Sean Randall reviewed Cowl by Neal L. Asher
Review of 'Cowl' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
“Andrewsarchus. You've just evaded the largest carnivorous mammal ever to roam the Earth. Don't you feel privileged?”
Though Asher seems to have a thing for siblings, I enjoyed this work far more than the first book of the Owner series. Maybe because everything happens in one book here and I'll come to like Owner more later on, I don't know.
One thing that I also liked with this book vis-a-vis Owner was that you got to know the characters, together, before they go splitting off into their own parts. Because of that, you sort of care a little more about what happens to them and don't have that disparate sensation of them not mattering to each other.
The twists and turns of who's betraying whom and who's on what side are of course wild fun, the technology is different; positively organic, and the whole ethos of a time war, though …
“Andrewsarchus. You've just evaded the largest carnivorous mammal ever to roam the Earth. Don't you feel privileged?”
Though Asher seems to have a thing for siblings, I enjoyed this work far more than the first book of the Owner series. Maybe because everything happens in one book here and I'll come to like Owner more later on, I don't know.
One thing that I also liked with this book vis-a-vis Owner was that you got to know the characters, together, before they go splitting off into their own parts. Because of that, you sort of care a little more about what happens to them and don't have that disparate sensation of them not mattering to each other.
The twists and turns of who's betraying whom and who's on what side are of course wild fun, the technology is different; positively organic, and the whole ethos of a time war, though not new, works well here. I felt the ending was a little limp, but then it's hard to tie everything up neatly when you've got so many different points in time and powered forces to put together into a cohesive whole.
