters, goes through interesting things and carries on the her story that started all those years ago in Polity Agent. It was great that Asher decided to pick up on her story that seemed for a while one that would never be explored again. Trike has a similar arc, but goes on a bit too long. The Client, again similar arc, but sections seem to be wheel spinning. But they are interesting enough.
This is about the Jain, the big bad of the Polity. This book reveals a lot more of their history, how they became what we know them to be, goes into more about their tech and how it works. For the most part this was very, very good. It didn't take away anything form the threat that they pose, it added to it. The revealing of more of how the tech works makes it more threatening and dangerous. And the threat it does pose and what the Jain do in this book is incredible.
The space battles described in this prove to me that Neal Asher is the master of book space battles. The scale of this battle is huge, the destruction is on a scale that surpasses most things I have read or seen. The descriptions are spot on, the wording is excellent. A couple of times Asher gets bogged down in too much detail, but that is few and far between. Just sit back and revel in the insane destruction.
But, there is a lot of connecting things together and retcons, which if you haven't read any Asher books before may not be a big thing, but as a fan and reading all his books, this retconning and revealing things that shouldn't be known given the timeline, is very frustrating. This alone drops this rating because it messes up other books, causes not so much continuity problems, but makes things messy.
Could have been a higher score, but too many characters with their own sections, retcons and connections galore, and a couple of boring sections, makes this an OK Asher book, not his worse, but not up their with his best.
October 12, 2021
Very good story with a colourful lore. At times the "science" runs away from it and the scale of things is difficult to comprehend.
December 25, 2020
A little Asher goes a long way.
What do I mean?
The collimated immiscible proton flux and on and on with techno gibberish.
But it’s fun. It’s Tom Clancy meets Star Trek meets Stephen Hawking.
This is the third book of a trilogy and the novel is almost just one long fight scene, but the reader knows the characters and the ride’s pleasant and the destination, while obvious, is well met.
What do I mean?
The collimated immiscible proton flux and on and on with techno gibberish.
But it’s fun. It’s Tom Clancy meets Star Trek meets Stephen Hawking.
This is the third book of a trilogy and the novel is almost just one long fight scene, but the reader knows the characters and the ride’s pleasant and the destination, while obvious, is well met.
August 7, 2020
I’m not sure how valid this review of Neal Asher’s 2020 novel "Rise of the Jain, Book 3: Human, The” is. Having grown tired of the constant over-leveling of protagonists and antagonists, I self-selected out of the series with the previous book. But, since I had nothing else to read and the book became available to me at the library, I read it. It’s pretty much as I expected. In this book, Asher continues leveling up everything to well past ridiculous levels (over and over again). There’s only one fairly minor character that’s even relatable at a human level. Similarly, Asher levels up the “technology” over and over again until it’s just so much magical gibberish. Worse, the book starts the battles very near the beginning and those battles continue non-stop through almost the whole of its 576 pages. It’s just an interminable, horribly tiring thing to read with characters we can’t relate to using meaningless tools and technology to fight an incomprehensible enemy. So, I’m rating the book at a Not Very Good 2 stars out of 5.
September 5, 2022
It is a Neil Asher Polity book and as such I am sold.
It is not his best but I find 'not his best' to be perfectly fine.
It is not his best but I find 'not his best' to be perfectly fine.
July 26, 2020
4.5 stars.
Almost five, because if nothing else Asher deserves enormous credit for keeping track of EVERYTHING from all the books and short stories, and bringing it all back together coherently.
He also raises an intriguing idea as several players have to use Jain tech to fight the Jain, and that may come with some drawbacks.
But I can't give the full five, because of the high techno-porn content. I've read nearly all of Asher's work, and it's not as if I didn't know what to expect, but here he's dialed it up too far, with page after page of bots-busy-building and masers and grasers and frasers (Scottish weapons) and particle cannons and disruptors and planet-busters, and Humphrey with his flail. Then on top of that he layers pages and pages of characters modifying themselves on the fly with Jain tech and viruses. All this, mind you, without ever snapping the thread of credibility, because nothing that happens is separate from all the previous stuff, with hooders and an Old Captain.
The price of that is that the prador have become so much like humans that it makes no difference, and the snarky AIs are too busy to be snarky. However, the Orlik-Sprag setup takes the edge off that one. Dragon had to be pushed aside, after a brief appearance in the setup.
You wouldn't have reached this book if you hadn't come to terms with a universe with nearly-infinite resources. This time the ships just get bigger and bigger, and it started to nag at me that we have never discussed the logistics of a 50-mile-long ship. What's where? How to they travel around it? Of course, you do need that space for the ten-thousand weapon factories on board, and an obsquatamatillion tonnes of raw materials they need, and a huge space to store the weapons they make, and who knows, someday you may need to take a small fleet on board. Feh.
And finally we come to the AIs, some capable of managing an entire planet, making decisions in femtoseconds, and patiently dealing with several humans who are indeed capable but gosh, how have there not been a LOT of AIs who have decided they just can't slow down that much when things are tight?
SO, don't look for things to grumble about. Just enjoy the ride, and walk away wondering about possible analogies to the idea of "how far are you willing to go to beat the enemy?"
Summary: despite annoyances, this is a magnificent wrap-up to a very long story arc.
And the door isn't enTIREly closed to a followup.
Almost five, because if nothing else Asher deserves enormous credit for keeping track of EVERYTHING from all the books and short stories, and bringing it all back together coherently.
He also raises an intriguing idea as several players have to use Jain tech to fight the Jain, and that may come with some drawbacks.
But I can't give the full five, because of the high techno-porn content. I've read nearly all of Asher's work, and it's not as if I didn't know what to expect, but here he's dialed it up too far, with page after page of bots-busy-building and masers and grasers and frasers (Scottish weapons) and particle cannons and disruptors and planet-busters, and Humphrey with his flail. Then on top of that he layers pages and pages of characters modifying themselves on the fly with Jain tech and viruses. All this, mind you, without ever snapping the thread of credibility, because nothing that happens is separate from all the previous stuff, with hooders and an Old Captain.
The price of that is that the prador have become so much like humans that it makes no difference, and the snarky AIs are too busy to be snarky. However, the Orlik-Sprag setup takes the edge off that one. Dragon had to be pushed aside, after a brief appearance in the setup.
You wouldn't have reached this book if you hadn't come to terms with a universe with nearly-infinite resources. This time the ships just get bigger and bigger, and it started to nag at me that we have never discussed the logistics of a 50-mile-long ship. What's where? How to they travel around it? Of course, you do need that space for the ten-thousand weapon factories on board, and an obsquatamatillion tonnes of raw materials they need, and a huge space to store the weapons they make, and who knows, someday you may need to take a small fleet on board. Feh.
And finally we come to the AIs, some capable of managing an entire planet, making decisions in femtoseconds, and patiently dealing with several humans who are indeed capable but gosh, how have there not been a LOT of AIs who have decided they just can't slow down that much when things are tight?
SO, don't look for things to grumble about. Just enjoy the ride, and walk away wondering about possible analogies to the idea of "how far are you willing to go to beat the enemy?"
Summary: despite annoyances, this is a magnificent wrap-up to a very long story arc.
And the door isn't enTIREly closed to a followup.
November 10, 2022
Well, that all ended suitably.
Let's face it, you don't come to Neal Asher for subtley, do you? The Human bursts with high-octane action, the biggest of bangs, the biggest of spaceships, exotic weaponry, transcendence-as-character-development, burning planets, planet-minds, cocky war drones, wise old captains, and power corrupting absolutely and on multiple occasions.
It's thoroughly good fun, but taken to such extremes that I cannot imagine how Asher can top it with his next output. There is, I suppose, the option of themic repetition - giving 'em what they want. But I think he can be better than that. Change direction, Mr Asher, show us something different, even if it's less spectacular. You've got the Rise of the Jain trilogy out of your system, so, perhaps... calm down dear? Just a tad. Hm?
Who knows - then some subtly might be at hand.
Let's face it, you don't come to Neal Asher for subtley, do you? The Human bursts with high-octane action, the biggest of bangs, the biggest of spaceships, exotic weaponry, transcendence-as-character-development, burning planets, planet-minds, cocky war drones, wise old captains, and power corrupting absolutely and on multiple occasions.
It's thoroughly good fun, but taken to such extremes that I cannot imagine how Asher can top it with his next output. There is, I suppose, the option of themic repetition - giving 'em what they want. But I think he can be better than that. Change direction, Mr Asher, show us something different, even if it's less spectacular. You've got the Rise of the Jain trilogy out of your system, so, perhaps... calm down dear? Just a tad. Hm?
Who knows - then some subtly might be at hand.
January 10, 2024
Závěrečná část trilogie Vzestup džainu se sice jmenuje Člověk, nicméně v tom zapadlém kusu vesmíru, kde se z nicoty vynořila loď pradávné rasy Džainů, je prakticky každý významnější hráč spíš něco jako bůh. Běžná lidská populace se v téhle knize povětšinou vyskytuje pouze jako potrava pro kulomety, případně surovina pro výrobu výkonnějších bojových jednotek. Všude okolo to totiž pořádně vře a vyhlídky Řádu v boji proti džainské hrozbě nejsou nijak růžové. Orlandine propojená s umělou inteligencí zuřivě vyzbrojuje prakticky celou soustavu, tajemná Klientka čile vyrábí armádu svých vlastních kopií, probíječky a masery už si pilně leští i flotila Zemské centrály. A to není všechno, pořádné polínko do ohně přiloží i staří hoopeři ze Spatterjay, bojoví roboti a dokonce i Pradoři. Zkrátka na obloze je pořádný ohňostroj a všichni do toho dávají co můžou. Ale stejně to vypadá, že to nebude stačit. Leda by se našla nějaká jiná cestička...
October 19, 2022
The final story in "The Rise of the Jain" series was the perfect culmination of all the great elements in this series, so I thought. The depictions of the characters in this final part were particularly well written in my view, as a lot of grey layers were added to the personages in it. At times it reminded me of my favourite space opera tv show, "Farscape", in that regard. Everybody had their good and bad intentions, their moments of heroic actions as well as playing to their nature or cunning agenda's. Definitely thought it therefore ended on a high.
April 18, 2020
Great ending
I was so excited to see this come up on my list as available to read, and Asher does not disappoint. Actions and descriptions are delivered in detail, and the extrapolation of behaviours by the various entities was very enjoyable. I will miss this series but am glad it has come to a satisfactory end.
I was so excited to see this come up on my list as available to read, and Asher does not disappoint. Actions and descriptions are delivered in detail, and the extrapolation of behaviours by the various entities was very enjoyable. I will miss this series but am glad it has come to a satisfactory end.
March 19, 2022
Great trilogy. Interesting thoughts on extraterrestrial psychology, FTL travel and artificial intelligence.
May 22, 2020
A mostly satisfactory ending to the series. I think some of the nonsense when orlandine is defending the planet was boring, but it wasn't a long set of scenes and did its job.
April 19, 2020
Another masterpiece by Neal Asher
A fitting end to the trilogy and he wraps up quite a few storyline and plot lines. An action packed read from start to finish with some surprises along the way. Best read of the year so far
A fitting end to the trilogy and he wraps up quite a few storyline and plot lines. An action packed read from start to finish with some surprises along the way. Best read of the year so far
September 5, 2020
I’ve loved the Polity books. Some amazing characters, fantastic tech, huuuge plotlines. I’ve liked a lot of this trilogy, but this closing book has some serious issues. Ironically, I’d definitely recommend reading it if you’ve read the others - it’s lots of fun - but don’t be surprised to feel some frustration.
Spoilers Ahoy!
Given the ever-increasing powers at play, you just knew a Deus Ex was going to be required and Asher tried to introduce it more subtlety, but immediately became clear where it was going. It was also annoying that the super-intelligent The Client (strange name for someone working for you) had to do some really stupid things to have Cog able to take advantage.
Dragon!? One of the biggest characters in the entire Polity universe drops out of the biggest climax!? Expect more from the author here.
Ruth - always a bit of a cipher, but seemed to genuinely love Trike - but hey, forget that we’ve got a new bloke in play, let’s jump immediately in the sack! But hey, never mind the quite sadistic levels of abuse she’s been put through, let’s sign her up to be a soldier - which she’s inexplicably brilliant at - and then have her be the only one protecting the top soldier!? And then all she did was make endless doom-laden pronouncements - not quite seeing the attraction!
How was Jaskor habitable after what Orlandine put it through?
Sprag aside, the drones really became pretty much indistinguishable.
The book was called The Human, but the only actual humans were all almost universally ineffective!?
Finally - and this may be personal preference and BIG SPOILER - but I really couldn’t believe that at the very end, The Jain was actually still alive. Pretty bleak ending and I was struggling not to think - well, what was the point of all that then? Please do not revisit Neal!
Spoilers Ahoy!
Given the ever-increasing powers at play, you just knew a Deus Ex was going to be required and Asher tried to introduce it more subtlety, but immediately became clear where it was going. It was also annoying that the super-intelligent The Client (strange name for someone working for you) had to do some really stupid things to have Cog able to take advantage.
Dragon!? One of the biggest characters in the entire Polity universe drops out of the biggest climax!? Expect more from the author here.
Ruth - always a bit of a cipher, but seemed to genuinely love Trike - but hey, forget that we’ve got a new bloke in play, let’s jump immediately in the sack! But hey, never mind the quite sadistic levels of abuse she’s been put through, let’s sign her up to be a soldier - which she’s inexplicably brilliant at - and then have her be the only one protecting the top soldier!? And then all she did was make endless doom-laden pronouncements - not quite seeing the attraction!
How was Jaskor habitable after what Orlandine put it through?
Sprag aside, the drones really became pretty much indistinguishable.
The book was called The Human, but the only actual humans were all almost universally ineffective!?
Finally - and this may be personal preference and BIG SPOILER - but I really couldn’t believe that at the very end, The Jain was actually still alive. Pretty bleak ending and I was struggling not to think - well, what was the point of all that then? Please do not revisit Neal!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 29, 2020
2Excellent Story
Another excellent story from Neal Asher, shame I read it so quickly,, I was all prepared for Orlandine to become a planet sized AI, but as usual, just as you think you have the story worked out in your head, Neal changes direction to keep you on your toes
Another excellent story from Neal Asher, shame I read it so quickly,, I was all prepared for Orlandine to become a planet sized AI, but as usual, just as you think you have the story worked out in your head, Neal changes direction to keep you on your toes
August 1, 2020
The author, Neil Asher, created a universe built around Jain tech. Fortunately, I read The Soldier: Rise of the Jain, the first book in the Rise of the Jain series, otherwise, I wouldn’t have had the background needed to understand references made to former events and character enhanced abilities in The Human book. Even at that, the amount of detail that Asher goes into describing Jain tech was hard to follow in the first half of the book. With the technical background base built, the space opera story took off in the rest of the book.
The story is about Orlandine, a girl that I first encountered in “The Soldier”. In this book episode, she’s frantic to save her world against the takeover of a Jain tech invasion. In desperation, she gives in to the lure of greater power with the acceptance of her innate Jain tech capabilities and the power it provides when controlled by letting it grow within and about her. Becoming what she abhors ultimately helps her neutralize damage from the Jain tech invasion, but only at the cost of utilizing every resource on her planet and at the sequestration of the planet’s human residents and animal life. Fortunately for the planet and for Orlandine, an alien, known as the Client, whom Orlandine has allowed to exist unharassed in the solar system, intervenes by creating a virus that destroys Jain tech, reverses its effects, and ultimately results in freeing Orlandine from Jain tech’s dehumanizing entrapment.
At 576 pages, this was a long and tedious book to read. I don’t normally notice the length of a book with a good and engaging storyline; to be honest, I secretly don’t want such stories to end. But The Human was a struggle to read. While I like Neal Asher’s stories, I think he went overboard on the Jain tech background in this book.
The story is about Orlandine, a girl that I first encountered in “The Soldier”. In this book episode, she’s frantic to save her world against the takeover of a Jain tech invasion. In desperation, she gives in to the lure of greater power with the acceptance of her innate Jain tech capabilities and the power it provides when controlled by letting it grow within and about her. Becoming what she abhors ultimately helps her neutralize damage from the Jain tech invasion, but only at the cost of utilizing every resource on her planet and at the sequestration of the planet’s human residents and animal life. Fortunately for the planet and for Orlandine, an alien, known as the Client, whom Orlandine has allowed to exist unharassed in the solar system, intervenes by creating a virus that destroys Jain tech, reverses its effects, and ultimately results in freeing Orlandine from Jain tech’s dehumanizing entrapment.
At 576 pages, this was a long and tedious book to read. I don’t normally notice the length of a book with a good and engaging storyline; to be honest, I secretly don’t want such stories to end. But The Human was a struggle to read. While I like Neal Asher’s stories, I think he went overboard on the Jain tech background in this book.
April 24, 2020
As usual Neil Asher does not disappoint. Well paced, plenty of action, lots of advanced technology and some interesting character development. I especially like the way he writes for the non human participants. He is one of the few authors that I will reread regularly. Especially the Spatterjay books as they contain my all time favourite Neil Asher character-Sniper the war drone.
April 5, 2021
This is the third and final(?) book in Asher’s Rise of the Jain series. The last surviving Jain has emerged from the U-space blister where it has been trapped for millions of years, in a ship so massive that that the swarm of relatively small attack ships docked on its hull like limpets are themselves as big as the largest human and prador warships. Arrayed against this ship are the best of the human and prador fleets, Orlandine, herself now more Jain tech than human, the Client, an ancient offshoot of the Jain and now terrified of getting involved in a battle that she is convinced will destroy her, and a couple of Spatterjay hoopers. It seems unlikely this will be enough.
This is turbo charged Asher. This book covers no more than a handful of days, but they are days so packed with action that it is hard for the reader to catch their breath. Cover to cover adrenalin pumping battle scenes interspersed by occasional interludes largely taken up with anticipating just how bad things are about to become. Asher does this stuff exceptionally well; a balance must be found between too much detail - slowing the pace - and too little detail - leaving the reader bombarded by events that make little sense. I have come across many authors that struggle to get this balance right but for me Asher is supreme at getting it spot on. Others may, of course, feel differently and, I suspect, this book is liable to divide along these lines more than most because the biggest criticism that I might level at it is that the entire book really only covers one single apocalyptic battle. He does manage to squeeze in a fair amount of character development along the way and, for a book covering such a short time span, the plot is still classic Asher with many threads woven intricately around the large cast (though I did miss the Dragon who was relegated to only a very small sidenote).
This is a satisfying conclusion to this trilogy though one major thread is very deliberately, and rather blatantly, left hanging for future expansion. My only criticism is that I would possibly have liked it to be rather more than a book about a single battle, albeit something of an Armageddon level of battle!
This is turbo charged Asher. This book covers no more than a handful of days, but they are days so packed with action that it is hard for the reader to catch their breath. Cover to cover adrenalin pumping battle scenes interspersed by occasional interludes largely taken up with anticipating just how bad things are about to become. Asher does this stuff exceptionally well; a balance must be found between too much detail - slowing the pace - and too little detail - leaving the reader bombarded by events that make little sense. I have come across many authors that struggle to get this balance right but for me Asher is supreme at getting it spot on. Others may, of course, feel differently and, I suspect, this book is liable to divide along these lines more than most because the biggest criticism that I might level at it is that the entire book really only covers one single apocalyptic battle. He does manage to squeeze in a fair amount of character development along the way and, for a book covering such a short time span, the plot is still classic Asher with many threads woven intricately around the large cast (though I did miss the Dragon who was relegated to only a very small sidenote).
This is a satisfying conclusion to this trilogy though one major thread is very deliberately, and rather blatantly, left hanging for future expansion. My only criticism is that I would possibly have liked it to be rather more than a book about a single battle, albeit something of an Armageddon level of battle!
April 22, 2021
Some of the most insightful musings put to paper in recent times - Neal Asher at his best!
“These people are ideologues whose ideas of utopia are a varied collection of slogans, or vague notions which lack the clarity one would expect of a cause they are fighting for. Greater wealth, jobs and happiness for all? Sometimes, maybe, depending on . . . As has been proven, time and time again, when ideologues get their hands on power and begin to impose their utopia, and it inevitably begins to fall apart, they reveal themselves to be what they truly are at heart: authoritarians. They fight against established power because they want to supplant it, only this, not because they have some vision of a better world.”
Does this remind you of certain politicians in today’s times?
Slavery Vs Bureaucracy
“Slavers of old, did not consider themselves evil; they thought of the slaves as subhuman, themselves a superior species, and this the natural order.
The perception of superiority continues into supposedly more civilised times, while the enslavement has necessarily taken a slower and more subtle course. It comes through restrictions on liberty by an increasingly bloated government.
Citizens find themselves becoming chattels of the state, and it’s corporate partners.
An ever increasing number of rules and regulations, produced by ever-expanding bureaucracy, requiring more and more funding through taxation.
However, the citizens are (by in large) complicit in this because, foolishly, they believe in every new ‘danger’ pointed out to them by the so-called ‘elites’.
‘Dangers’ which then, of course, need ‘regulation’.
The politicians who’ve made the rules consider themselves a superior species too, and also feel sure their steady enslavement of the populace is only the natural order of things.” - love this musing from the mind of an astute Sci Fi master.
In short, Slavery and the Smugness of the ‘Virtue Signalling’ Bureaucrat are the same thing...the quality and scope of what is essentially a universe created from Neal Asher’s mind is so much a reflection of our real world - make you want to read more?
“These people are ideologues whose ideas of utopia are a varied collection of slogans, or vague notions which lack the clarity one would expect of a cause they are fighting for. Greater wealth, jobs and happiness for all? Sometimes, maybe, depending on . . . As has been proven, time and time again, when ideologues get their hands on power and begin to impose their utopia, and it inevitably begins to fall apart, they reveal themselves to be what they truly are at heart: authoritarians. They fight against established power because they want to supplant it, only this, not because they have some vision of a better world.”
Does this remind you of certain politicians in today’s times?
Slavery Vs Bureaucracy
“Slavers of old, did not consider themselves evil; they thought of the slaves as subhuman, themselves a superior species, and this the natural order.
The perception of superiority continues into supposedly more civilised times, while the enslavement has necessarily taken a slower and more subtle course. It comes through restrictions on liberty by an increasingly bloated government.
Citizens find themselves becoming chattels of the state, and it’s corporate partners.
An ever increasing number of rules and regulations, produced by ever-expanding bureaucracy, requiring more and more funding through taxation.
However, the citizens are (by in large) complicit in this because, foolishly, they believe in every new ‘danger’ pointed out to them by the so-called ‘elites’.
‘Dangers’ which then, of course, need ‘regulation’.
The politicians who’ve made the rules consider themselves a superior species too, and also feel sure their steady enslavement of the populace is only the natural order of things.” - love this musing from the mind of an astute Sci Fi master.
In short, Slavery and the Smugness of the ‘Virtue Signalling’ Bureaucrat are the same thing...the quality and scope of what is essentially a universe created from Neal Asher’s mind is so much a reflection of our real world - make you want to read more?
April 25, 2020
When it comes to military science fiction, no one is even close to the scale of visceral destruction that Neal Asher envisions. From fighting infinite virtual battles at the same time to weapons capable of destroying planets and galaxies, from mechanized weapons and ships the size of planets to viruses on a pico scale, Asher has our protagonists fighting battles on a scale that we as humans can not comprehend. Therein is the beauty of this series, despite the growth and metamorphosis of the Client, Trike and Orlandine into something so far removed from humanity, it’s ultimately what little humanity remains within them that saves the day. While the aforementioned three played a significant role in determining the fate of humanity, it’s the Captain Cogs, Windermere’s and Gemmels who really shine. Despite the fact that they are hopelessly outclassed against the Jain, they never waiver in their duty. Then there is the Jain itself. I can’t think of a more frightening enemy, a parasitic sentient virus that can destroy on both a micro and macro scale, whose sole intent is to consume knowledge and corrupt the host. A villain that operates not a planetary, nor galactic scale, but on a universal scale, one capable of escaping a prison in the middle of a black hole. While The Human serves as the end to this trilogy, Asher has left the door wide open to return and I cant wait to see what the future holds for the Polity, Prador and the galaxy at large.
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