Agent Cormac

5 primary works

Gridlinked

by Neal Asher

Published 23 March 2001

In outer space you can never feel sure that your adversary is altogether human.Widescreen, action-packed science-fiction drama by a notable new talent.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.

The Line of Polity

by Neal Asher

Published 21 March 2003

Come visit a world where you cannot draw breath... should its horrifying wildlife allow you.Outlink station Miranda has been destroyed by a nanomycelium, and the very nature of this sabotage suggests that the alien bioconstruct Dragon - a creature as untrustworthy as it is gigantic - is somehow involved. Sent out on a titanic Polity dreadnought, the Occam Razor, agent Cormac must investigate the disaster, and also resolve the question of Masada, a world about to be subsumed as the Line of Polity is drawn across it.But the rogue biophysicist Skellor has not yet been captured, and he now controls something so potent that Polity AIs will hunt him down forever to prevent him using it.Meanwhile on Masada, the long-term rebellion can never rise above-ground, as the slave population is subjugated by orbital laser arrays controlled by the Theocracy in their cylinder worlds, and by the fact that they cannot safely leave their labour compounds. For the wilderness of Masada lacks breathable air...and out there roam monstrous predators called hooders and siluroynes, not to mention the weird and terrible gabbleducks.

Brass Man

by Neal Asher

Published 15 April 2005

On the primitive world of Cull, a knight errant called Anderson is hunting a dragon, little knowing that far away someone else (now more technology than human flesh) has resurrected a brass killing machine called `Mr Crane' to assist in a similar hunt encompassing star systems. When agent Cormac learns that this old enemy still lives, he sets out in pursuit aboard the attack ship Jack Ketch ... whilst scientist Mika begins discovering the horrifying truth about that ancient technology ostensibly produced by the alien Jain.

Meanwhile, for the people of Cull, each day proves a struggle to survive on a planet roamed by ferocious insectile monsters, while they slowly construct the industrial base that may enable them to escape to their forefathers' starship -- still orbiting far above them. But an entity with questionable motives, calling itself Dragon, assists them with genetic by-blows created out of humans and the hideous local monsters. And now the planet itself, for millennia geologically inactive, is increasingly suffering earthquakes...

'Compelling reading ... Asher has become a resounding and distinctive voice in British SF' SFRevu

Polity Agent

by Neal Asher

Published 6 October 2006

From 800 years in the future, a runcible gate is opened into the Polity and those coming through it have been sent specially to take the alien `Maker’ back to its home civilization in the Small Magellanic cloud. Once these refugees are safely through, the gate itself is rapidly shut down – because something alien is pursuing them. The gate is then dumped into a nearby sun.

From those refugees who get through, agent Cormac learns that the Maker civilization has been destroyed by pernicious virus known as the Jain technology. This, of course, raised questions: why was Dragon, a massive biocontruct of the Makers, really sent to the Polity; why did a Jain node suddenly end up in the hands of someone who could do the most damage with it? Meanwhile an entity called the Legate is distributing pernicious Jain nodes . . . and a renegade attack ship, The King of Hearts, has encountered something very nasty outside the Polity itself.

Line War

by Neal Asher

Published 4 April 2008

Line War is the fifth and final novel in Neal Asher's action-packed Agent Cormac series.

Their worlds are ending . . .

The human Polity worlds are under attack from Erebus, a renegade AI. And it’s now merged with lethal Jain technology, and isn’t afraid to use it. When Erebus kills millions, on a world of no apparent significance, Agent Ian Cormac is sent to investigate. He’s also secretly struggling with an ability no human should possess – and starts questioning the motives of his AI masters.

Further indiscriminate attacks attract the Polity’s most dangerous individuals. Mr Crane, a brass killing machine, seeks vengeance. Orlandine, part AI and part human, hunts a weapon of appalling power. And Dragon plans to wake the makers of Jain technology from their ancient slumber. But can Erebus be stopped – or is this the end for the Polity?