Product Description

Raised to adulthood during the end of the war between the human Polity and a vicious alien race, the Prador, Ian Cormac is haunted by childhood memories of a sinister scorpion-shaped war drone and the burden of losses he doesn't remember. Cormac signs up with Earth Central Security and is sent out to help restore and maintain order on worlds devastated by the war. There he discovers that though the Prador remain as murderous as ever, they are not anywhere near as treacherous or dangerous as some of his fellow humans, some closer to him than he would like. Amidst the ruins left by wartime genocides, Cormac will discover in himself a cold capacity for violence and learn some horrible truths about his own past while trying to stay alive on his course of vengeance.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #440697 in Books
• Published on: 2008-11-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 248 pages

From Publishers Weekly
An energetic, gory prequel to Asher's Polity novels (Gridlinked, etc.), this far-future novel alternates the youthful memories of Ian Cormac, Asher's complex soldier-hero, with Cormac's brutal adult efforts to master lethal-force training as an undercover agent in Earth Central Security's conflict with the terroristic Jovian Separatists. Amistad, an anthropoid war drone Cormac had glimpsed as a boy, resurfaces periodically throughout the novel, a relic of the half-century-old war between humanity's galactic Polity and the vicious alien Prador. Gradually, Cormac's recollections merge with his ECS missions, until finally Amistad reveals what Cormac most needs and fears to know: his father's fate in an earlier battle. This blasting indictment of war forces readers to ponder whether winning can be worth the struggle if it turns the good guys into something worse than their enemies. (Oct.)
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From Bookmarks Magazine
Critics read Shadow of the Scorpion in several different ways. The book can be read as a political commentary on the impacts of war, especially counterinsurgency campaigns, on an individual's memory and personality. Or it can be read as an action-packed, well-plotted story with larger-than-life heroes and highly sophisticated weaponry. It was the coexistence of these two levels of storytelling that impressed reviewers. Those who were fans of Asher's other books felt it lived up to his previous work, but they also recommended Shadow of the Scorpion as a novel that can be read and enjoyed on its own.
Copyright 2009 Bookmarks Publishing LLC

From Booklist
Here Asher retreats to the formative years of his series hero Ian Cormac to reveal formative  events in two time lines to reader and character alike. Growing up in the last years of the Prador war,  Ian deals with the loss of his father, the too-terrible-to-remember horrors his army-medic brother has seen, and a war drone that looks like a scorpion and appears in some strange places. Reaching young manhood, he signs up with the Earth Central Security force and heads out to a world devastated by the Prador. While guarding a Prador crash site, he is accidentally caught up in uncovering a separatist movement, an involvement that costs him comrades and whatever innocence he may have had left. Discovering his capacity for violence, he chases down the most dangerous of the separatists and learns the significance of that scorpion war drone he vaguely recalls from childhood. This slim volume that greatly develops Cormac’s character is an excellent window into the world—the Polity universe—that Asher has created in the Ian Cormac and Prador novels. --Regina Schroeder

Customer Reviews

superb
Neal Asher is becoming something of a phenomenon. The man never fails to deliver. This novel 'shadow of the scorpion' could be taken as a prequel to his entire polity universe, the description of Ian Cormac as a child,his first foray into combat with the sparkind and ECS, his first meeting with terrorists or as asher has it 'separatists' and what formed Cormac's life and morality. We meet Cormac's mother, brother and the memory of his heroic and yet tragic father. We discover that it is indeed possible for 'golem' or androids to engage in the sports of venus when it suits them. In it we meet some friends and characters both human and AI from the polity universe brought to life in all of his wonderful 'polity' novels. This being a prequel in no way diminishes any of the fun that Asher's fan's expect and that Asher does, indeed, deliver with a CTD of pure enjoyment. Good going, and I hope Asher never tires of writing these wonderful books.

Good solid Asher work
This is another excellent book by Neal Asher (who is fast becoming my favorite author). This book is basicly a little biography of Polity Agent Ian Cormac, starting from his childhood and going thru his younger years. It provides some good background of his development into the character we recognize in Gridlinked and Brass Man, with some interesting little sidetracks into other areas of the Polity universe.

If you like other Neal Asher works this should definitely be a good purchase, used to fill in your knowledge of his Polity

Asher delivers another great read.
In Shadow of the Scorpion, we get a look back at the childhood and early adult years of our good friend Ian Cormac. Every chapter starts with a few pages of young Ian's life with his mother and brother, then skips to the events that led to Cormac becoming an ECS agent. As always, Asher gives us further depth and detail in describing his Polity universe, and provides not only a well-paced, rousing story but a number of interesting characters and a good bit of insight into Cormac's character itself, during its formative years. The book also fills in some background about Ian Cormac, and answers some questions about how things came to be.

A danger/pitfall in writing prequels is the fact that we have read stories that take place after the events in the prequel, possibly taking away the suspense and fear we might have for the primary character. There is none of this in Shadow of the Scorpion - it's certainly a page turner and a wild ride. My only criticism lies in the obviousness of one of the plot points - something revealed in the last few pages was obvious about a third of the way through the book.

I highly recommend it for any Asher/Ian Cormac fan. I woudn't read it out of sequence - if you're new to the Cormac novels, by all means read them in order of publication.