Less equals more for an author who credits a grateful reader with the imagination to fill in some deliberate gaps, such as aspects of his characters' past which he hints at just enough to tell you all you need to know if this is your first encounter with his cosmos.

The James Bond reference becomes explicit in a teasing way which pleases, while those broad brush strokes are not slapdash but could make 'Gridlinked' surefire action movie potential in the right director's hands.

Whether Asher is the sci-fi inventor of his favoured method of interstellar travel, the Runcible and its Spoon, I'm not sure, but 'Gridlinked' builds on the Runcible tales with which he began to make a name and indeed swallows one of them whole, 'The Dragon and the Flower.' (This is mentioned in Asher pages at Authortrek by K.P. Mahoney, who considers him a "sublime master". I wouldn't go that far, but Asher's hot all right.)

Such science as he needs makes hard sense, including the Grid from which Ian Cormac disconnects early in the story. This is a cold-turkey break, after 30 networked years, from a link which gave him some of his skills at the cost of his humanity and, potentially, of his life.

I knew how 'Gridlinked' was going to end about 40 or 50 pages from the finale. But Asher's punches were faster and more cunning than my guesswork. He threw me several more times before the penultimate page.

If I didn't have several others waiting on the shelf, I'd probably already be into 'The Skinner' (Amazon UK, Pan, March 2003; April 2004 in the US). Asher's nigh on addictive. After this, I can't totally sever myself from what genre-maniacs might label "space opera".

[Next stop for review: ' Revelation Space ' by Alastair Reynolds (2000) or Probability Moon' (& 'Sun'; 2000 & 2001) by Nancy Kress, each more recent out of hard covers.
Shared tastes? The mostly sci-fi books favourably reviewed at my place before they let me in here include: 'Night's Dawn' (trilogy) by Peter Hamilton, 'Archangel Protocol' by Lyda Morehouse, 'Spares' by Michael Marshall Smith, 'Bel Canto: a Novel' by Ann Patchett, 'Touched with Fire' and 'An Unquiet Mind' by Kay Redfield Jamison (psychology, not novels), 'Mappa Mundi' by Justina Robson, 'Ship of Fools' by Richard Paul Russo, 'Ventus' by Karl Schroeder, and 'The Diamond Age' by Neal Stephenson.]