Prador Moon

Here's the tale of first contact with Prador and humanity... it doesn't go well but makes for a helluva good adventure. I've read Asher's two Spatterjay novels which include the Prador aliens, technology and everything Prador. Just from those two awesome books (Spatterjay fauna, weapons, war and gore) the Prador seemed to be an interesting and fun addition to Asher's novels. Now here in Prador Moon, the first contact and hence first war unfolds... and it, too, is awesome for the same reasons: weapons, war and gore! Sure, the characters are fairly plain but with Prador Moon you're reading it JUST for its excitement. Asher doesn;t let the reader down in this regard. Particle cannons, numerous dismemberment, augmentations, alcohol and wry humor... the combination keeps on working! Truly detestable aliens with heroic cast and keen plot. Blessed.

I do hope Neal Asher has the habit of reading his readers' reviews, because the title is what I would ask him should I have the chance. If I cannot say that this is one of his best so far - the novels of agent Ian Cormac still being my favourites - Prador Moon finally started shedding some light on the war against the Prador. So far, but for a little in The Skinner and in The Voyage of the Sable Keech, the whole affair with the Prador was just part of the overall picture, if an intriguing part of it. The looming menace of this alien race, that emerged "between the lines" of the other books, and the echo of something so cruel in the old war to be best forgot, kept arising my curiosity. Let's be frank, everybody appreciates an old-style, monster-like, warfaring, man-eating alien race from time to time; it is refreshing after the more politically-correct way to depict the aliens we got used to lately. Understand me: there tonns of sci-fi sagas devoted to the genre, but most of them are too simplistic, absolutely not original, badly written; in a nutshell: bad, like a movie full of special effects but totally lacking an interesting script. Everything we love of Asher' style is here, instead: action, ideas, credible characters and a good storyline. More of the same, please, Mr. Asher.

Neal Asher's PRADOR MOON (2006) is similar in many ways to the BERSERKER stories written by Fred Saberhagen. The big difference is that the ruthless BERSERKER machine enemy is replaced the a Crab-like PRADOR enemy, and the humans are basically ruled by Artificial Intelligences (who are somewhat akin to a benevolent version of The BERSERKERS). The PRADOR treat their human hostages worse than cattle, performing live vivisection experiments on them in attempts to perform mind-control or biological weapons research... and they tend to eat their human captives, once they have no further use for them. The space travel (and other) technologies are well done, and the idea of an AI class of beings that at some time in the future evolve to the point that they are able to rule over mankind's domain is interesting. While the character development is a bit shallow, there is plenty of action and battle scenes, which are done in a much different way than the many other Military SciFi authors(Drake, Weber, Haldeman, Hamilton, et. al.), or hostile alien encounter authors (Turtledove, Foster, etc.) have already produced.

The action takes place in the runcible universe we know and love but predates the Pradors' discovery of the Spatterjay virus. Energetically written and operatic in style i read it one one sitting and was left wanting more - perhaps the next installment could clarify how the accord (described in Asher's other books) between Prador and Polity was brokered. If you are a fan of Asher's then this won't dissapoint.