Hilldiggers - Tapa dura

Asher has an axe to grind, but what a shiny, well-honed and beautifully weighted axe it is... He's on top of his game with this one and his confidence entwines a fibrous thread throughout the plot. Multiple narratives occurring in different timeframes, shifts between first-and third-person perspectives, a detailed and convincing description of planetary ecosystems...In lesser hands, a rambling wayward text could well result. What we have instead is a wonderfully rich and complex tale that happily flips between giving the mind something weighty to mull over and pleasing its baser, thrill-seeking desires... Asher's skill is making it all seem wild, wonderful, politically provoking and fresh. --.

The world of the AI-run Polity civilisation has been building to a ferocious level of complexity over Asher's past seven books, but Hilldiggers is an ideal jumping-on point, being relatively sefl-containted, packed full of intrugue, and - most importantly - one of his most ambitious and gripping novels yet...Hilldiggers is both inventive and expertly paced, navigating an incredibly complex story without losing any of the clarity or momentum...if there's a more enjoyable and provocative sci-fi action saga this year, we'll be seriously surprised. --.

One of his most enjoyable novels yet --Starburst

During a war between two planets in the same solar system - each occupied by adapted humans - what is thought to be a cosmic superstring is discovered. After being cut, this object collapses into four cylindrical pieces, each about the size of a tube train. Each is densely packed with either alien technology or some kind of life. They are placed for safety in three ozark cylinders of a massively secure space station. There a female research scientist subsequently falls pregnant, and gives birth to quads. Then she commits suicide - but why? By the end of the war one of the contesting planets has been devastated by the hilldiggers - giant space dreadnoughts employing weapons capable of creating mountain ranges. The quads have meanwhile grown up and are assuming positions of power in the post-war society. One of them will eventually gain control of the awesome hilldiggers . . .