Dark Intelligence
Neal Asher returns to the Polity universe with a tighter, angrier story than his sprawling space operas usually allow. Thorvald Spear, a Polity soldier killed by the rogue artificial intelligence Penny Royal during the war against the alien Prador, wakes a hundred years later in a memplant restoration tank with one fixed objective, find Penny Royal and end her. The hunt drags him into the Graveyard, a lawless region between Polity space and the Prador Kingdom where war criminals retire, and into the orbit of a Prador trader and a brilliant ex-soldier with their own claims on the same target. Asher writes harder, bloodier, and weirder than most of his contemporaries, and Dark Intelligence is the first volume of his Transformation trilogy. A working ground floor for readers who want to enter his universe without committing to fifteen prior books.
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A century after dying in a war between the human Polity and the alien Prador, Thorvald Spear wakes in a recovered body with one mission: hunt down the rogue AI war drone, Penny Royal, that killed his entire unit.
Dark Intelligence is the first book in Neal Asher's Transformation trilogy, set in his larger Polity universe. New readers can start with it, though longtime Polity readers benefit from familiarity with the Prador Wars background.
Neal Asher's Transformation trilogy has three books: Dark Intelligence, War Factory, and Infinity Engine. The trilogy is complete.
Dark Intelligence was written by Neal L. Asher, published in 2015 by Pan Books.
Dark Intelligence is 416 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Dark Intelligence takes most readers 6 to 9 hours to finish.
Dark Intelligence is a standalone novel by Neal L. Asher, not part of a series.
Dark Intelligence is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
