“War Factory” by Neal Asher – Convergence of Galactic Interests
The Transformation series is arguably one of his most celebrated works, and the second book, titled War Factory, has us following Thorvald Spear as he pursues a rogue AI across hostile galaxies, while his enemies are doing the same, setting the stage for a supermassive firestorm.
Neal Asher Summons a Cosmic Hurricane
Artificial intelligence, as we have developed it today, is nowhere near the heights it has reached in the realms of science-fiction.
While we can make programs which make decisions based on pre-programmed guidelines and gathered data (as well as make them feign humanity by giving them a voice), we are still, thankfully, unimaginably far from giving them true sentience.
However, this hasn't stopped the genre of science-fiction from pushing forward and seeing where such AI's could potentially take us, and they play rather prominent role in Neal Asher's Transformation series, the second book of which we'll be looking at today, titled War Factory.
Before saying anything at all, the Transformation series is indeed one of those where each book leads into the next, and if you want a good understanding of this second book, I would recommend you read the first one.
However, even so, I believe the book does still hold up as a standalone if you really don't want to start at the beginning for some reason, just know you'll be missing out on a good deal of backstory and development.
Anyhow, this second novel picks up right after the end of the first, as the rogue AI Penny Royal plots to address the various problems he created around the galaxy. The solution seems to lie in a defective war factory across the universe.
It travels across the stars to reach it, but it's not alone: right behind it is Thorvald Spear, whose mind has been linked by Royal with the countless stored personalities of all those it murdered. Their memories give Thorvald no peace or respite, and he won't rest until Penny is gone for good.
However, Thorvald has his own enemies as well, and the Prador aliens have their own accounts to settle with Royal. As their goals and paths come closer and closer to converging, they all head together for the biggest firestorm any of them have ever seen, and the dividing lines between friends and enemies suddenly turn meaningless.
The Unrivalled Complexity of the World in War Factory
There are likely many reasons Neal Asher has set himself apart from many of his peers in the science-fiction genre, and in my opinion the absolute biggest one are his world-building capabilities.
There is such a vast wealth of diversity and curious places to explore in the Polity universe, with each and every element feeling like it's part of a greater whole. In other words, this isn't just a universe with different elements in it. Rather, the different elements combine organically to give birth to said universe.
The various technological wonders we uncover throughout the book are also worthy of mention because of how much thought and care Asher puts into using them as storytelling devices.
Whenever we discover and examine a piece of technology, we're not only limited to knowing what it does, but we cast our net a bit wider and consider who might have used it, for what purposes, and so on and so forth.
All the little details we keep on accumulating about the world, its history and the objects in it help to slowly form a grandiose and extremely meticulous portrait of a fictional universe which has managed a nigh-impossible feat: it took on a life of its own.
In my personal opinion, when it comes to epic science-fiction stories and space operas, the quality of the world-building is the first and most important factor which will decide whether or not I'll be able to really get into it.
Asher has not only managed to make his universe vast beyond our perception and somehow more detailed than our very own real world, but he also made all the pieces fit together in a logical and believable manner.
The Balance of All Beings
Along with the exceptional world, we also have the extremely wide and diverse cast of characters hailing from seemingly all parts of the cosmos. We get to learn about and witness different cultures, systems of belief and philosophies, seeing how they interact with each other, what their ambitions and desires are, and where they fit in the grand scheme of things.
More often than not, I feel authors, when they depict alien lifeforms, make one of two egregious mistakes: they either humanize them beyond a believable point, or they pull towards the other extreme and make them barely recognizable as lifeforms in the first place.
I found Asher's depiction of the Prador aliens to be one of the most balanced and nuanced takes on the matter in recent memory.
Their differences from human beings, both physically and mentally, are generally explained by the conditions which forced them down a certain evolutionary path. I also particularly liked their motivations for doing anything, which were ultimately not too different from our very own human desires.
While they aren't the same as us, they do ascribe to the same general desires all living beings are driven by. They are interesting to learn about, and also feel like aliens which would logically fit into our world.
If there is one notable aspect about all the characters in the story, it's how well-balanced they tend to be, even the AI's. Nobody is perfect, every single being has their own strengths and weaknesses, and most interestingly, they're not just necessarily looking to annihilate one another.
The Final Verdict
War Factory by Neal Asher is about as good of a sequel to Dark Intelligence as anyone could have asked for, as the author returns with his tremendous world-building abilities to tell a complex, nuanced and thought-provoking story driven by a wide cast of unique and layered characters.
If you enjoy space operas and liked the first book in the series, then you can do no wrong by going forth and picking this one up as well.
 | Neal AsherPersonal site Neal Asher is an English science-fiction writer from Essex who began publishing his works a bit later in his life, in the year 2000. He wrote a number of works and different series, with some of his better-known works including the Agent Cormac series, The Owner trilogy, and Cowl, nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award. |
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