Monday 7 December 2009

SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW: The Gabble and Other Stories - Neal Asher

BOOK BLURB:

‘What has six arms, a large beak, looks like a pyramid, has more eyes than you’d expect and talks nonsense? If you don’t know the answer to that, then 1) you should and 2) you haven’t been reading Neal Asher (see point 1)’ Jon Courtenay Grimwood

In the eight years since his first full-length novel Gridlinked was published by Pan Macmillan, Neal Asher has firmly established himself as one of the leading British writers of Science Fiction, and his novels are now translated in many languages. Most of his stories are set in a galactic future-scape called ‘The Polity’, and with this collection of marvellously inventive and action-packed short stories, he takes us further into the manifold diversities of that amazing universe.

No one does monsters better than Neal Asher, so be prepared to revisit the lives and lifestyles of such favourites as the gabbleduck and the hooder, to savour alien poisons, the walking dead, the Sea of Death, and the putrefactor symbiont.


REVIEW:

Those who have fallen in love with Neal’s Polity series will more than be pleased with this collection of short stories as he continues to expand the universe in his own indomitable style as his universe building is perhaps one of the ones without par at the moment. Its beautifully written with a reality of blood, death, disease and of course slaughter as races come together in mankinds expansion. It’s a cracking offering and one that is a good book to dip into if you just want a quick fix until the next novel. Personally I wouldn’t advise reading this title if you’ve missed the rest of the series as I don’t think you’ll get the full scope without it but it’s definitely a worthy addition to your Polity collection and one that if you can sneak it in will make many fans Christmas dreams come true.

1 comment:

Neal Asher said...

Hey, thanks for that!