Customer Reviews

The Skinner

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Science fiction (as other genres) is often very poorly done if written by someone who fails to build a consistent story. The story can be quite improbable, yet hold together quite well if well constructed. Neal Asher's new book "The Skinner" is just such a well structured story. As a biologist who likes a good tale of strange planets and creatures, I was quite pleased to find this riveting tale. The book has something for every sci fi fan- a strange world with oceans full of weird predators (not totally unlike our own, but perhaps a bit more dangerous!), alien minds controlling or communicating with humans and machines, galactic conspiracies, viruses that cause infected organisms to be more resistant to injury, a cast of characters with their own secrets, and nearly indestructible sea captains who are the survivors from a human slave industry based on a war between quite different galactic civilizations. The founder of that illegal activity, the space pirate Jay Hoop, has become (after 700 years) a very dangerous outlaw indeed- the Skinner (I won't describe this entity further as it might spoil the reader's fun!) He and his surviving associates are the targets of a former warden (Keech) who was killed by one of them and was "revived" as a sort of half-living reification. His mission is to finish off the last of the outlaws, who were all condemned to death. He is aided in part by a woman (Erlin) who is searching for one of the old captains (Ambel), and a former indentured slave (Janer) to the hive mind of intelligent earth hornets who carries two of the hornets with him. Add assorted Old Captains, various mercenaries, animated sails, giant leeches and numerous others, and you get a complex weave of very evocative interactions.

This is not simply another in a series of spin-offs from major movies or TV scripts (a pet peeve of mine) but a full blown hard-core sci fi masterpiece in the tradition of Van Vogt (although perhaps with a bit more logic than some of his tales). It holds together well and the pieces of plot spin toward each other in a structured fashion, making you nearly believe in the strange happenings on the eccentric world called Splatterjay. I recommend it as a rousing good tale of a seemingly almost possible world.

This is the first Neal Asher book I've read and I look forward to reading more. "The Skinner" caught my fascinated interest with several themes and multiple characters and storylines.

If humans could be truly long-lived, how would they deal with getting BORED? The inhabitants of the Skinner world include human "old captains" who "live into the calm". The "juniors" who crew with them are those who've only lived a few centuries!

The native life of the Skinner world is anything BUT calm. Is there something beyond mindless feeding frenzies up and down the food chain of life?

There's an overall plot with a satisfactory conclusion. It comprises MULTIPLE story lines and characters, including men, women, articial intelligences, and aliens. These characters are variously heroes, bad guys, really bad guys, and ones you're not quite sure about.

There's plenty of humor in the narrative. I like it because it's a complex, humorous, planetary narrative that includes just a bit of thinking. I guess I'd tell more of the story line but what mattered to me most is the creative structure and good-natured feel of this book.

Rare is the book that immerses me as fully as this brilliant novel did. In The Skinner, Asher tells a stand-alone tale crafted within the future universe he has envisioned. The tale takes place on a rather savage world, Spatterjay, where a particular virus creates incredible regenerative and other effects in all the organisms it infects. This virus happens to work on humans as well as the local fauna, and Asher explores the implications of his creation quite fully.

The plotting and pacing are superb, the various storylines, each attached to one of the central characters, mesh and interweave splendidly, and the story progresses steadily, cleanly and quickly, without a single lull in the narrative, to a satisfying and well-conceived conclusion. Along the way, Asher treats us with great humor, well-conceived speculations regarding what it actually might mean to live hundreds of years in perfect health and fitness, some truly horrifying and shudder-inducing actions by humans and non-humans, and (my favorite character of all), a very old, battle-hardened and -scarred, sarcastic and extremely clever combat android/artificial intelligence.

While there is some background and comfort with the "universe" Asher created to be found in reading his earlier offering, "Gridlinked," it is not at all necessary for the full enjoyment of this novel. I heartily recommend The Skinner.

This was a fun, interesting and original novel which both reminds one of the roots of science fiction and provides a fresh, updated story that reads well today. Asher's second novel is much better then his first (Gridlinked) and holds the promise of even better novels to come. (I didn't think "Cowl" was as good as "The Skinner", but it's not bad at all). The novel takes place on world where life forms have adapted into perfect killing/surviving machines. Once you get infected with a local parasite, you really can't die. However, the alternative isn't that great either. In a universe where immortality, or at least really long life, takes many forms, the inhabitants of this planet have chosen to stay on their violent world and sail their oceans attempting to find inner peace. Into their rather dull existence comes three tourists, each seeking their own particular answer to a personal dilemna. To complicate matters, some very nasty aliens bring some virus infected humans back to the planet in an attempt to resurrect their sadistic leader (whose head is kept in a box. Kind of like an evil Ted Williams.)

Asher writes great action sequences and in this book, unlike in "Gridlinked", he develops his characters a bit more freely. Unfortunately, his most interesting characters are an insecure alien and an obsessed war robot. Once Asher learns to give his human characters that much range and emotion, his writing will become superb. It's only a matter of time. This is a great read, loads of fun and will completely get you into the spirit of science fiction. It's a shame there aren't more novels like this on the book shelves instead of the endless parade of Star Trek/Star Wars knock offs and books about video games.

Don't let the questionable cover art put you off! Skinner is a highly inventive and action packed science fiction novel set on the very alien planet of SplatterJay. Based in Asher's Polity universe, Skinner reads like something Iain Banks might have written after going out and getting raging drunk. Asher successfuly crossbreeds the high concept science fiction we've come to expect from the new wave of British SF writers with nonstop action, interesting characters and weird lifeforms. This is the third Asher novel I've read, and I'm looking forward to more from this talented writer.

A wild, wild ride like Heavy Metal meets Matt Ruff meets Harry Harrison meets Steven Spielberg. Asher has somehow gathered all the fun stuff from SF together and forgotten to include any of the dull. It's the coolest action movie you will ever read.

The most remarkable thing about The Skinner, by the way, isn't how much fun you'll have reading it - it's how clearly and distinctively Asher draws his characters and how naturally you relate to them.

I can't think of a book that directly compares to The Skinner. It's not the best, most thoughtful SF book ever written, but it *is* very very good and *is* very thoughtfully written, and it is a must-read for anyone who thinks that SF can still be an action genre.

Okay, let's look at this from a Literary perspective. That is a Science Fiction literary perspective. What if John Maddox Roberts, Daniel Keys Moran, Chris Brunch and Richard Morgan decided to team up and write a cyberpunk novel in the Alan Dean Foster Universe? Something close to this book, but not as good as this book. If you also buy from the UK site like I do then you know that this is one of the many excellent books this guy has written. Many, not all, of the characters are interesting, over ninety nine percent of the writing is essential to the plot (particularly the Italics day in the life section) and it follows the style of good space opera. That is multiple people with multiple agenda starting at different places, but all rushing to a climax that will effect each one differently. Do not expect to predict this one, however, like all excellent space opera's, you have to take it to the last paragraph to get the full story. Like any good space opera, also, this book starts slow and quickly builds momentum until it's an all out supercharged screaming fun ride into an exploding climax, that doesn't end as much as echoes away. Perfect.

About the story: Know this; it takes place in a universe that while FTL exists the storied by this author at this date mostly concern the frontier of a vast commonwealth ruled by AIs where travel is done by quantuum gates that people step through called runcibles. This book does not go into details about this, you have to read his other books, but like great works you don't need to. The Ai's in this story are much more interesting than in most novels and their persona's have more depth than some of the character's. That said, the character's are an interesting read.

The Skinner is based on the premise of a world where virtual immortality is just a leech bite away. A virus which allows the everpresent leeches' victims to regenerate nearly any injury gives the human inhabitants of the planet near indestructibility and massive strength as long as they can survive the boredom of living past several centuries and eat enough non-native food to keep themselves from going fully native as with the book's namesake.

Into this well realized ecology come some off-worlders that get thrown into a plot that involves the original criminal gang that came to the planet and a repugnant alien with a penchant for rotten human flesh.

The Skinner is a fast paced story with some entertaining characters and tons of action presented in vivid, gory detail. This isn't a philosophical novel postulating on how the future will shape society. Instead, the Skinner provides a rich visceral adventure with plenty of twisted humor all rushing towards an explosive conclusion.

I read a LOT of fantasy and science fiction. It isn't easy to please me. I enjoyed the hell out of this book! It really is a lot of fun. Neal Asher has created a macabre world that easily rivals anything created by Neil Gaiman or China Mieville. Sniper is one of my favorite fictional characters EVER. Totally thrilling.

One of the best Sci-Fi books I've read in a long time.

Written in a style that will appeal to many types of reader, it has aspects of Clive Barkers ability to create a believable environment, amalgamated with an easy readability which reminds me of excitedly reading old Spiderman comics!

The reader learns about the characters, rather than is told about them, a subtlety I enjoyed noticing, almost as if the people you were reading about were dependant on you reading more for them to evolve.

The language is strong and believable, and a dark humour runs throughout the story which at times is Tarentino-esk. I can't fault this book at all. Well worth a read!