Lockdown Tales - What Comes After the Polity product reviews

15 years ago, while working for a regional newspaper, I was offered a chance to read and write a review of a book called "Brass Man" by an author I had never heard of. The book sat on my desk for almost a month before I got around to reading it - it sounded a bit outside my normal preferences. Getting into it took a fair bit of effort due to the extensive back-story I wasn't aware of, having not read any of the previous titles by Neal Asher. By the end of the book though, I was hooked. Asher crafted a world that I could see in my mind as I read, and that world had serious scope and depth. I started buying up his books wherever I could find them.

Fast forward to today, and I now have the task of reading a collection of short stories that are still set in Asher's "Polity" universe but addresses the timeline at the tail end of humanity's galaxy-spanning civilisation. Asher brings to bear his extensive writing prowess across a number of different modes that still resonate with his signature "hard-sci-fi threaded through a good storyline" style. From 'The Relict' - which follows a very strange man on an alien world in the midst of a protracted civil war - to 'Raising Moloch' - one of the few stories involving the dreaded Hooders wherein humans encounter one of the warbeasts and actually live to walk away. From start to finish, this collection will keep any fan of Asher's works hooked. If you have never read any of Asher's works, this is a great collection to give you a taste - if you like these stories, you're going to love the wider Polity universe and the myriad stories Asher draws from it.

One of the most compelling stories for me was 'Plenty' and at 102 pages, this is also the longest tale in the book. Very much a "shipwrecked, lost and alone" tale which, according to Neal, carries a very 'Robinson Crusoe' vibe that only became apparent in retrospect, however the first 35 pages reminded me far more of the Tom Hanks movie 'Cast Away' - ill of health yet still needing to harvest raw materials for survival from non-natural sources, in this case, the bio-tech 'podules' that have started to grow wild on this long-ago abandoned world.

The first tale in the book - 'The Relict' - is an excellent literary example of "Don't judge a book by its cover" with the main character being somewhat of an enigma to start with, but who soon blossoms into someone quite remarkable. The character development and revelations speed up as the story progresses, which kept me reading what amounted to a war story - not my favourite genre by any means. I don't come across many story-creators - be it books or movies - that can keep me engaged when the tale veers off to discuss war. Neal Asher is one of those rare few, which is good when one considered just how many of his stories are about warfare.

In a previous anthology - World War Four - is a tale called 'Monitor Logan', and there's a story in here of the same name. While they are the same story, the plot is drawn out into a much more interesting tale in three parts in this collection. Seeing the evolution of the story does make me wonder if Neal has plans to extend other shorts into fuller stories, and maybe even into full novels in their own right. I know there's a few of his short tales I would dearly love to read more of.

Overall, this is a stunning collection and I hope Neal writes many more like it. I'll be watching for them eagerly.