The Skinner

✍ Scribed by Neal Asher

• Publisher: MacMillan
• Year: 2002
• Tongue: en-GB
• Weight: 259 KB
• Category: Fiction

✦ Synopsis

From Publishers Weekly

With his second novel (after 2003's Gridlinked), a rousing space opera, Asher takes us to Spatterjay, a deadly planet reminiscent of that in Harry Harrison's 1960 classic Deathworld. Spatterjay has Earth-equivalent gravity and a breathable atmosphere, but it overflows with inimical life forms, from gruesome leeches that grow to the size of sharks to horrific glisters, gigantic shellfish that will eat anything. Worse still, all of Spatterjay's life forms are infected with a virus that makes them virtually invulnerable to harm. Most of the few human inhabitants are also infected with the virus. Ruling loosely over the world are the superhumanly strong Old Captains, who spend their days aboard ships fishing the planet's dangerous waters. Three off-worlders land on Spatterjay: the depressed Erlin, who has returned after many years to find Ambel, an Old Captain whom she hopes will give her a reason to go on living; Keech, a long-dead former police monitor kept cybernetically alive who hopes to hunt down the last of a group of murderous pirates; and Janer, essentially a tourist who acts as eyes and transport for a hive mind. Unbeknownst to the three, however, other more unsavory intelligences, some human, some alien, are gathering with evil intent. Though his fiction is less thoughtful than that of Ken MacLeod, Iain M. Banks and some of the other top British genre writers, Asher will definitely appeal to connoisseurs of sophisticated adventure-oriented SF.
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From

Three travelers land in the Dome on Spatterjay: Janer, who works for a hornet hive mind; Erlin, who has the Spatterjay virus, which makes the infected practically immortal, and is looking for Ambel, an old captain; and Keech, centuries dead but still pursuing his mission to punish Hoop's crew. Hundreds of years ago, there was a war with the alien Prador, who use human "blanks" as their motile units, and Hoop and his crew, original Spatterjay settlers, provided the Prador with blanks infected with the virus and tougher than the average human. Rebecca Frisk, Hoop's former mistress, is also on Spatterjay, transported by the Prador (so they're back in the picture, too), to kill Keech and find what's left of Hoop--the head of the Skinner, which is part of Ambel's cargo. The Prador just aim to kill every witness to their actions during the war. In a massive showdown at Skinner's Island, old battles are finally resolved. Throughout, Asher beautifully realizes the background to this wild adventure. Regina Schroeder
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