Neal Asher (born 4 February 1961) is an English science fiction writer.

Asher identifies The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit and other fantasy work including Roger Zelazny's The Chronicles of Amber series as important early creative influences.

In 2000 he was offered a three-book contract by Pan Macmillan,[2] and his first full-length novel Gridlinked was published in 2001.

It encompasses many classic science fiction tropes including world-ruling artificial intelligences, androids, hive minds and aliens.

While his work is frequently epic in scope and thus nominally space opera, its graphic and aggressive tone is more akin to cyberpunk.