Zero Point (The Owner)
Part of the Owner trilogy (after The Departure, 2011) finds Earth in massive disarray. Thanks to the actions of the (alleged) terrorist Alan Saul, global government has been shattered; disastrously overpopulated, and with no way of keeping order, it seems the planet is doomed to chaos. Enter Serene Galahad, one of the surviving members of the government, with a plan to save humanity. The problem is, her plan is psychotic; she is nothing short of a megalomaniac (to save humanity, she honestly seems to believe she has to murder large chunks of it—we’re talking billions of lives here). Meanwhile, aboard the space station Argus, Saul is trying to find a way to stay alive until he can prove he’s not the perpetrator of the genocide on Earth; and on Mars, Var Delex is desperately fighting to keep Antares Base from falling to rebels. Asher, who writes sf on a grand scale, has created some of his most memorable characters here. Saul, with his unique physical and AI augmentations, is almost a new species, an intermediate between man and God, and Serene, who behaves like she’s a god, is deliciously evil, a woman so nasty that we can’t look away, even as she commits the most gut-wrenchingly awful crimes. Familiarity with The Departure is helpful but not required. And, anyway, after finishing this book, most readers who haven’t read the earlier one will immediately start searching it out while simultaneously waiting with bated breath for the trilogy’s conclusion. A must for sf fans. --David Pitt