Customer Reviews

Prador Moon

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have read all of Neal Asher's Polity novels with sheer joy. Normally, he depicts wonderful characters threaded in a enjoyable yarn with equal doses of adventure, violence, and wit. However, this particular novel is a pale imitation of his usual work. The characters are decent, but the story is a bit hollow. It follows the very beginning of the prador war and a few particular encounters involved in that war. It had no deep story nor does it drive a further characterization of the Polity. It seems more like a teaser for some future work on the Prador war, since its so limited in scope.

That said, if you are looking for a quick fix, it does have some of asher's flare for violence and ingenuity. However, I feel it a bit empty and not up his usual standard. If your looking for a novel equal to the Brass Man or Gridlinked, I would suggest holding off for the new Polity novel coming out this fall.

I just got Prador Moon delivered this morning after anxiously waiting for it for the past three months. I'm a huge fan of both Neal Asher and his unique brand of story-telling. Asher distinguishes himself by writing action/sci-fi that simply has to be read in order to be believed. Action junkies rejoice! There is so much gruesome action, fighting, and combat in his novels that it blows your mind. If violence were calories then Asher is a mountain of double chocolate torte cake swamped by a lake of raspberry fudge sauce; a sweeter read you will not find. Yet he is far from one-dimensional. Along with all the action he provides, you get wonderful, compelling stories, believable characters, sensible villains, complex plots, laser-like insight into the foibles of humanity, and unbelievable planets, locales, and other settings to enjoy. He jubilantly throws in terrifying monsters (with a predilection for eating humans), sinister aliens (with a predilection for eating humans), vicious warped psychopaths of the human persuasion (terrorists, criminals, religious fanatics, and just plain ole psychopaths), artificial intelligences, android/golems, FTL technology, sentient warships and drones, an amazing array of amazing weapons, black markets, high technology, backwater retrogressed worlds, biotechnology, and xenobiology so nightmarish it would give Lovecraft the willies. Then he takes all these elements, mixes them up in the high-speed blender of his imagination, and creates frothy, fun-filled concoctions that are part science fiction, part horror, and part gleeful splatterfest, but 100% compelling and fun. Asher is a great writer; despite the exuberant violence and action laced through his novels, his writing is intelligent, his plotting intricately complex, his characterization is convincing, his stories are belivable, interesting, and full of ideas. Best yet, he integrates those great ideas and unremitting action nicely into a convincing sci-fi universe. I simply love his writing and his Polity universe creation.

Asher does one other thing extremely well, as good as any writer out there. Yes, he imbues his action sequences with a sense of relish and fun that I thoroughly enjoy, but he also makes absolutely wonderful and convincing protagonists. Even better, he makes really, really great villains! His protagonists are never self-righteous, self-involved, or even self-important like so many characters in other stories. Nope, they're generally down-to-earth, likeable people reacting in sensible ways to the environment they find themselves in. His villains are even better than his good guys though; they are generally self-righteous, self-involved, self-important, and fanatically bigoted to boot. They're not "EVIL" like so many authors make the mistake of doing. Nope, they're really villainous because they simply don't care about others, only about their own goals, and if everyone has to die to justify their own views then that is just fine with them. Asher just has a natural knack for making both convincing, likeable protagonists and thoroughly despicable, villainous, believable, and actually enjoyable bad guys.

Beyond creating great individual villains, Asher also loves to take aim at institutionalized villainy and pokes sharp, pointy, literary sticks at many such groups in his fiction. He is particularly gifted at skewering both abusive religious cults and fanatical terrorist groups. In trademark Asher fashion, the resolution of conflicts between these psychopaths and his protagonists universally involve viscerally, violent scenes with lots of explosions and flying body parts. Denouement of a graphically gruesome, yet satisfyingly cathartic, manner. I think the single most apt adjective for Asher's novels would be "FUN". Yes, he writes great stories which are compelling and interesting, but so do other gifted writers. Where Asher trumps all others is in making sure you have fun in reading his stories. If you like science fiction and if you like action, then you're in for a treat with this author. Nobody, but nobody, puts the two together better than Asher.

Now, after that glowing paean, on to my verdict for Prador Moon. This novel does not measure up to Asher's past performances unfortunately. It is a much simpler story without the twisted, convoluted plotting featured in his earlier works and it suffers because of this. Since this book clocks in at around 200 pages, as opposed to the average 500 pages of his other novels, there just isn't as much room for ideas, action, plot, and character development and frankly it shows. This novel still features much of what I described above, but in smaller portions which fail to satisfy as previous novels did. It also lacked a pivotal idea, a technique used to drive the stories in other novels. For example, the xenobiology of the planet Spatterjay was the underlying pivotal idea which drove all else in The Skinner. In Line of Polity it was the Jain technology and its implications. All of the previous Asher novels were brimming in colorful, fun ideas, but they were all anchored to one pivotal, central story idea which supported and directed the others. This novel simply did not have an underlying idea that had not already been dealt with in previous novels. I still liked this book, but I can't say I loved it like the other Polity novels. Honestly it feels more like a supporting novella and not like a novel at all. There are some good reasons to read it anyway though. First off, it's not bad at all, just not up to the same grade of excellence as the previous works. We also get to learn some backstory on the Polity and some of the characters who show up in future stories (Occam's Razor, Tomalon, Anna Vasco, etc). Chronologically, this novel is set much earlier in the Polity universe (before Gridlinked, The Skinner, Brassman, Line of Polity, Sable Keech, etc.) giving us some background into the development of the Polity and the initial war with the Prador civilization. The book follows the action of the team that makes initial violent contact with the Pradors (really good bad guys, giant crabs that like to eat and enslave humans). Jebel "Ucap" Krong is a soldier obsessively fighting the Prador. "Ucap" is short-hand for "up close and personal", which is a pretty cool handle I have to admit. The story focuses on the ongoing conflicts between Ucap and the ship Occam's Razor with the Prador Captain Immanence and the eventual resolution of that conflict. It pretty much ignores the war in general which was really disappointing. A full treatment of the war would have been fascinating and could have been the best Asher novel yet. The novel also ends pretty early in the war so you really don't know much about the conflict at all other than how it started, and what happened to those involved in that initial conflict, and of them only to that point somewhat into the opening of the war. I wish the author had done a complete treatment of the war and not just this one vignette which feels like nothing more than a teaser. There were also some irritatingly unfinished elements in the book like the story on the augment surgeon, Aubron Sylac, that were never fleshed out. So, all-in-all, my verdict is that if you don't mind paying a full novel price for a partially complete novella, and you know what you are getting in advance, then this is a fun little read and worthwhile. Just don't expect something along the lines of The Skinner or Line of Polity. My verdict is three stars. Yes, I know I have five stars above, but that happened somehow accidently and Amazon won't let me edit it now. My apologies for that and I hope you'll accept this lengthy review as amends. For what it's worth I think everything else I have read by Asher is five star suff.

Look Asher is a really good writer, but no author kicked butt on every work, and just being good is about the worse this guy ever gets. It's a fun read, but every review about how wooden the characters are is right. The problem is that Asher has more fun with AI, alien, and robot personalities than he does human. That is an observation, not a criticism. His golems, subminds, and runcibles are funny, loyal, and seem a lot more interesting than his people. That's no different here. The people, however, carry an important role: they feel, they worry and they fear. His human's are mushy, wooden, indicisive, and serious, but that's how it should be. People act that way.

Buy it and enjoy the ride.

Let me begin by saying that I really enjoy Asher's writing. He's an excellent science fiction author in the grand old style - vast, sweeping galaxy-sized vistas, unique technologies, interesting aliens, etc., and of course good old fashion human beings trying to muddle through it all.

But Asher has set the bar for himself very high, which means that when a novel like "Prador Moon" is released it ends up being something of a disappointment. It has the feel of having been rushed. It is missing Asher's usual complex plotting and large vision. The Prador themselves are interesting and well-delineated (though I found myself wondering on several occasions how they could ever have developed a star-faring civilization, or even discovered fire, for that matter).

But for me the ultimate problem is that the book ends very abruptly. And while the immediate problem is resolved, we are left with no idea how the war itself is resolved on the galactic scale. This is more like a book about a few skirmishes than an all-out war.

Also, some of the characters go through high-speed development. One who is unsure of himself early in the book is suddenly a battle hardened veteran, with no intervening evolution. He was so different the second time he entered the story that I had to go back and make sure he was the same person.

I'm guessing there will be more of this series. I would have preferred to have waited another 6 - 8 months for the whole novel in one volume.

The action takes place in the runcible universe we know and love but predates the Pradors' discovery of the Spatterjay virus. Energetically written and operatic in style i read it one one sitting and was left wanting more - perhaps the next installment could clarify how the accord (described in Asher's other books) between Prador and Polity was brokered. If you are a fan of Asher's then this won't dissapoint.

Neal Asher's PRADOR MOON (2006) is similar in many ways to the BERSERKER stories written by Fred Saberhagen. The big difference is that the ruthless BERSERKER machine enemy is replaced the a Crab-like PRADOR enemy, and the humans are basically ruled by Artificial Intelligences (who are somewhat akin to a benevolent version of The BERSERKERS). The PRADOR treat their human hostages worse than cattle, performing live vivisection experiments on them in attempts to perform mind-control or biological weapons research... and they tend to eat their human captives, once they have no further use for them.

The space travel (and other) technologies are well done, and the idea of an AI class of beings that at some time in the future evolve to the point that they are able to rule over mankind's domain is interesting.

While the character development is a bit shallow, there is plenty of action and battle scenes, which are done in a much different way than the many other Military SciFi authors(Drake, Weber, Haldeman, Hamilton, et. al.), or hostile alien encounter authors (Turtledove, Foster, etc.) have already produced.

First off, let me say that i enjoyed this book. It is exciting, it has some good action, and i liked the main character (Jebel Krong, not Moria). The writing is good, and there are some interesting ideas, such as the Prador's social structure. However, there were some problems. First off, Moria just never really interested me. She seems emotionless, and yes, I know it could be argued as being part of the plor, but come on. Second, I felt that the book was too short. There were a lot of undeveloped plot threads, and the ending was too abrupt. Other than that, an enjoyable read. Don't read it looking for a new SF masterpiece, but if you want a quick, fun, easy read, I completely recommend it.

I've never read Neal Asher before, and was disappointed. Prador Moon is so typical of many scifi books, whose main purpose is to sell copies rather than create any type of lasting impression. If you like Hollywood movies where stuff blows up and blood spurts in various directions, I think you'll like Prador Moon. There isn't much character development, so you don't care whether anyone lives or dies. Asher seems to entertain himself with his own writing, but doesn't spend much time thinking about how to craft a story that stays with the reader once he/she finishes the last page. In all fairness, it's just not that type of book and Asher wasn't trying to create that. Asher and his publishers have a market, they stick to it, and they probably sell enough copies to make a good living. If I were you, I'd spend my money on something that delivers more than cookie-cutter science fiction.

I truly enjoyed Neal Asher's other book Gridlinked and I sort of liked this book.

I am not sure where it went wrong or if it just caught me on a bad day.

The final solution to the book was blatantly obvious, so I couldn't understand why so much hype was allowed to play out over it's conception.

I don't think that the anguish the solider felt, when his true love died was adquetely described... the internal turmoil of the terrorist to fight against the system seem a little to retarded.

It was like watching Episode 2 of the Star Wars Triology, when the two Jedi were trying to flea from this huge fish that was about to swallow them whole... not enough emotion was revealed.

When established authors try and break free from their existing worlds they share with us, sometimes it can be brilliant, a Morgan-esque romp into a completely different direction that leaves the reader with another must-read series of books. Asher's forays into books that are not about his Polity universe fell initially flat for me - Cowl being one where he tried too hard, without the necessary pay off. Whilst Cowl was certainly fresh and very different, standing Asher for a Philip K. Dick Award nomination, the story was depressing and left me as a reader wanting the release only a hot bath and a set of sharp razorblades can bring.

Prador Moon is a kind of half-way attempt; still set against a somewhat familiar backdrop of his Polity universe, but before the Polity has become what readers know from his debut novel Gridlinked. This tells a story of a younger, less able Polity - raw, uncertain, more of a toddler unsteady on its feet. Asher's foreshadowing in his other Polity books of the Prador War have always left me curious - what happened there? How did it happen? Why, and how did it end?

The story tells of the first contact between the Polity Collective - what will become the Polity after the Silent War - and the Prador Second Kingdom. The Prador - a giant armoured insectile race - arrive to meet humanity at a space station on the edge of controlled space. As readers of Asher's other Polity works we know that the Prador are utterly ruthless, sociopaths by breeding, that have conquered many of our worlds, enslaved out people, even using us as food. Yet the characters within the book believe they are about to meet the hope of so many of humanity's reaches out beyond our little blue planet. Life from another world. Other intelligences. This first contact between an optimistic and idealistic humanity and another species bent on our enslavement or destruction is a heady backdrop.

One of the things I greatly admire as a reader of Asher's works is that he takes all things in their own time. The story of Prador Moon has been many years coming, and feels rich as a book of history might. The people involved are fully formed, and don't exist only to give his later books life; this book could - and does - stand alone despite the stories yet-to-come in his earlier/later books. I get the feeling that Prador Moon was written much later in Asher's life simply because he wanted to get it right. Rather than a chore to serve the baying demands of fans, Asher's chosen to tell a story of people right on the edge of things, against an enemy far stronger than them. It feels as if his characters - AI and human alike - are fighting for the things that make life worthwhile for all of us. Friends. Family. Loved ones. Our homes, our ways of life. Despite being a work of pure fiction, I found myself really rooting for "our team" - they have a long hard road but don't walk away from the edge.

I couldn't put the damn thing down.

As with all his books, Asher's style of writing is his own - nothing complex, as an author he removes himself from view. You won't stumble over words, be hit with the hubris of an author who thinks too much of himself. The story comes through, the author stepping aside to let you see into this amazing world full of unlikely heroes and tremendous villains. He doesn't beat you over the head with future technology, instead letting that serve as the necessary backdrop. The science of this science fiction book serves as trimmings on an otherwise fine meal, rather than the meal itself.

It's worth noting that - if you haven't had the pleasure of Asher's work before - Prador Moon is no different in terms of the scale of the clashes. Brutal. Visceral. Gritty. Violent. Asher's speciality is clashes on both a personal and grand scale. Bad things happen to good people, and Asher makes no apologies for the scale of his conflicts or the casualties in them. It's this honesty of war that makes the story more believable, the ending so much more satisfying. I was left wanting more of the same, yet replete on this feast. The story finishes complete, yet with a universe of stories still to be told. Prador Moon is unlikely to be nominated for any awards because it's just not that kind of story, but it has a page turning effect that nonetheless left me enthralled.

No book is without its flaws - Prador Moon is no exception. The most glaring is that Asher's style focuses almost entirely on the action components, allowing the characters to interact within that context alone. Sometimes reading this book I wanted the foe to be smarter - the Prador may be technologically superior and physically bigger than humans, but they're not the cleverest of bugs. And finally, I don't think it's explained really to my satisfaction how an entire race can be sociopathic, totally brutal; such a nihilistic society might destroy itself from within. Perhaps that's why the Prador have dynasties and their Kingdoms end and begin? Perhaps too it's a story for another book, and I'm being overly greedy.

Lovers of fine science fiction are in for a treat.