An ansible is a category of fictional devices or technology capable of near-instantaneous or faster-than-light communication. It can send and receive messages to and from a corresponding device over any distance or obstacle whatsoever with no delay, even between star systems. As a name for such a device, the word "ansible" first appeared in a 1966 novel by Ursula K. Le Guin. Since that time, the term has been broadly used in the works of numerous science fiction authors, across a variety of settings and continuities. A related term is ultrawave.
Neal Leon Cassady was a major figure of the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the psychedelic and counterculture movements of the 1960s.
Jane Asher is an English actress and author. She achieved early fame as a child actress, and then through her association with the Beatles, and has worked extensively in film and TV throughout her career.
Boleslav William Felix Robert Sienkiewicz is an American artist known for his work in comic books—particularly for Marvel Comics' New Mutants, Moon Knight, and Elektra: Assassin. He is the co-creator of the character David Haller / Legion, the basis for the FX television series Legion.
Neal Asher is an English science fiction writer. He lives near Chelmsford.
Cowl is a 2004 science fiction novel by British writer Neal Asher. The novel deals with time travel and an epic time war between two factions from the 43rd century. Asher first started working on the novel as a novella named Cowl At The Beginning, which he eventually developed into the full novel Cowl.
A Jain is a follower of Jainism, a religion of India.
A polity is, broadly, any kind of political grouping.
Blue Moon is the eighth in the Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series of horror/mystery/erotica novels by Laurell K. Hamilton.
Brass Man is a 2005 science fiction novel by Neal Asher. It is the third novel in the Gridlinked sequence.
The Line of Polity is a 2003 science fiction novel by Neal Asher. It is the second novel in the Gridlinked sequence. In this novel, Earth Central Security (ECS) agent Ian Cormac is placed at the center of a civil war on the planet Masada, where an elite Theocracy lives in cylindric habitats in orbit and violently rules over commoners enslaved to laborious agriculture jobs on the planet's surface. To complicate matters, someone has attacked a low-grav Outlinker habitat with a nanomycelium which bears a striking resemblance to that used by Dragon on Samarkand in the previous novel Gridlinked. Meanwhile, a brilliant Separatist biophysicist has apparently reactivated an extremely ancient relic of technology created by the Jain, an alien species that dropped out of the universe millions of years ago, and commanded forms of technology that the brightest AI minds of the Polity have difficulty comprehending.
Polity Agent is a 2006 science fiction novel by English writer Neal Asher. It is the fourth novel in the Gridlinked sequence.
The Skinner is a 2002 science fiction novel by Neal Asher. It is the first novel in the Spatterjay sequence.
Hilldiggers is a science fiction novel by Neal Asher.
Line War is a 2008 science fiction novel by Neal Asher. It is the fifth and final novel in the Gridlinked sequence, although other novels exist in the same universe outside this sequence. It received positive reviews by critics.
Shadow of the Scorpion is a novel by Neal Asher, published by the Macmillan Publishers imprint Tor Books in 2008. The novel introduces Ian Cormac and is therefore a prequel. The novel skips between Cormac's first mission for the ECS and his upbringing as a child.
Orbus is a 2009 science fiction novel by Neal Asher. It is the third novel in the Spatterjay sequence.
The Technician is a 2011 science fiction novel by Neal Asher. The story is set on the world of Masada approximately 20 years after the events of The Line of Polity. The title refers to an unusual albino hooder that creates sculptures from the bones of other creatures. The book provides further background on a number of characters that recur in Asher's novels including the hooders and gabbleducks, the black AI Penny Royal, the war drone Amistad and the apparently extinct Atheter race. It is eventually revealed that the gabbleducks are the remains of the Atheter after they reduced themselves to the intelligence of animals to avoid the dangers of Jain technology and the eponymous Technician is an ancient war machine of stupendous power.
Dark Intelligence is a 2015 science fiction novel by Neal Asher. The story is set in the Polity universe and focuses on the dark (corrupted) AI Penny Royal. The plot follows several characters, each searching for Penny Royal for different reasons and culminates in a clash around the world of Masada. The plot is closely linked to that of Asher's 2011 novel The Technician. The main protagonist is Thorvald Spear, a new character to Asher's novels, who has been reanimated in a cloned body after his mind storage crystal was recovered over a century after his death. As the novel develops it becomes clear that Spear's memories have been adjusted allowing the character to serve as an unreliable narrator.
