Neal Asher

Neal Asher (born 4 February 1961) is an English science fiction writer. He lives near Chelmsford.

Career

Both of Asher's parents are educators and science fiction fans. Although he began writing speculative fiction in secondary school, he did not turn seriously to writing until he was 25. He worked as a machinist and machine programmer and as a gardener from 1979 to 1987. Asher identifies ''The Lord of the Rings'', ''The Hobbit'' and other fantasy work including Roger Zelazny's ''The Chronicles of Amber'' series as important early creative influences.

Asher published his first short story in 1989. In 2000 he was offered a three-book contract by Pan Macmillan, and his first full-length novel ''Gridlinked'' was published in 2001. This was the first in a series of novels made up of ''Gridlinked'', ''The Line of Polity'', ''Brass Man'', ''Polity Agent'', and ''Line War''.

Asher is published by Tor, an imprint of Pan Macmillan, in the UK, and by Tor Books in the United States.

The majority of Asher's work is set in one future history, the "Polity" universe. It encompasses many classic science fiction tropes including world-ruling artificial intelligences, androids, hive minds and aliens. His novels are characterized by fast-paced action and violent encounters. While his work is frequently epic in scope and thus nominally space opera, its graphic and aggressive tone is more akin to cyberpunk. When combined with the way that Asher's main characters are usually acting to preserve social order or improve their society (rather than disrupt a society they are estranged from), these influences could place his work in the subgenre known as post-cyberpunk.

Awards

* British Fantasy Society Award nomination, 1999, for stories "Sucker" and "Mason's Rats III"
* SF Review Best Book designation, 2002, for ''The Skinner''

Bibliography

Polity universe

In order of publication

''Agent Cormac series''
#
# ''The Line of Polity'' (2003)
# ''Brass Man'' (2005)
# ''Polity Agent'' (2006)
# ''Line War'' (2008)

''Spatterjay series''
# ''The Skinner'' (2002)
# ''The Voyage of the Sable Keech'' (2006)
# '' Orbus'' (2009)

''Transformation series''
# ''Dark Intelligence'' (2015)
# ''War Factory'' (2016)
# ''Infinity Engine'' (2017)

''Rise of the Jain''
# '' The Soldier'' (May 2018)
# '' The Warship'' (May 2019)
# '' The Human'' (April 2020)

Standalone novels
* '' Prador Moon'' (2006)
* '' Hilldiggers'' (2007)
* '' Shadow of the Scorpion'' (Prequel to ''Gridlinked'', 2008)
* '' The Technician'' (2010)
* ''Jack Four'' (2021)
* "Weaponized" (2022)
In internal chronological order
#''Weaponized'' (2300 CE)
#''Prador Moon'' (2310 CE)
#''Shadow of the Scorpion'' (2339 CE)
#''Gridlinked'' (2434 CE)
#''The Line of Polity'' (2437 CE)
#''Brass Man'' (2441 CE)
#''Polity Agent'' (2443 CE)
#''Line War'' (2444 CE)
#''The Technician'' (2457 CE)
#''Dark Intelligence'' (Circa. 2500 CE)
#''War Factory'' (Circa. 2500 CE)
#''Infinity Engine'' (Circa. 2500 CE)
#''The Soldier'' (Circa. 2750 CE)
#''The Warship'' (Circa. 2750 CE)
#''The Human'' (Circa. 2750 CE)
#''The Skinner'' (3056 CE)
#''The Voyage of the Sable Keech'' (3078 CE)
#''Orbus'' (3079 CE)
#''Jack Four'
#''Hilldiggers'' (3230 CE)

Owner trilogy

# ''The Departure'' (2011)
# ''Zero Point'' (2012)
# ''Jupiter War'' (2013)

Other novels

* ''Mindgames: Fool's Mate'' (1992)
* ''The Parasite'' (1996)
* ''Cowl'' (2004), Philip K. Dick Award nominee

Short fiction

Collections

* ''The Engineer'' (1998) – Contains the novella of the same name and six stories.
** ''The Engineer''
** "Snairls"
** "Spatterjay"
** "Jable Sharks"
** "The Thrake"
** "Proctors"
** "The Owner"
* ''Runcible Tales'' (1999)
** "Always with You" (Polity Universe) (1996)
** "Blue Holes" (Polity Universe)
** "Dragon in the Flower" (Polity Universe) (1994)
** "The Gire & the Bibrat" (Polity Universe)
** "Walking John & Bird" (Polity Universe)
* ''The Engineer ReConditioned'' (2006) – Reprint of ''The Engineer'' with three additional stories.
** ''The Engineer''
** "Snairls"
** "Spatterjay"
** "Jable Sharks"
** "The Thrake"
** "Proctors"
** "The Owner"
** "The Tor-Beast's Prison"
** "Tiger Tiger"
** "The Gurnard"
* ''The Gabble: And Other Stories'' (2008)
** "Softly Spoke the Gabbleduck" (Cormac/Gabbleduck)
** "Putrefactors" (Spatterjay)
** "Garp and Geronamid" (Spatterjay)
** "The Sea of Death" (n/a)
** "Alien Archaeology" (Cormac/Gabbleduck)
** "Acephalous Dreams" (Polity)
** "Snow in the Desert" (n/a)
** "Choudapt" (n/a)
** "Adaptogenic" (Spatterjay)
** "The Gabble" (Cormac/Gabbleduck)
* ''Africa Zero'' (2005) – Contains three novellas.
** ''Africa Zero''
** ''The Army of God''
** ''The Sauraman''
* ''Owning the Future: Short Stories'' (2018)
** "Memories of Earth" (from ''Asimov's Science Fiction'' October/November 2013)
** "Shell Game" (from '' The New Space Opera 2'' 2009)
** "The Rhine's World Incident" (from ''Subterfuge'' 2008 and ''In Space No One Can Hear You Scream'' 2013)
** "Owner Space" (from ''Galactic Empires'' anthology 2008)
** "Strood" (from ''Asimov's Science Fiction'' December 2004 and Year's Best SF 10 2005)
** "The Other Gun" (from ''Asimov's Science Fiction'' April/May 2013)
** "Bioship" (from ''Solaris Book of New Science Fiction'' 2007)
** "Scar Tissue"
** "The Veteran"

List of short stories/novellas

Footnotes

References

Neal Asher page at Authortrek
Online 25 March 2008.
*''Contemporary Authors Online'', Gale, 2008
Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale, 2008.
Document Number: H1000162683. Online. 25 March 2008.

External links

Neal Asher's personal websiteNeal Asher's blog
*

at ''Free Speculative Fiction Online''
Story behind Zero Point – essay by Neal Asher

{{DEFAULTSORT:Asher, Neal
1961 births
English science fiction writers
Living people
People from Billericay
Asimov's Science Fiction people
English male novelists