Neal Asher Cowl

Cowl

Neal Asher

Tor, May 2005, $14.95, 320 pp.

ISBN: 0765315122

In the distant future, the Heliothane Dominion has won the devastating war against the genetically altered Cowl. However, though defeated in their present time, some of the Cowl escape fleeing to different ages in the past. The Heliothane Dominion knows they must follow suit to prevent changes to the time stream and to their victory.

In the near future (to us that is) in an austere Britain Polly, a drug using prostitute becomes part of the time war when Nandru an AI enters her psyche and she touches a tor-beast taking her even further back in time. Heliothane Dominion Government Agent Tack, who previously killed Nandru, follows to stop the Cowl but instead is brought along with the prostitute on a journey to pre-mankind. Tack knows he must stop Polly, an innocent who potentially could alter the war's outcome.

COWL is an enjoyable time travel science fiction in which the physics seem plausible enhancing the action-packed trips back through WWII, Ancient Rome, and other stops along the way until ultimately reaching pre-mankind. Intriguingly no-one even Polly garners empathy as Neal Asher caustically provides no insight into why the Cowl and the Heliothane Dominion leaderships behave malevolently towards others tossing aside human pawns when expedient; rationales have been forgotten lost to the wells of time. Mr. Asher provides a powerful time military sci fi that reads somewhat like an espionage thriller in which the audience will find it difficult to determine the good vs. the bad guys as both sides have all the time in the world to cause havoc.

Harriet Klausner