Take a photo of a barcode or cover
sarah_mazza 's review for:
The Skinner
by Neal Asher
This novel started out engaging, based in a highly detailed world with many novel concepts. The culture, history, infrastructure and the types of creatures that inhabited this world were well developed and thoroughly thought out and explained - to the point where, for me personally, it became exhausting and highly repetitive. I felt I was being told, in detail, the same concepts again and again. The narrative paused, many, many times, so the characters could battle or be mauled by the very dangerous fish in this world's sea. I found that this overshadowed many of the other clever elements in the story, such as the effects of immortality on the human psyche over centuries (a point also driven home repetitively) or the ascending of beastlike creatures to a higher intelligence. Other fantastic ideas included a character who was connected to a hive mind, and another who was an animated, embalmed corpse, kept functioning and intelligent by technology. Unfortunately, I became so unengaged by the repetitive nature of this story, that I didn't finish the last 10-20% of the book.
A quick disclaimer: when I picked up this book I didn't realise 90% of the story would be set at sea, on a mostly medieval style ship, which would normally make me steer clear of a book, because it is a theme I don't enjoy.
A quick disclaimer: when I picked up this book I didn't realise 90% of the story would be set at sea, on a mostly medieval style ship, which would normally make me steer clear of a book, because it is a theme I don't enjoy.