Well, I have been ranting and raving about how great Neal Asher is for some time now but I must admit I approached this short story collection with some trepidation. This was not due to any perceived shortcoming of the author, but rather that I have had a bias against short story collections for many years. I haven't truly analyzed my prejudice but I think it mostly stems from the fact that when a story is great you want it to go on and on, which definitely doesn't happen with a short story. Asher's collection, and a collection of short stories from Karl Schroeder, have made me seriously question my previous reservation. This book is wonderful and is chock-full of the trademark Asher icons we love and expect: fearsome and fantastical creatures, crazed religious cults, crazier terrorist organizations, artificial intelligences, crafty and devious humans, exotic locales, sentient machines, designer drugs, and struggling protagonists who must contend with all of the above in adrenaline fueled, blood-spattered, tension-ratcheting stories that leave you panting for more. Asher is simply a ripping good story-teller and in this book you get a dozen great stories under one cover.

Many of these short stories are set in his Polity universe and add welcome bits of information for fleshing out that world and fans of his Polity series will definitely want to devour these. There are also a few stories here that are not Polity based....but they are so good that I found myself hoping that Mr. Asher might develop some novels around them. No, wait, I didn't say that!! I love the Polity novels too much! Maybe if Mr. Asher could clone himself as happens in some of his stories?

I devoured this book during a five hour flight last week and it truly made for a wonderfully enjoyable, and very quick, flight if you can imagine that in this day and age. I highly recommend this book for both current followers of Mr. Asher and for those who may not have read him before. This would be a wonderful introduction to Mr. Asher's work and I am sure it would leave new readers wanting more.

I really enjoy Neal Asher's work. He can develop atmosphere, characters and plot quickly and believably with incredible imagination. The short story, The Engineer, is no exception, and is my favorite Asher work. However, I was quite disappointed that this release of short stories, The Engineer Reconditioned, is nothing more than an update of the The Engineer published under a different label in 1998. I was expecting a full novel continuing the premise of the earlier work. Instead I received the same short story under a new name with some slight revisions. Amazon needs to make this clear so people don't waste their money on something they have already read. However, if you have not read it, it is a great read, brissling with great concepts and intrigue.

Some other stuff I just couldn't get into.

The first story is around 100 pages, the rest are shorts. I have enjoyed most of Asher's books set in the Polity universe (except Brass Man), and this story is pretty interesting. Despite being under 100 pages he introduces some cool tech, interesting characters and throws a few nice plot twists in.

The other stuff fell flat for me after that. There's a paperback version available now for $10 and I would recommend that over the HC version.