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Title: VanVogt's heir writes a graphic novel
Review: "Cowl" was only my second asher novel.Asher's introduction of concepts and technologies is done in a breezy enough way, that it sounds like a real expert explaining things to a "layman".I found it hard to put down---EXCEPT...the story has so much explicitly described violence, dismemberment, and pain that I found it cumulatively repulsive.Fear in a novel may be cathartic, but incessant intimidation, coercion, and bullying is too much for me.Neal Asher has the sense of future/scientific understanding/ daily use of wonder-machines that made VanVogt take Science Fiction's suspension of disbelief to Fantasy levels, but I'm too old to suspend the sensation of this much pain and cruelty.Otherwise, it would be a quintestellar rating!
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