Loved this book - great Neal Asher story

I only wish that Neal Asher's Gridlinked books (written in the same universe but with different characters, although there is some overlap...) were also in audio.

For the uninitiated - Lots of AIs. Space travel through warping. Seriously funny & snarky writing. LOVE the characters. Spatterjay trilogy has very inventive life forms on the planet that are neat and drive the plot along. Highly recommended.

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10 people found this helpful

Deathworld on Sea

Neal Asher at his best nitrates with gusto. Will be listening to the next two books.

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Biology gone wild

Spatterjay is mostly a water world. Almost every creature in the sea is deadly. The native humans, called hoopers, are almost immortal. They become immortal after one of the many leeches that inhabit the world bites them. The leeches fall from trees, swim in the ocean and can be as small as a bat or as large as a whale.

One of the main characters is a Zombie, he has been dead for 700 years. The book has leeches, sentient AI's, Supermen, a hive mind, a living head, a creature that acts as a sail for ships, rhinoworms, humans who are called blanks because they are mindless slaves to lobster like aliens called Pradors, a woman who lives in another woman's body, etc etc.

The action is constant and Asher's imagination is fantastic. There is lots and lots of gore. At the beginning of the book I was extremely excited and really thought I had found a new fantastic author. Toward the end I was getting worn out and was ready for the book to finish. I will be reading more of Asher's books, I just hope he shortens them a little.

As far as the production and the narrator, I was very disappointed. NA changes from one scene to another and then back again very quickly and often the scenes he is switching to have similar action going on, so I often got confused on what characters I was following. The narrator, who is following how the book is written, uses British accents, which combined with the changing scenes made it hard to follow. The zombie is actual called a reif, but they had to say reif about fifty times before I understood what he was saying.

If you like Card's book "Treason" or Harry Harrison's "West of Eden" or Koontz "Frankenstein" or "Moby Dick" you should like this book.

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15 people found this helpful

Great characters!

This novel is all about the interaction of characters. Setting is fantastic of course. The Asher created Polity universe is rich and detailed as usual. Also, as usual the setting serves to enhance a really great story about compelling characters.

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Excellent, excellent, excellent!

Take hard science fiction, high tech robotics, artificial intelligence, alien invaders, immortality, super human abilities, the living dead, heinous war crimes, pirates, whaling vessels, salty sailors, a vast array of hostile sea life that wants to eat you, huge aquatic monsters (that want to eat you), horrible human monsters (that want to do much worse than eat you) and stick it all into a high seas murder mystery and that pretty much sums up The Skinner. How Neal Asher managed to combine all those disparate elements into a rollicking good time I'll never know, but he did it and this is only the first book of the Spatterjay trilogy. Great story, great adventure and William Gaminara's narration is superb. It's well worth the credit.

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1 person found this helpful

Very good.

Great book: excellent story, world building, and presentation. I would recommend this to anyone that likes sci fi, or shadowrun style games.

My only complaint is with the editing. The story jumps perspective between characters inside chapters, but there are no pauses or breaks in narration to indicate any shift. It makes the some places in the narrative very confusing. However if you can get past that, the story is worth it!

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A good story and reader; spacing needs edit

This was my first Neal Asher story; the authors style is very good, an interesting mix of science fiction, action adventure, space opera, humour, and horror.

The reader is also excellent, his wide range of voices is veery good. The choice of rural english accents may seem odd to american listeners but works very well. Sniper in particular is very well characterised.

The only real failure - as noted by other listeners - is the odd choice of the editor to not leave audible gaps when the character viewpoints change. Its not too distracting as it quickly becomes apparent, but still could do with changing.

This book has led me to listen go/read most of Neal Ashers novels. While they're not in any way mold breaking, they are ripping good yarns, entertaining, and with sufficient intellectual and emotional content to satisfy most readers.

I've now got to the end of the trilogy, and it has proved an interesting voyage. Personally I'd like to hear more of Sniper and 13 adventures, Mr Asher... more please!

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8 people found this helpful

A good mixture

What did you love best about The Skinner?

This book is a very interesting mixture of good science fiction and biological theory. The story is not easily predictable and the characters are rich. There are a lot of concepts I have not seen in other sci fi.

What about William Gaminara’s performance did you like?

Mr. Gaminara's range of voice and accent is wonderful. He is a great reader. I will buy other books that he has narrated without knowing much of about them because I'm sure that he improves the experience of the story.

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1 person found this helpful

Couldn't finish....characters, gore, narration

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

I tried but just couldn't finish this book. I never became invested in the characters, the constant gore became distracting, and the narration was not great.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

The narrator's regular voice was OK, but his interpretation of characters was poor.

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2 people found this helpful

excellent

original and well read as as for being too gory , the title is the skinner

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2 people found this helpful