Gabble & Other Stories (Paperback)

~ Neal Asher (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

'What has six arms, a large beak, looks like a pyramid, has more eyes than you'd expect and talks nonsense? If you don't know the answer to that, then you should and you haven't been reading Neal Asher (see point 1)' - Jon Courtenay Grimwood. In the eight years since his first full-length novel, "Gridlinked" was published by Pan Macmillan, Neal Asher has firmly established himself as one of the leading British writers of Science Fiction, and his novels are now translated in many languages. Most of his stories are set in a galactic future-scape called 'The Polity', and with this collection of marvellously inventive and action-packed short stories, he takes us further into the manifold diversities of that amazing universe. No one does monsters better than Neal Asher, so be prepared to revisit the lives and lifestyles of such favourites as the gabbleduck and the hooder, to savour alien poisons, the walking dead, the Sea of Death, and the putrefactor symbiont.

About the Author

Neal Asher was born and bred and on the Essex coast, and still lives there. His most recent novels include: Cowl, Gridlinked, The Line of Polity, Brass Man, Polity Agent, Line War, The Skinner, The Voyage of Sable Keech, Orbus (forthcoming September 2009), Prador Moon, Hilldiggers.

Product Details

• Paperback: 232 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books (December 12, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0330457594
• ISBN-13: 978-0330457590
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 4.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #105,763 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not Free SF Reader, February 11, 2009

By	Blue Tyson "- http://freesf.blogspot.com" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Gabble & Other Stories (Hardcover)

Science Fiction horror is one of the most fun things to read. There is certainly a strain of this running throughou the various stories of Neal Asher's Polity Future History. Cover blurbs are often hyperbolic, to put it politely (complete cr@p, when being less so) but when a bit on this one says that Asher does the best monsters, the claim is quite correct.

If you take Science Fiction and Horror as a continuum, then unlike say Brian Lumley and his Screaming Science Fiction, Asher approaches Horror from the Science Fiction end, while Lumley does the reverse. Contemporary Alastair Reynolds does something different, but his atmosphere of gloomy gothic decay is radically different to the rather more gleefully (a la Lumley) exuberant style of mayhem, mycelium and machines that this author employs.

The Gabble and Other Stories collects Polity stories from a variety of venues, some so obscure I've never heard of them, so you are unlikely to ever track them down there, I think.

The coolest writers of Future Histories manage to have both longer and shorter works set in their universes, and this Asher handles with aplomb. In fact, while the various Polity novels (a couple of which I haven't read) are generally in the decent or better range, his shorter works are, I think, superior, as evidenced here by a 3.90 average rating for this book. many of them falling into the very good class, at least those I have come across. The longer work suffers a bit at times from just that, length, given the style of story he tells. Or at the very least you could say his Polity short stories in general are really excellent, as I believe he has a collection of other earlier work. Hopefully sometime this century when Tor gets around to webscriptions there will be a 'Polity' bundle, or at least Cormac and Polity bundles if the former has too much stuff.

The cover of this book would have lots of kids (and those older) saying 'where can I get the toy of that!' Steve Rawlings, very well done. Referencing the cover, 'Garp and Geronamid' has a Polity AI investigating dodgy drug dealings while in the body of an Allosaurus!!!

Asher has written an afterword giving some brief info about each story. Other than monster in the intro to 'Snow In the Desert' he says 'I like my super-tough heroes and lethal androids'. Sometimes even combined.

If monsters, biowarped stuff, weird ecology, dinosaur AI, super-tough heroes lethal androids and blowing stuff up appeals to you, then Asher is your guy. Great stuff.

Gabble and Other Stories : Softly Spoke the Gabbleduck - Neal Asher
Gabble and Other Stories : Putrefactors - Neal Asher
Gabble and Other Stories : Garp and Geronamid - Neal Asher
Gabble and Other Stories : The Sea of Death - Neal Asher
Gabble and Other Stories : Alien Archeaology - Neal Asher
Gabble and Other Stories : Acephalous Dreams - Neal Asher
Gabble and Other Stories : Snow in the Desert - Neal Asher
Gabble and Other Stories : Choudapt - Neal Asher
Gabble and Other Stories : Adaptogenic - Neal Asher
Gabble and Other Stories : The Gabble - Neal Asher

Wave bye-bye to the monster, now.

4.5 out of 5


Terminal gutcheck case.

3.5 out of 5


Allosaurus AI Intervention ingestion.

4 out of 5


Cold and cracked up to be with aliens.

4 out of 5


Making a xenodiscovery killing.

4 out of 5


Abused religious cult murderer's execution given AI exchange for hive mind implantation and multiplicitous disintegration.

4 out of 5


Immortality bounty is more than a load of old bollocks.

4 out of 5


Fungus the virusman.

3.5 out of 5


Hanging out at auctions leads to an interesting confrontation via shape-shifting technology.

3.5 out of 5


Artificial discovery.

4 out of 5

5.0 out of 5 stars Great set of stories from Asher's Polity Universe, August 3, 2009

By	Tek2000 (Phoenix, AZ USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Gabble & Other Stories (Hardcover)

Reviewer Blue Tyson gives short and sweet recaps and ratings for each story; this list identifies their sub-series of the Polity Universe. The book is available new from amazon.co.uk for the right shipping price.

Softly Spoke the Gabbleduck (Cormac/Gabbleduck)
Putrefactors (Spatterjay)
Garp and Geronamid (Spatterjay)
The Sea of Death (n/a)
Alien Archaeology (Cormac/Gabbleduck - 5 out of 5 for this one)
Acephalous Dreams (Polity)
Snow in the Desert (n/a)
Choudapt (n/a)
Adaptogenic (Spatterjay)
The Gabble (Cormac/Gabbleduck)