GRIDLINKED

Combine a kilometer long dragon made of flesh and circuits and who can travel instantaneously across the universe, intercept any communication between computers and create creatures of flesh for any purpose (and it is a crazy liar);

add a Japanese master who is 400 years old and who has survived Hiroshima;

incorporate a government agent that is so powerful that future historians will argue about his existence;

pour a totally fucked up separatist who wants revenge for the death of his no less fucked up sister;

and why not a few golems and amped up mercenaries.

You have the ingredients of a novel that is interesting and frustrating.

Interesting because the plot is inventive but frustrating because sometimes you wonder what the hell is going on and the end and most deaths (and there are quite a few) are anticlimactic. For example, Mr Crane, a seemingly invicible Golem is destroyed in a figth that takes something like 2 lines.

But Asher's work remains a page turner even if some of the characters survive impossible odds. He has a lot of imagination and his inventions are credible as are most of the protagonists.

A good read

8/10