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The Soldier

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The Soldier

By: Neal Asher
Narrated by: Peter Noble
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About this listen

Her mission is vital. Her failure is unthinkable.

A hidden corner of space is swarming with lethal alien technology, a danger to all sentient life. It's guarded by Orlandine, who must keep it contained at any cost - as it has the power to destroy entire civilizations. She schemes from her state-of-the-art weapons station, with only an alien intelligence to share her vigil. But she doesn't share everything with Dragon....

Orlandine is hatching a plan to obliterate this technology, removing its threat forever. For some will do anything to exploit this ancient weaponry, created by a long-dead race called the Jain. This includes activating a Jain supersoldier, which may breach even Orlandine's defences.

Meanwhile, humanity and the alien prador empire keep a careful watch over this sector of space, as neither can allow the other to claim its power. However, things are about to change. The Jain might not be as dead as they seemed - and interstellar war is just a heartbeat away.

The Soldier is the first novel in the Rise of the Jain series by best-selling science fiction author Neal Asher.

©2018 Neal Asher (P)2018 Macmillan Digital Audio Adventure Fiction Hard Science Fiction Science Fiction Space Opera Cyberpunk Heartfelt Technology War Computer Science

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All stars
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A great exciting story with varied and interesting characters. Love the hoopers and the drones. Setup nicely for the next book. Good narration. Recommended .

Great exciting story, great characters, well told

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I normally really enjoy the scale and the stories by Neal Asher but this left me cold. If you love relentless battles between ageless and oddly named machine entities where matter or energy requirements mean nothing and the human scale is irrelevant then this is for you. Personally I was worn out and gave up before the end, this the first Asher book I’ve bounced off and been bludgeoned into submission by. There are only so many tendrils, pseudopods and variously coloured particle beams peeling away layers of armour but making no difference at all that I can withstand!

The endless Clash of Titans

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This was my fourth book in the Polity Universe and the new story started by Neil is amazing and I cant wait for the next part.

Great book. Love the Universe

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It's pretty pulpy. The premise of the whole thing is pretty odd and the characters are unidimensional. Gave up on it.

Seemed a bit silly

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Peter Noble has an excellent reading voice. He brings out the characters of human, Prador, AI, psychopath assassin drones and ancient alien species. He is easy to listen to with clear speach.

The story itself is typical Asher. Big, big science. Huge spaceships, vast solar building projects and exotic weapons. Asher's skill is to weave in human scale characters. The listener is never detached from the little people. Small story arcs intersperse with great space battles.

As ever Asher gives us another piece of the galactic jigsaw that explains how the current state of the universe comes to be.

Big hard scifi set in Polity universe

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This is incomplete .. an interesting snippet, but probably only 1/2 or 1/3rd of a complete tale, and that ignores the backstory elements all the way back to the original 'Gridlinked', which IMO is superior in every way. The whole Asherverse is turning into a space opera with no end in sight,and the lurid prose becomes ever more EE Doc Smith-like, with ever more deadly particle beams coruscating wildly against ever more impenetrable shields (sorry 'hard fields').

The reading is pretty good although there were a couple of occasions where the timing (breaks between clauses) was wrong, or a wrong word was read (but without the printed text it is always possible that the written work was already wrong). I shall not be holding my breath for the next thrilling installment.

The start of something, incomplete. Not his best.

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If you’ve enjoyed previous Neal Asher books, you’ll enjoy this one :-)

Expands the story of the Jain, where they came from, what caused the Jain nodes, and what happened to the Jain themselves ... looking forward to more in the series.

Answers some questions from previous books

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Asher tells a good story and "The soldier" doesn't disappoint in this respect. It's filled with great characters to which you can attach your emotions as they whirl and dance through a story of immense complexity. Yet despite it's arcane nature, not a moment of this audiobook leaves me feeling unsatisfied.

Complex, gripping and exciting

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LOVED THIS BOOK IF YOU LIKE ALASTAIR REYNOLDS OR PETER F HAMILTON GIVE THIS A TRY IT IS IN THE SAME STYLE,FULL OF INTRIGUE,SCHEMING CHARACTERS AND MYSTERY SET AGAINST A BACKDROP OF HIGH TECH MACHINES CLASHING AND MANOEUVERING ACROSS SPACE AND TIME.COULDN'T PUT IT DOWN,CAN'T WAIT FOR THE NEXT ONE.WILL BE READING MORE FROM THIS AUTHORS BACK CATALOGUE.

HIGH TECH SPACE OPERA AT IT'S BEST

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I’m loosing the will to read. The whole franchise needs something new. I wish I had more to say.

Meh

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