The Engineer [Paperback]

This is an astonishing collection of stories. Before I read Neal Asher, I thought that there was very little that you could do to reinvigorate the short story, but Asher manages to do this with the greatest of ease. 'The Engineer' contains some of the best SF that I have ever read, far surpassing my first expectations. For I have read Asher before... As an editorial assistant for Story Cellar, I always found Neal Asher's work to be very distinctive. He put a lot of imagination and style into his work, and so he stood out from the majority of the entrants. Neal Asher is a name which crops up everywhere, consistently winning or being highly placed in competitions. Like everyone, he has his bad days, but fortunately for us these are very few. His is a name to be bargained with, a player from the lower divisions who deserves to play in the premier league. Neal Asher is one of the reason's for Genre's existence: to bring talented writers some of the recognition which they deserve. In 'The Engineer', Neal's talent is allowed to run free, without being restricted by prohibitive word limits. To say that Neal should be read far wider is a truism, although he has had quite a few prominent reviews. For instance, 'The Engineer' has always been highly rated by SFX magazine, even making it into their Christmas recommendations one year. 'The Engineer' is the main story of the collection, although running at 90 pages, it is more like a novella. One of the great things that I like about Neal's work is that it is very economical. There is no padding anywhere. Other young writers in this field are often stretched by having to spread their tales over the space of 70,000 words or more. The engineer of the title is the last surviving member of an alien race called the Jain whose hegemony had been in the sphere of genetics. Various human factions battle over the discovery, to take advantage of its knowledge and technology for their own ends. But how far have the Jain already influenced the development of humanity? Asher writes a more immediate and terrifying sea yarn in 'Jable Sharks' (previously published in Story Cellar). Artificial Intelligence and networks are just ordinary phenomena in the gruesome house of Asher, with the most fantastic part of his writing being the evocation of some of the most frightening creatures and ecosystems imaginable, including the giant leeches in 'Spatterjay'. These are tales which head straight for the pit of your stomach, whilst subtly toying with your brain stem.

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