Prador Moon by Neal Asher

[AE35Unit]

Finally, I get to read a Neal Asher book! I've been dying to get hold of one of these books for ages!

This is the first in the Polity series, published in 2006, and features the Polity's dicovery of an alien race-its a first contact story.
The Prador of the title are described as large,crab like aliens, rather nasty in fact, who use humans as food for their children,often feeding them alive!
These children have a hierarchy. Closest to the adults are the First-Children, who may be chosen as new leaders(or not!), then the second-children, often used as scouts or drones, and finally the third-children, which are like Prador-in-waiting.
The human contigent, the Polity, use runcibles which are like giant stargates, to jump from location to location, evading the Prador and rescuing those ravaged by the enemy. They also have A.I.s which the Prador lack, and Golems, which are like robotic soldier surrogates. As well as this tech they have augments, which are positioned behind the ear and connect directly to the brain as well as a kind of internet for augments. The user can access information from other users instantaneously and so communicate silently-the Prador lack either of these technologies and rely on brute force and sheer impressive size-they inpsire fear in anyone meeting them and are able to destroy entire planets. (I certainly wouldnt want to meet one!) Their size however is a disadvantage for them as when on human transports/planets they often are unable to fit through doorways and have to find alternate routes.

This is fast paced gripping stuff, very 'now', very big and immense fun! Others have criticized its shortness-its just 222 pages long, but I liked that as it makes everything fast paced and i find it much easier to read a short novel at the moment (things will change in the future!)
I finished the book in 4 days which shows how un-put downable it was! Excellent story, will definitely be reading more by this author!
5 stars-10/10 whatever you choose to use-its a good un-best read so far for 2010!

 

[Ian Whates]

Good review, AE35Unit. Just a very minor quibble. You refer to this as the 'first in the polity series', and while in the internal chronology of the Polity Universe that's true, it's by no means the first the author has written in that milieu, being, if anything, something of a late addition.

Oh, and if you think this is good, just wait until you pick up one of the Ian Cormac books, or The Skinner. You've a lot of great reading ahead of you.

 

[AE35Unit]

Good review, AE35Unit. Just a very minor quibble. You refer to this as the 'first in the polity series', and while in the internal chronology of the Polity Universe that's true, it's by no means the first the author has written in that milieu, being, if anything, something of a late addition.

Ah yes, i was going by this listing on FF:

Polity
1. Prador Moon (2006)
3. Shadow of the Scorpion (2008)
Hilldiggers (2007)
The Gabble: And Other Stories (2008)
The Technician (2010)

Not sure where number 2 is!

 

[Patrick Mahon]

Not sure what kind of list they were trying to compile on FF, AE, but that's not a complete list of the Polity novels. I think it's a list of the standalone ones. Most of the early Polity novels are about the adventures of Agent Cormac, starting with Gridlinked, The Line of Polity, Brass Man, Polity Agent and Line War.

Neal's got a list on his area here on Chrons - have a look at post #3 on http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/47693-new-books.html , for example.

 

[Neal Asher]

Order of the books.

The Cormac series:

1.Gridlinked 2. The Line of Polity 3. Brass Man 4. Polity Agent 5. Line War

The Spatterjay series:

1. The Skinner 2. The Voyage of the Sable Keech 3. Orbus

Stand alones:

Prador Moon – the start of the Prador-human war and set before the above two series.
Shadow of the Scorpion – Cormac’s early years just after the Prador-human war.
Hilldiggers – a novel set after all the above
The Gabble – a collection of stories in the above future
The Engineer ReConditioned – a collection of short stories.
Runcible Tales – six short stories in a chapbook
Cowl – time-travel novel (completely separate from the above)
The Technician – book set after the rebellion on Masada (The Line of Polity)

 

[AE35Unit]

Thanks for that Neal. So the books tied in a series follow on directly from each other, unlike the stand alones which may also contain characters from the series books. (Shadow of the Scorpion for example features Cormac who is found in another series)

 

[Rodders]

These do sound very interesting. I still need to pick these up.

Are the Cormac and Spatterjay series also in the same "Universe"? or are they a seperate series completely?

 

[AE35Unit]

These do sound very interesting. I still need to pick these up.

Are the Cormac and Spatterjay series also in the same "Universe"? or are they a seperate series completely?

Well I think the Spatterjay books are a seperate universe,not sure. You'll notice that Cormac shows up in a couple of the standalones (not Prador Moon tho) as well as in the Cormac series.

 

[Neal Asher]

Same future history for both.

 

[Danny McG]

Same future history for both.

This dude should know!