Agent Cormac Books

Gridlinked is a science fiction adventure in the classic, fast-paced, action-packed tradition of Harry Harrison and Poul Anderson, with a dash of cyberpunk and a splash of Ian Fleming added to spice the mix. Cormac is a legendary Earth Central Security agent, the James Bond of a wealthy future where "runcibles" (matter transmitters controlled by AIs) allow interstellar travel in an eye blink throughout the settled worlds of the Polity. Unfortunately Cormac is nearly burnt out, "gridlinked" to the AI net so long that his humanity has begun to drain away. He has to take the cold-turkey cure and shake his addiction to having his brain on the net. Now he must do without just as he's sent to investigate the unique runcible disaster that's wiped out the entire human colony on planet Samarkand in a thirty-megaton explosion. With the runcible out, Cormac must get there by ship, but he has incurred the wrath of a vicious psychopath called Arian Pelter, who now follows him across the galaxy with a terrifying psychotic killer android in tow. And deep beneath Samarkand's surface there are buried mysteries, fiercely guarded. This is fast-moving, edge-of-the-seat entertainment, and a great introduction to the work of one of the most exciting new SF talents in years.

Full-scale action SF by one of Britain's most popular new writers. 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. Meanwhile, on the remote planet 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.

From the Philip K. Dick Award nominee author of Cowl , an adrenaline-powered new SF adventure: Brass Man . Neal Asher returns to his trademark Polity future setting, in a sequel to Gridlinked, which SFRevu.com called "brilliant and audacious work, chock-full of cutting-edge ideas." Ian Cormac, a legendary Earth Central Security agent, the James Bond of a wealthy future, is hunting an interstellar dragon, little knowing that, far away, his competition has resurrected an horrific killing machine named "Mr. Crane" to assist in a similar hunt, ecompassing whole star systems. Mr. Crane, the insane indestructible artificial man now in a new metal body, seeks to escape a bloody past he can neither forget nor truly remember. And he is on a collision course with Ian Cormac.

From eight hundred 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 downbecause 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, raises 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.

The Polity is under attack from melded AI entity controlling the lethal Jain technology, but the attack seems to have no coherence. When one of Erebus's wormships kills millions of innocent civilians on Klurhammon, a high-tech agricultural world of no real tactical significance, Cormac is sent to investigate... though he is secretly struggling to control a new-found ability no human being should rightfully possess, while also beginning to question the true motives of his AI masters. Further attacks and seemingly indiscriminate slaughter ensue, but serve only to bring some of the most dangerous individuals in the Polity into the war. Mr. Crane, the indefatigable brass killing machine, sets out for vengeance, and Orlandine, a vastly augmented haiman also in control of Jain technology, is seeking a weapon of appalling power with the aid of some bizarre relics from an ancient war. Meanwhile Mika, scientist and Dragon expert, is again kidnapped by that massive alien entity and dragged into the heart of things: to wake the cerators of Jain technology from their five-million-year slumber. Then it begins to emerge that attacks by Erebus are not as indiscriminate as they seem, and could actually mean the beginning of the end for the Polity...