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3.93 AVERAGE
3.93 AVERAGE
Tak Stahovače jsem přečetl na doporučení Good reads a musím říct že tak drsnou psychedelickou jízdu jsem naposledy zažil u Vurtu Jeffa Noona. Jedná se o náhled na budoucnost galaktické civilizace, konkrétně na jednu planetu Spatterjay, kde velmi podivní virus zajišťuje lidem zdánlivou nesmrtelnost. Kniha obsahuje velmi rozdílné hlavní postavy – služebníka úlu, vzkříšenou mrtvolu, planetární UI nebo například tisíce let staré kapitány. I když je hlavních i vedlejších postav přehršel jsou všechny velmi výrazné a osobité. Autorovi také nedělá problém psychologii postav náležitě obhájit a uvěřitelně vysvětlit jejich chování. Prostě kdo jenom trochu měl rád Vurt je pro něho Stahovač jasná volba.
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I have find Neal Asher by goodreads recommendation and I was blown away. Last time I experienced a similar psychedelic ride it was when I read Vurt from Jeff Noon. In The Skinner we can peek at a big galactic civilization but main story happens on the edge of this civilization on the planet Spatterjay where a peculiar virus make his inhabitants almost immortal. The book has several main and minor characters but all of them pulse with live and their motives are very clear. If you like Vurt a little bit then you would love The Skinner.
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I have find Neal Asher by goodreads recommendation and I was blown away. Last time I experienced a similar psychedelic ride it was when I read Vurt from Jeff Noon. In The Skinner we can peek at a big galactic civilization but main story happens on the edge of this civilization on the planet Spatterjay where a peculiar virus make his inhabitants almost immortal. The book has several main and minor characters but all of them pulse with live and their motives are very clear. If you like Vurt a little bit then you would love The Skinner.
The other reviews say it all. Beautiful writing, believable characters, unbelievable world where it all takes place. A new favorite.
Interesting concept at play however there's just too much drab for it to be effective.
There were good parts, don't get me wrong, but the bad parts are so overwhelming in this book.
While I can understand from a philosophical point of view the attempt at establishing the local fauna in an interesting way the reality is that it's just too badly described. All the chapter epigraphs are ridiculous in this respect.
And in the last part of the book Asher discovers the word "dingle" and just doesn't let go. At least his use of obscure words is somewhat more diminished since his first book.
The only reason I don't rate this as 1 star is the relationship between Sniper and SM13. Actually Sniper turns out a really nice character. It also had a more decent ending than the first 2 Cormac books.
There were good parts, don't get me wrong, but the bad parts are so overwhelming in this book.
While I can understand from a philosophical point of view the attempt at establishing the local fauna in an interesting way the reality is that it's just too badly described. All the chapter epigraphs are ridiculous in this respect.
And in the last part of the book Asher discovers the word "dingle" and just doesn't let go. At least his use of obscure words is somewhat more diminished since his first book.
The only reason I don't rate this as 1 star is the relationship between Sniper and SM13. Actually Sniper turns out a really nice character. It also had a more decent ending than the first 2 Cormac books.
My first time reading Neal Asher was a far future bizarro science fiction short novel called Africa Zero. This is a longer more epic tale, but it is also one of the most bizarro modern Sci-fi novels I have read. It has sold me on Asher as a bold new voice. Entertainment weekly called it Dune meets Master and Commander and I can't disagree with that. The plot and and setting are so strange that I struggled a little bit trying to explain it to others.
It takes place in the same “universe” as Asher's first novel Grindlinked, I have not read that yet, but I don't think I suffered much for it. This is a stand alone novel.
Not since Dune has the landscape and ecosystem of a world come to such vivid life. What is most exciting about that is Spatterjay, the planet where skinner takes is what a horrible place to be the planet is. It makes the novel feel icky in a way. This is not a world where you want to take a vacation. SpatterJay, named after Jay Hooper the human who found the planet is mostly ocean. But the planet is teaming with life, including leeches both giant and small. The ecosystem is so interactive after a few bites from the leeches human are integrated in way that makes them almost immortal. Jay was using this unique ecosystem to take murdered humans, re-animated and devoid of life to be sold to the Prador, a crab like race the humans were at war with.
Humans who live on the planet are called Hoopers, and most have lived hundreds of years constantly being rebuilt by the leeches. This is explained well as two hoopers in one part fight in a tearing each other up, their bodies keep repairing themselves.
The book opens following a few humans as they arrive on the planet. My favorite of the characters are Sable Keech And Janer. Keech is A monitor (Basically a cop) who has been hunting a this planet's funder for 700 years after his death. How is that you ask? He is cybernetic his dead body linked to computer that stored his mind. His target is not doing much better, Jay Hooper's (known also as the Skinner) body has been living with out his head. Spatterjay seas captains have been keeping it alive in a box.
As for Janer he is a human who was punished for killing a hornet after he served his time as host to a hive mind of sentient hornets. After his time is up he stayed with the hive mind and is traveling the universe looking for adventure.
At the same time the human race is in a time of peace after years of war with the Prador,but They also want to kill the skinner and any other witness to the war crimes they committed together. The only part of the novel I did not enjoy were the seemingly endless battles between the Polity A.I. Who oversaw the planet and the Prador. That stuff wore me down a bit in the last 100 pages.
None the less I loved this inventive, brutal and super fucking weird science fiction epic. Asher made a fan out of me with this novel and I'll check out his other work for sure. Along with Richard K. Morgan, Neal Asher and China Mieville it seems the most exciting speculative fiction belongs to england.
Určitě nadprůměrná sci fi. Spusta nápadá, neokoukaný a originální svět, kde se děj odehrává, stejně tak postavy. Spousta zajímavých myšlenek a motivů. Možná ty zoologické vsuvky do příběhu mohly být strečnější ale zas to tolik nevadilo. Za mně dobrý.
adventurous
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I found the character concepts very interesting and it had a few ideas I hadn't encountered before. As there are characters who are incredibly old I hoped they would have gone into the way people deal with that a bit more but understand that it may have interfered with the pacing.
Review in a sentence:
Sci-fi on the high seas exploring long lives, betrayals and sentient sails.
The trouble with having a wide circle of tastes in reading can sometimes feel like working through that moving belt in sushi bar. It’s hard sometimes to resist the new foods right in front of you in order wait for what you’ve had before and loved to come around. Especially when you trust the chef to serve only foods that you’ll like.
Or at least that’s my current excuse for why I’ve been filling my time with new to me authors rather than working my way through author back catalogues. That and last year I got into the silly habit of reading more than one book at a time. It really doesn’t work.
And The Skinner became a victim of that failed multi tasking and in some ways it’s also the solution. This is the first audiobook review I’ve done. But The Skinner isn’t my first audiobook.
What got me into audiobooks was joining the gym last year and needing something to listen to. Music just doesn’t do it for me. But audiobooks fill my mind and keep my going on treadmills and weight machines. Or they did now I’m more likely to listen on breaks and whilst relaxing in the bath.
Anyway, after two goes at getting into The Skinner on paper and failing to get past 149 pages on the second go I found it on Audible a couple of months ago. Now I always have to listen to them and decide if the narrator is absorbing or annoying and William Gaminara is absorbing and perfect for this book.
Partly why he worked for me because of not only the voices he uses but he also gives them accents – the sea captains remind me of gruff Scotts, the mercenaries as Africans – which you may feel is stereotyping but it’s more about encompassing character and attitude. And it adds texture.
But an absorbing reader needs material is what Gaminara has to read at that really makes something worth listening to or not. And the story of The Skinner is multifaceted to say the list. To start with you have Erlin, searching for an ancient sea captain who can teach her a meaning to life, Janer, bringing hornets and their Hive mind to Spatterjay, and Sable Keech, on a vendetta to avenge the events of the past.
Each of these three character are distinct in their backgrounds and their reasons for being on Spatterjay and their connections to the Polity universe. The Polity is an AI led technologically advanced society. Spatterjay is not part of the Polity but does fall under it’s protection and has it’s own warden AI, which is handy as the alien Prador are about to interfere in Spatterjay affairs.
I can’t decide my favourite thread but I’m torn between that of the warden and Sable Keech but only because the bits that contain the warden and his subminds were fun to listen to especially the fighting banter. Keech being the investigator of the tale is the most active and his explorations give the context to not only the origins of the skinner (as a character) but also the current state of Spatterjay that has remained the same for several hundred years.
Though this story is all about changing the status quo on this brutal world. Asher is clever how he shows this brutality from showing a character having his guts spilled out from a wound opening his stomach only to be walking around as if nothing happened a short time later as well and from de-fleshed fish that swims away quite happily afterwards.
Splatterjay contains a complex virus that not only repairs it’s hosts but also converts them into leech like creatures if they aren’t careful and all the creatures of Splatterjay are susceptible in some way with most carrying the virus.
Now a world filled with character that hard to kill and a character called the skinner you might be able to imagine what could happen. But whatever has happened is in the past but is part of the reaons for Sable Keech’s arrival.
This is very much a book of transformation and survival. And through each of the threads all the main and several of the secondary characters go through their own transformations as they try to survive.
Asher’s skill is not only in creation but using those ideas, even in a book that’s mostly about boats to look into the meaning of life and the potential for humanity as well as using some awesome weapons and technology.
Luckily this only the beginning as The Voyage of the Stable Keech (again read by William Gaminara) carries on from where this one finishes but I have no idea where that ship is sailing mostly because Erlin, Janer and Keech are internally and in some cases external changed by their journey so far and I think Asher has a few more secrets as well as tricks up his sleeve.
Sci-fi on the high seas exploring long lives, betrayals and sentient sails.
The trouble with having a wide circle of tastes in reading can sometimes feel like working through that moving belt in sushi bar. It’s hard sometimes to resist the new foods right in front of you in order wait for what you’ve had before and loved to come around. Especially when you trust the chef to serve only foods that you’ll like.
Or at least that’s my current excuse for why I’ve been filling my time with new to me authors rather than working my way through author back catalogues. That and last year I got into the silly habit of reading more than one book at a time. It really doesn’t work.
And The Skinner became a victim of that failed multi tasking and in some ways it’s also the solution. This is the first audiobook review I’ve done. But The Skinner isn’t my first audiobook.
What got me into audiobooks was joining the gym last year and needing something to listen to. Music just doesn’t do it for me. But audiobooks fill my mind and keep my going on treadmills and weight machines. Or they did now I’m more likely to listen on breaks and whilst relaxing in the bath.
Anyway, after two goes at getting into The Skinner on paper and failing to get past 149 pages on the second go I found it on Audible a couple of months ago. Now I always have to listen to them and decide if the narrator is absorbing or annoying and William Gaminara is absorbing and perfect for this book.
Partly why he worked for me because of not only the voices he uses but he also gives them accents – the sea captains remind me of gruff Scotts, the mercenaries as Africans – which you may feel is stereotyping but it’s more about encompassing character and attitude. And it adds texture.
But an absorbing reader needs material is what Gaminara has to read at that really makes something worth listening to or not. And the story of The Skinner is multifaceted to say the list. To start with you have Erlin, searching for an ancient sea captain who can teach her a meaning to life, Janer, bringing hornets and their Hive mind to Spatterjay, and Sable Keech, on a vendetta to avenge the events of the past.
Each of these three character are distinct in their backgrounds and their reasons for being on Spatterjay and their connections to the Polity universe. The Polity is an AI led technologically advanced society. Spatterjay is not part of the Polity but does fall under it’s protection and has it’s own warden AI, which is handy as the alien Prador are about to interfere in Spatterjay affairs.
I can’t decide my favourite thread but I’m torn between that of the warden and Sable Keech but only because the bits that contain the warden and his subminds were fun to listen to especially the fighting banter. Keech being the investigator of the tale is the most active and his explorations give the context to not only the origins of the skinner (as a character) but also the current state of Spatterjay that has remained the same for several hundred years.
Though this story is all about changing the status quo on this brutal world. Asher is clever how he shows this brutality from showing a character having his guts spilled out from a wound opening his stomach only to be walking around as if nothing happened a short time later as well and from de-fleshed fish that swims away quite happily afterwards.
Splatterjay contains a complex virus that not only repairs it’s hosts but also converts them into leech like creatures if they aren’t careful and all the creatures of Splatterjay are susceptible in some way with most carrying the virus.
Now a world filled with character that hard to kill and a character called the skinner you might be able to imagine what could happen. But whatever has happened is in the past but is part of the reaons for Sable Keech’s arrival.
This is very much a book of transformation and survival. And through each of the threads all the main and several of the secondary characters go through their own transformations as they try to survive.
Asher’s skill is not only in creation but using those ideas, even in a book that’s mostly about boats to look into the meaning of life and the potential for humanity as well as using some awesome weapons and technology.
Luckily this only the beginning as The Voyage of the Stable Keech (again read by William Gaminara) carries on from where this one finishes but I have no idea where that ship is sailing mostly because Erlin, Janer and Keech are internally and in some cases external changed by their journey so far and I think Asher has a few more secrets as well as tricks up his sleeve.
This book is ambitious! Pirates, gore, aliens, AI, romance... the world building is impressive especially considering this is just the first of several installments. It’s a ride.
Meant for a man.
Reading this book is a little like walking into a middle school boys’ locker room: hit with the smell of Axe and desperation. It was far too much testosterone for me.
But I won’t judge you for reading and enjoying this book, guys. I happen to love glittery vampires.
Meant for a man.
Reading this book is a little like walking into a middle school boys’ locker room: hit with the smell of Axe and desperation. It was far too much testosterone for me.
But I won’t judge you for reading and enjoying this book, guys. I happen to love glittery vampires.
Not my cup of tea I listened to all of it but could not get into at all