The Skinner - Softcover

Asher, Neal

4.15

6,486 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0765350483 ISBN 13: 9780765350480

Publisher: Tor Science Fiction, 2005

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Three unusual travelers--Janer, a spy for the hornet Hive mind; Erlin, looking to find an old captain who can teach her about life; and the vengeful Sable Keech--arrive on the remote ocean planet of Spatterjay, braving the perils of the world's voracious wildlife as they pursue their individual quests, unaware that their paths are about to converge as the planet threatens to erupt into chaos. Reprint.

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Review:

In his second full-length SF novel The Skinner, Neal Asher offers an exhilarating clash of multiple factions--each with their own peculiar agenda--on the lethal waterworld Spatterjay.

The seas teem with hungry monstrosities, but Spatterjay holds immortality. When its giant leeches bite out gobs of flesh, they transmit a virus that forces regrowth, preserving the leech food supply. Some human colonists, the Old Captains, have lived many centuries. But beware of going native, like the legendary, repulsive Skinner whose undying head is now confined to a box...

Other locals include the worried AI Warden who polices Spatterjay, and the old, unruly war drone Sniper--as engagingly sassy as anything from Iain M Banks. Tourists arrive: a woman returning to ask whether her viral immortality was worth it, a human agent of hive-mind intelligence discovered among Earth's hornets, and a man 700 years dead but (thanks to preservatives and cyborg implants) still avenging the atrocities of Spatterjay's founding fathers in an even older war.

That ancient conflict involved the alien Prador, whose own war criminals fear the long memories preserved on Spatterjay, and are taking measures. Illicit intruders lurk, including an immortal sadistic psychopath and a submerged spaceship loaded with continent-busters.

Asher cuts deftly between strands of fast-moving narrative, laced with action, biological inventiveness, grotesque horror, and glints of humour. When Sniper the battle-happy drone gets swallowed by a giant "molly carp"--a protected species--he must wait in disgusted frustration for (ahem) natural processes to release him.

Multiple climaxes of combat, death, justice, sacrifice, and vindication lead to some nicely sneaky or witty reversals. This is an enjoyable, unpretentious, neatly crafted SF adventure. --David Langford

Review:

His easy style and intriguing plot make for a great story that treats the reader as an adult rather than an educationally subnormal adolescent. (The Times)

Crammed full of inventive technology, organic and artificial intelligence, horrible monsters, and a thick mesh of story lines. (SFX)

An exhilarating tour through one of the most ingeniously, elaborately deadly worlds since Harry Harrison invented Death World in the 1960s. (Locus)

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