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  • Gridlinked

  • Agent Cormac, Book 1
  • By: Neal Asher
  • Narrated by: Ric Jerrom
  • Length: 17 hrs and 53 mins
  • 4.3 out of 5 stars (254 ratings)

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Gridlinked cover art

Gridlinked

By: Neal Asher
Narrated by: Ric Jerrom
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Summary

In outer space you can never feel sure that your adversary is altogether human.

The runcible buffers on Samarkand have been mysteriously sabotaged, killing many thousands and destroying a terraforming project. Agent Cormac must reach it by ship to begin an investigation. But Cormac has incurred the wrath of a vicious psychopath called Pelter, who is prepared to follow him across the galaxy with a terrifying android in tow.

Despite the sub-zero temperature of Samarkand, Cormac discovers signs of life: they are two 'dracomen', alien beasts contrived by an extra-galactic entity calling itself 'Dragon', which is a huge creature consisting of four conjoined spheres of flesh each a kilometre in diameter. Caught between the byzantine wiles of the Dragon and the lethal fury of Pelter, Cormac needs to skip very nimbly indeed to rescue the Samarkand project and protect his own life.

Gridlinked is the first sci-fi thriller in Neal Asher's compelling Agent Cormac series.

©2009 Neal Asher (P)2017 Macmillan Digital Audio

What listeners love about Gridlinked

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Narrator not good

Started listening but found narrator infuriating. His voices were very annoying and having finished the book instead by reading the kindle version found he has over acted badly. Good book but audible version unfinishable

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars

couldn't finish

Pelter and Stanton were a fantastic combo and their scenes were fun and gripping. when the narrative switched to Cormack I glazed over. all of Cormack's bits were boring and the characters were so 2d I couldn't have cared less. gave up at around 70%

2 people found this helpful

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    2 out of 5 stars
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Poor performance

Performed as though it were a children's book, in my view patronising to the audience, no sense of drama or characterisation.

1 person found this helpful

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    2 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

I give up

I'm perfectly used to SI-Fi books taking the first 1/3 of the novel to establish the parameters and world it happens in. I keep waiting for this one to kick in but it never does. Stanton seems like the most relatable character in this, Cormac certainly is not. I gather there is a whole series around him, I can't see it but the whole bundle of books by Neal Asher seem highly rated. I'm clearly missing something. I have 9hrs of this book left but frankly don't care about anyone or any concept in it, will not be completing it.

1 person found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Painful narration.

The story is great. General spoken word is fine. The narration of the dialogue story elements hurt my head. The variety of accents was good. But it was so unnatural in its pacing and tone.
I’m torn if I can put myself through the next volume.

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Excellent audio version.

A fabulous audio version of a terrific series. Does the printed version justice. listened to at 1.2 as my only quibble is a slightly slow narration style

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amazing

loved it . well written. so complex
strong story line . I will.listen to this again ..highly recommended

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Ends with a mystery

So I have to listen to the next one now. This book is around 20 years old now so I must be entering the realms of classic science fiction.

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    2 out of 5 stars
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narrator fail

Read with patronising tone. Over annunciated and at times childish delivery did no favours to a mediocre story.

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excellent scifi

the book contains less technobabble and militaria than one would expect. its great to listen to.

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  • Arjen
  • 26-01-18

Slower early work, horrible narrator, good grit

I can tell this is one of Asher's earlier attempts at writing a novel. A lot of boring inbetween stuff and filler material that feels like it could just as well have been left out of the book. Not much of the compact, action packed, to the point writing his later work is full of.
Still,at chapter 7 or so the story picks up momentum and I got sucked in anyway. All in all, well worth my time.

The true horror of this audio incarnation of a cyberpunk classic is the narrator. Oh, my, god!! Total amateur.
Not only does he not know how to use proper intonation and accents. He reads sentences in completely alien ways. Quote: "I want THEM watched al all times." thatvis rediculous! Every thrid grader can sense that the ephasis should be on the word "watched" and in my perference also on "all". Like this: "I want them WATCHED at ALL times." this narrator, of whom I refuse to look up the name, just invents random pauses and emphasizes words in a way that rips their meaning completely out of context. The result is that I keep reconstructing half the sentences in my head the way Asher must have meant them so I can understand what is actually meant. Is that horrible narration or what?!
Besides that his voices are unbearable. He lays on the voices in such an exaggerated way that characters just seem rediculous. Does he not understand that he is not the writer? Use voices to serve the story ffs, don't give them so much of your own influence that they can not possibly fit in anymore..
This man truly does not belong in this line of work.

Asher why? Whyyyyyy?!
Thanks for writing some of my favorite science fiction though ;).

3 people found this helpful

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    2 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars
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  • SofiaBennie
  • 19-12-22

Poor characters

Boring and unlikable characters.
The plot is somewhat interesting, but I gave up after a few hours listening

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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  • Douglas
  • 25-11-17

What did this novel want to be?

In other reviews I've seen the author being favourably compared to Gibson or Stephenson. I wish I had read the reviews first, I wouldn't have wasted the credit. As it was I listened to the preview and was grabbed by the start. I thought I was in for a seriously interesting sci-fi/mystery.

What I got was badly structured prose trying to describe a future where all of humanity is ruled by AIs. Agent Cormac -- our "hero" -- is part of the ruling polity until he's un-linked because eh's forgotten how to be human. Sadly the more I read about Cormac the less I cared about him. The villains, at least the human ones, were more interesting.

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