The Voyage of the Sable Keech: The Second Spatterjay Novel

Completely suitable sequel to The Skinner! What really separated The Skinner from the rest of the sc-fi out here today was, remarkably, such a simple thing: details, details and details. And not the kind of details which spawns a 1,000 page monster like Hamilton, but details in the sense that the original idea was so well thought out that endless sentences and chapters and stories could be written about the world. Such is Spatterjay! Asher continues with the depth of detail of the Spatterjay pecking-order fauna in the Voyage. The scenes of grisly injury to the fauna, humans and corpses adds real spark as well as the remarkable deaths and always enjoyable dismemberments. AND there's a perfectly paced plot, what more could one want? Well, here's a short list of what to expect: * Weapons galore and their grisly outcomes * Wry humor from the AI wardrone Sniper * Humorous dialogue between oddballs * War, bluffs and repercussions

Exciting and engaging read -- back to the world of SpatterJay, but somehow kinder and less scary than other books in the series. A little long perhaps for the ideas within -- seems to go on rather long, without much new content.

If you enjoyed The Skinner, you will love this latest excursion to the insanely dangerous waterworld of Spatterjay. I really had a good time with this book! It has all the elements I like about Asher's Polity stories, including his sheer creative exuberance. Viruses, hive minds, voracious monsters, exotic weapons, giant whelks, this has it all! Complexly plotted, fast-moving, bursting with action, swarming with extremely nasty alien life forms and featuring some ace futuristic military tech, this is a novel which will immensely please Asher's existing fans and will get him plenty of new fans too. Acquire this book now!

I can't quite lay my finger on what exactly makes Mr. Asher's stuff flow so smoothly, or how he seems to create such a fantastic futuristic but dead real seeming world. Voyage, despite my promises to read it slowly, is one of those books that just swiftly changes your priorities for you. Neal has mastered the art of switching focus between plots and sub-plots, main characters and minor to such a degree, that he switches plots at the exact right moment to hold up momentum for the plot being switched from and cleanly into the next. it's art. voyage comes as a follow up to the classic "the skinner" which i suggest you read first, though, he does a brilliant job of making the book stand on it's on, with just the right amount of back story. the world is Spatterjay, where a virus left to it's own devices for untold time, has produced immortality in it's hosts. combine this with a dark past with human slave trade with an alien race known as Prador, and mysterious Hive minds jockeying for possession of Sprine, the one substance known to kill the Spatterjay virus, and it's host, and it virtual chaos, as a ship full of "reifs" attempt to re-create the voyage of Sable Keech, the own known reif to successfully come back from the dead. seems like this would be to busy of a storyline, but asher weaves it together in a style i personally have grown to love. five stars isn't enough.