

Doc Smith and Olaf Stapledon in a blender, turned up to eleven, with the contents splattering across the ceiling.” ?Russell Letson, Locus “Asher has an amazing talent for world-building, for writing larger-than-life characters, for weaving gripping plots and for imagining exotic alien races and wonderful technologies. Praise for The Skinner “An exhilarating tour through one of the most ingeniously, elaborately deadly worlds since Harry Harrison invented Deathworld.” - Locus “ Dune meets Master and Commander.” - Entertainment Weekly General Praise for Neal Asher: “ Neal Asher’s books are like an adrenaline shot targeted directly for the brain.” - New York Times bestselling author John Scalzi “With mind-blowing complexity, characters, and combat, Asher’s work continues to combine the best of advanced cybertech and military SF.” ? Publishers Weekly, starred review “ Asher is a modern master of sci-fi.” - Starburst magazine “ A wide-screen special-effects extravaganza, a space opera featuring gods and monsters.

As the visitors’ paths converge, major hell is about to erupt in a chaotic waterscape where minor hell is already a remorseless fact of everyday life.

And a vicious alien prador is about to pay Spatterjay a visit as well, intent on extermination. Somewhere out there is Spatterjay Hoop, the last member of a band of pirates, whose many years spent on the planet have transformed him into a grotesque monster. On this ocean world, visitors are rare, and the native hoopers-humans infected with a local virus that renders them nearly invincible, though at monstrous cost-patrol the open seas, risking the voracious appetites of the planet’s deadly wildlife. On the remote planet Spatterjay arrive three travelers: Janer, acting as the eyes of a hornet Hive mind Erlin, a xenobiologist searching for an ancient sea captain and Sable Keech, who himself has been dead for 700 years. where sudden death is the normal way of life. Three visitors arrive on one of the most unique (and deadly) worlds science fiction has ever seen, in the start of a classic Polity series from Neal Asher. Dick and the British Fantasy Society awards, comes a new action-filled science fiction Polity epic. From the mind of Neal Asher, world-renown author of more than 20 books and nominee for both the Philip K.
