The warship

In our 2019, humanity viewed the first photograph of a black hole; in Asher's far-future Rise of the Jain series (The Soldier, 2018), technology is so advanced that black holes can be moved and weaponized. Orlandine, tasked with protecting the Polity from an accretion disk swirling with ancient Jain technology, is threatened by vicious swarm artificial intelligence called The Clade; certain factions of humans want to be rid of the yoke of Earth Central; and the artificial intelligence that rules the Polity and alien, crab-like Prador are bracing for combat on several fronts. Brimming with technology ranging from hive-mind AI to warships so immense that they can affect planetary tides, Asher's intergalactic chess match combines vivid descriptions of human, alien, and AI psyches with explosive and violent confrontations. Alternating points of view from a large cast of characters convey the story, and an essay from various reference sources to augment the far-reaching story arcs prefaces each chapter. Asher's distinctive and compelling adventure will appeal to fans of of military science fiction, space opera, and even cyberpunk.--Craig Clark Copyright 2019 Booklist

In this riveting sequel to The Soldier, Asher ramps up the pyrotechnics in the thunderous first salvoes of war between the human/AI Polity and the xenophobic Jain culture, which humans had believed long extinct. In the first book, a single Jain soldier was revived and then destroyed by Orlandine, a cyborg "haiman" in control of the Jaskoran system and one of the guardians of a nearby accretion disc, a former solar system scattered with dormant Jain tech. When the Clade, a swarm AI, assassinates multiple nodes of Orlandine's consciousness, the Polity and the bellicose alien Prador Kingdom are alarmed and send armadas to the Jaskoran system. On Jaskor, Clade units cause further mayhem as they employ war and assassin drones to battle the no-longer-human (but still sympathetic) Captain Trike, who's been overcome and made monstrous by the Shatterjay virus. Meanwhile, in the vicinity of the accretion disc, something mysterious is emerging from Underspace, and the Polity fears it's a Jain ship. Asher depicts warfare as a catalyst of biological and technological evolution while entwining the reader in twisty conundrums and misdirections. This is Asher at the top of his game and the field of military science fiction. (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.