Skinner by Neal Asher

Someone recommended me this book at International Book Festival/Exhibition or whatever it was exactly. I decided to finally read this book and I had no idea what to expect. What would you expect from a tagline 'Welcome to Spatterjay, where sudden death is the normal way of life?'.

I had no idea what this meant till it was partially described in the book. I have to say I like the idea, the way it is written but don't make me imagine even a single scene from the book. And I thought that some scenes from The Gap Series would have stayed the worst ones for me (in terms of imagination).

So what is the book about?

Imagine an ocean planet, where in the water dwell monstrosities you can't even imagine. Amongst them leeches which transmit a virus that forces regrowth - thus the leeches won't run out of food. Not just animals can be infected, humans can get the virus too. Some human colonists - the Old Captains - have been infected and stayed alive for centuries. By eating human food they manage to stay human rather than turning into a monster that knows only survival. One of the Old Captains though became 'native' (inhuman thus) and his head was severed from his body. The head being confined in a box on board of one Hooper ship.

Other 'characters' that come in play are
- the AI policing Spatterjay (the Warden), its subminds.
- One submind (Sniper) which got its own personality.
- Human ECS monitor Keech - a 700 hundred years dead person who still wants to kill all those people involve in an old war.
- Erlin, who comes back to the planet to question herself if continuing in her life is a good thing
- Janer, human working for Hive mind intelligence that has its own plan with the planet

Later in the book we find out that an alien - Ebulan - fearing that his acts from the war won't be forgotten wants to destroy the planet. What started 700 hundred years ago is now coming to an end. Maybe?

This science fiction book is written in a quite slow pace that accelerates to a really fast narrative. At the beginning of each chapter we get a bit of information about the food chain of the sea monstrosities. With each page we find out more about the everyday horrors the inhabitants of this planet have to stand. In all this harsh and gory environment Asher managed to put a lot of humor in the book. Scenes with the war drone Sniper will make you laugh. Especially when Sniper gets 'eaten' by a molly carp and has to wait till the natural biological process gets him out of the intestines (at least he got some time to charge himself^_~). Windcheater is another interesting and funny character in the book (a sail^_^ not really sure how to describe this species... they worked as sails for lumps of meat... until Windcheater with an intelligence augmentation showed up).

I really appreciated to read this book. Thanks to the unknown person who recommended it to me. ^_^

Personal Rating: 4/5