The Voyage of the Sable Keech

So, another novel that I really should have read five or six years ago, as Asher returns to the "Monty Python on crystal meth" world of Spatterjay, featuring a whole raft of POV characters; most of whom are coping with personal issues of major existential import. Nominally most important is one Taylor Bloc, one of Asher's take on the concept of a zombie, who has a clever scheme to revivify himself in the same fashion as Sable Keech, and who now reads as a satirical composite take on our own class of wannabe overlord "tech bro" entrepreneurs. His agenda is nominally driving the plot; at least Bloc thinks so.

This is as opposed to the Prador Vrell, another survivor of the first book, and whose agenda is simply to get off the damn planet show more before it kills him. This exercise in competency porn, Prador-style, will not be as easy as it looks. As for myself, I can always make time to read Asher's chronicle of the ghastly shenanigans of the Prador species.

Responding to other reviewers of this novel, yes, it is a bit bloated, as one would expect with more than half a dozen POV characters, but Asher was really coming into his own in this book in terms of his ability to build an intricate plot machine that blows up real good. I will not be taking the better part of a generation to get to the third book in this set. show less

Does anyone remember the time when SF was all about the weird and wonderful? When it was all about the strangest aliens and incomprehensible worlds? When awe met terror, spiced it up with truly amazing worldbuilding, and then threw us into a really F***ed up world?

I do. I've been chasing that feeling ever since I was a kid... and then I read these Spatterjay books and I'm an 8-year-old again, getting terrified out of my mind by all the things I imagine might be out there if not exactly terrified by what I'm actually finding.

What would my 8-year-old self do upon finding Spatterjay?

Hmmm... I might have to rave about it right until the point I was put away in the children's psychiatric ward. :) What could be more horror driven than a show more world where nothing dies because the spatterjay virus keeps rebuilding EVERYTHING there? Just think about the most horrible creatures that you could find there, especially in Asher's mind... *ahem hooder ahem* or think about the old 1000 year old boat captains who never die... who just get stronger... or how about the truly unfortunate victims who get chopped up and spread to the four corners to become fish bait only to later become mindless living husks as part of even stranger creatures... or become stranger swimming creatures themselves. *shiver*

Or in this case, Sable Keech. The re-living. Walking corpses with AI crystals and programming keeping them alive... only to be yanked back into the living world thanks to this special virus. :)

Truly. This kind of imagination is extraordinary. Not only does Asher explore so many avenues and throw in some of the most amazing characters, he does it by writing novels about high-tech pirates and undead captains and many-limbed monsters not limited to the Prador. :)

As an adventure, it's awesome. As a visual extravaganza with enough scathing creativity making me wish this was a full-budget Hollywood special-effects monstrosity to drool over for years, it's even more than awesome. I'd give my left nut to see this on the screen.

Just saying. My mind would be blown. show less

Asher returns to the world of Spatterjay in this sequal to 'The Skinner', but apart from making a few quid, I don't know why. I'm a big fan of Neal Asher, but I have to admit I was a bit dissapointed by this effort.

I think the reason I couldn't really enjoy this novel is twofold, firstly, it is rather similar to the previous book set on Spatterjay, and second, I really couldn't get into the driving character, walking deadman Taylor Bloc.

Asher still does some things brilliantly though, his never sated wildlife creations are fantastic, from the hammer whelks, the whirling prill and the humungous whelkus titanicus, this novel crawls with a multitude of hugely dangerous beasties. And as if the various forms of hungry death available on show more Spatterjay were not enough, someone has managed to import another of Asher's monstrous creations, a Hooder, onto the planet, let the blood and mayhem begin then.

For me, the sequences with Spatterjays biofauna worked better than the plot itself, which picks up al the threads seen in the first book, Sniper gets a bigger drone body, dead people seek resurrection, Prador kill everything that crosses their alien path, Old Captains do, well, pretty much whatever they want to, who could stop them ?

I loved the elongated chase sequence as the giant whelk seeks revenge for it's consumed brood, but Taylor Bloc's search for truth and viral rebirth wasn't as compelling.

This is still a fair sf novel, but check out 'The Skinner', 'Gridlinked' and 'Line Of Polity' to read Asher at his best. show less

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Title: The Voyage of the Sable Keech
Series: Polity: Spatterjay #2
Author: Neal Asher
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 593
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

Taylor Bloc, a reif and new leader of what is left of the Cult of Anubis the Risen, commissions a gigantic ship to be built on Spatterjay. He convinces all of the remaining cult reifs and a lot of those who had left, to pay for a voyage following in the footsteps of Sable Keech and at the end of show more voyage this will allow them all to undergo the change and get their original bodies back, just like Keech. He hires a bunch of Hoopers, convinces Janers Anders to come along and kidnaps Erlan to get her on board. Throw in that the Hive Mind Janers is working for is now dealing with another hive mind, the fact that Bloc is insane and controlling a hooder with Prador thrawl tech and that some golems show up on board without anyone knowing why and bam, you have a situation.

On top of that, Vrell, the young prador from the previous book survives and makes it to his now dead father's ship. He is infecteed with the spatterjay virus and doesn't know what that is going to lead to. A Prador war vessel comes from the Prador Kingdom on direct orders from the King to make sure that Vrell doesn't get off Spatterjay alive. Somehow the King has mastered the virus himself and doesn't want any but his descendants to have access to the powers it gives a prador. So it is up to Sniper, a Polity wardrone, to save a prador so said prador can cause chaos in the kingdom. Talk about irony.

The final storyline follows a giant whelk. Think a giant slug with tentacles and a conch shell. It is hunting down Erlan for killing one of it's offspring but gets sidetracked and ends up going after some other Hooper ships. A lot of carnage happens, a LOT!

In the end the golems are revealed as agents of the other hivemind, which is having an argument with itself and can't decide if splitting into 2 minds is worse than death or not. It decides to die. Sable Keech is revealed as one of the reifs, as he has been hunting down Blok for crimes in the Polity. Sniper and Polity AI come to an agreement with Vrell. The whelk gives up on her revenge and just has more babies.

My Thoughts:

Dropped this a whole star because of the giant whelk rape/sex scene. Yes, you read that right. Asher delivers a gigantic “nature in the raw” sex scene. Including a corkscrew penis. What the frack man!?!?!?!?!?!? And why the heck didn't I think to warn myself about it back in my review in 2011? I'm wondering if I repressed the whole thing.

Other than that, this was probably just as gory and violence filled as The Skinner. Of course, throwing a hooder into the mix was guaranteed to do that! I think this trilogy is the high tide of Asher's violence. I don't remember any of his other books quite reaching the heights scaled here. Some may be sad, some may be happy about that. I for one am in the sad group. Aliens and entrail ripping just go together in my book. Like peanutbutter and pickles on toast.

I liked this book. I liked all the various storylines and how they fleshed out each other even while not necessarily being needed for each other. I liked the few times that we really got to see the Old Captains in action. I thought the prador Vrell's storyline was the weakest. However, it did really come across to me just how long ago the Prador/Polity war was. It didn't happen 15 years ago. It's been long enough that most people aren't even sure it actually DID take place. Not only does the space continuum of the Polity continue to expand with each book, but so does the time side of things. This is a firmly established universe and little things like that remind us the readers of that fact.

One regret'y type thing is that after this trilogy I don't think we see the Hive Minds again. I would really like to see a book dedicated to that at some point. Oh well, if it hasn't happened by now, it probably won't.

★★★★☆ show less

Neal Asher now has a fairly long catalogue of science fiction thrillers to his name. They are not attempts to examine political or social or philosophical questions or to investigate "the human condition." They are entertainments. This is neither the best nor the worst of them.

Asher takes us back to the wet and violent world of Spatterjay, first encountered in Skinner, where a virus with astonishing properties infects every type of animal and confers on them longevity and the ability to survive extreme injury. The virus also infects the the human population of the planet, to the same result, but with serious side effects that must be kept under control.

The plot involves many of the characters from Skinner and though not essential, show more reading Skinner first will certainly confer greater enjoyment of this sequel. I found it to be a weaker story than Skinner provides, too, perhaps because I was less engaged by the returning characters. I found myself routing for the nameless but interesting whelkus titanicus perhaps more than I should have....

The real strength of this book is in its very carefully worked out eco-system of violent predators and prey and the way the virus has influenced its development along with the development of the human society living on Spatterjay, but most of it is familiar from Skinner. Interestingly, the other Asher novel I would class as being the equal in quality of Skinner (Line of Polity) also has an eco-system of extreme predators - this time living on land for the most part rather than in an island dotted world-ocean.

If you've enjoyed other Asher novels, you will probably enjoy this one; if you haven't read any this isn't the place to start - find the first book set in this universe (Gridlinked) instead. Don't expect profoundity from any of them, though. show less

A good riproaring violent scifi adventure. Where else but the Polity universe do we get robot pteradactyls, sentient wasps, animated corpses, nigh indestructible sailors, giant crablike'ish aliens, supersmart AI's, sailing boats and lasers?

I couldn't have asked for a better framework. I think that this novel fits right in with all the other Polity novels by Asher. Not the place to start, but a good continuation.

Brilliant imagination, every facet of the world is deeply polished. Slightly laboured story, but the action carries you along.