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Weaponized

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About this listen

Weaponized is a thrilling far-future adventure by acclaimed science fiction author Neal Asher.

A bright new future for humanity – or a dark and inescapable past.

Ursula has lived twice the normal human lifespan, courtesy of the latest technology. But now she’s struggling to find excitement and purpose, so signs up to the Polity’s military. She excels in weapons development, and progresses rapidly up the ranks. But after botching a powerful new ammunition test, she’s dismissed from service.

Hunting for a simpler, more meaningful existence, the ex-soldier heads for the stars. And after founding a colony on the hostile planet of Threpsis, Ursula finally feels alive. Then deadly raptors attack and the colonists are forced to adapt in unprecedented ways. The raptors also raise a deeply troubling question: how could the Polity miss these apex predators? And alien ruins? Meanwhile, biophysicist Oren has formed his own survival plan – one he’ll pursue at any cost.

As a desperate battle erupts to consume the planet, Ursula finds she must dig deep into her past to ensure humanity’s future.

 Adventure First Contact Hard Science Fiction Science Fiction Space Exploration Space Opera Fiction Technology

Critic reviews

Gleeful but superbly controlled action-adventure (The Times)
Neal Asher’s books are like an adrenaline shot targeted directly for the brain (John Scalzi)
Magnificently awesome. Then Asher turns it up to eleven (Peter F. Hamilton on The Soldier)
A richly imagined, exotic world, non-stop action and unimaginable stakes (Yoon Ha Lee on The Soldier)
All stars
Most relevant
The book employs a more complex narrative structure than most Asher novels. There is a reason for this (explained in the last chapter), which I found reasonably satisfying, but it makes the whole reading experience more frustrating than is necessary with stories being constantly interrupted. I’d like to read the “editors cut” of this novel where the story is actually chronological. Some changes would need to be made, but I believe the novel would read better.

Overall I consider this the weakest of the Polity books published so far, although there are some fairly interesting themes; notably there is a solid focus on the effects of body modification and adaptation.

Ruined by overly elaborate narrative structure

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The premise and arc was really interesting but it felt too much time was spent in some unnecessary detail.

Interesting take on evolution.

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Superb story, my favourite Asher book to date, narrated supremely, as always, by Peter Noble.

Favourite Asher Book

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The concept is very intresting... perhaps genetic mods will become norm for space travellers, as there are many parallels in scifi exploration. The 2018 film The Titan with Sam Worthington being a good example of the benefits of adaptation to alien environments... and The Thing for reasons which will be clear toward the final chapters of this book... in terms of cellular transformation.

However, there is much jumping from past to present with the past segments being so long it dispells the narrative of the present time line.

The narration is too slow, for this type of story, with pauses between each sentence resulting in the need to change the audio speed to around x 1.32 before engaging with the story.

too much jumping and rushed ending

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Set just before the parador war but doesn’t seem to revolve around it. Great book so far!

Prequel?

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