Neal Asher

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Neal Asher (born 4 February 1961) is an English science fiction writer. He lives near Chelmsford.[1]

Career

Both of Asher's parents are educators and science fiction fans.[2] Although he began writing speculative fiction in secondary school, he did not turn seriously to writing until he was 25. He worked as a machinist and machine programmer and as a gardener from 1979 to 1987. Asher identifies The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit and other fantasy work including Roger Zelazny's The Chronicles of Amber series as important early creative influences.[3]

Asher published his first short story in 1989. In 2000 he was offered a three-book contract by Pan Macmillan,[2] and his first full-length novel Gridlinked was published in 2001. This was the first in a series of novels made up of Gridlinked, The Line of Polity, Brass Man, Polity Agent, and Line War.

Asher is published by Tor, an imprint of Pan Macmillan, in the UK, and by Tor Books in the United States.[4]

The majority of Asher's work is set in one future history, the "Polity" universe. It encompasses many classic science fiction tropes including world-ruling artificial intelligences, androids, hive minds and aliens. His novels are characterized by fast-paced action and violent encounters. While his work is frequently epic in scope and thus nominally space opera, its graphic and aggressive tone is more akin to cyberpunk. When combined with the way that Asher's main characters are usually acting to preserve social order or improve their society (rather than disrupt a society they are estranged from), these influences could place his work in the subgenre known as post-cyberpunk.[5]

Awards

  • British Fantasy Society Award nomination, 1999, for stories "Sucker" and "Mason's Rats III"
  • SF Review Best Book designation, 2002, for The Skinner

Bibliography

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Polity universe

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Owner universe

Other novels

Short fiction

Collections

  • The Engineer (1998) – Contains the novella of the same name and six stories. Template:Isbn
    • The Engineer
    • "Snairls"
    • "Spatterjay"
    • "Jable Sharks"
    • "The Thrake"
    • "Proctors"
    • "The Owner"
  • Runcible Tales (1999) Template:Isbn
    • "Always with You" (Polity Universe) (1996)
    • "Blue Holes" (Polity Universe)
    • "Dragon in the Flower" (Polity Universe) (1994)
    • "The Gire & the Bibrat" (Polity Universe)
    • "Walking John & Bird" (Polity Universe)
  • The Engineer ReConditioned (2006) – Reprint of The Engineer with three additional stories. Template:Isbn
    • The Engineer
    • "Snairls"
    • "Spatterjay"
    • "Jable Sharks"
    • "The Thrake"
    • "Proctors"
    • "The Owner"
    • "The Tor-Beast's Prison"
    • "Tiger Tiger"
    • "The Gurnard"
  • The Gabble: And Other Stories (2008) Template:Isbn
    • "Softly Spoke the Gabbleduck" (Cormac/Gabbleduck)
    • "Putrefactors" (Spatterjay)
    • "Garp and Geronamid" (Spatterjay)
    • "The Sea of Death" (n/a)
    • "Alien Archaeology" (Cormac/Gabbleduck)
    • "Acephalous Dreams" (Polity)
    • "Snow in the Desert" (n/a)
    • "Choudapt" (n/a)
    • "Adaptogenic" (Spatterjay)
    • "The Gabble" (Cormac/Gabbleduck)
  • Africa Zero (2005)[15] – Contains three novellas. Template:Isbn
    • Africa Zero
    • The Army of God
    • The Sauraman
  • Owning the Future: Short Stories (2018)[16] Template:Isbn
    • "Memories of Earth" (from Asimov's Science Fiction October/November 2013)
    • "Shell Game" (from The New Space Opera 2 2009)
    • "The Rhine's World Incident" (from Subterfuge 2008 and In Space No One Can Hear You Scream 2013)
    • "Owner Space" (from Galactic Empires anthology 2008)
    • "Strood" (from Asimov's Science Fiction December 2004 and Year's Best SF 10 2005)
    • "The Other Gun" (from Asimov's Science Fiction April/May 2013)
    • "Bioship" (from Solaris Book of New Science Fiction 2007)
    • "Scar Tissue"
    • "The Veteran"

List of short stories/novellas

Title Year First published Reprinted/collected Notes
"Adaptogenic" 1992 Threads 2 The Gabble and Other Stories (Tor, 2008)
Mindgames: Fool's Mate 1992 Novella
The Parasite 1996 Novella
Mason's Rats 1999 Novella
Africa Zero 2001 Originally published as two novellas, Africa Zero and Africa Plus One
"Snow in the Desert" 2002 Spectrum SF 8 Year's Best SF 8 (2003)

The Gabble and Other Stories (Tor, 2008)

"Watch Crab" 2003 Rick Kleffel's The Agony Column
The Other Gun 2013 Script error: No such module "Citation/CS1". Novella
"Memories of Earth" 2013 Script error: No such module "Citation/CS1". An Owner story

Footnotes

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References

External links

Template:Neal Asher Template:Authority control

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