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Title: The Voyage of the Sable Keech
Series: Polity: Spatterjay #2
Author: Neal Asher
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 593
Format: Digital Edition
Title: The Voyage of the Sable Keech
Series: Polity: Spatterjay #2
Author: Neal Asher
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 593
Format: Digital Edition
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Synopsis:
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Taylor Bloc, a reif
and new leader of what is left of the Cult of Anubis the Risen,
commissions a gigantic ship to be built on Spatterjay. He convinces
all of the remaining cult reifs and a lot of those who had left, to
pay for a voyage following in the footsteps of Sable Keech and at the
end of voyage this will allow them all to undergo the change and get
their original bodies back, just like Keech. He hires a bunch of
Hoopers, convinces Janers Anders to come along and kidnaps Erlan to
get her on board. Throw in that the Hive Mind Janers is working for
is now dealing with another hive mind, the fact that Bloc is insane
and controlling a hooder with Prador thrawl tech and that some golems
show up on board without anyone knowing why and bam, you have a
situation.
On top of that,
Vrell, the young prador from the previous book survives and makes it
to his now dead father's ship. He is infecteed with the spatterjay
virus and doesn't know what that is going to lead to. A Prador war
vessel comes from the Prador Kingdom on direct orders from the King
to make sure that Vrell doesn't get off Spatterjay alive. Somehow the
King has mastered the virus himself and doesn't want any but his
descendants to have access to the powers it gives a prador. So it is
up to Sniper, a Polity wardrone, to save a prador so said prador can
cause chaos in the kingdom. Talk about irony.
The final storyline
follows a giant whelk. Think a giant slug with tentacles and a conch
shell. It is hunting down Erlan for killing one of it's offspring but
gets sidetracked and ends up going after some other Hooper ships. A
lot of carnage happens, a LOT!
In the end the
golems are revealed as agents of the other hivemind, which is having
an argument with itself and can't decide if splitting into 2 minds is
worse than death or not. It decides to die. Sable Keech is revealed
as one of the reifs, as he has been hunting down Blok for crimes in
the Polity. Sniper and Polity AI come to an agreement with Vrell. The
whelk gives up on her revenge and just has more babies.
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My
Thoughts:
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Dropped this a whole star because of the giant whelk rape/sex scene.
Yes, you read that right. Asher delivers a gigantic “nature in the
raw” sex scene. Including a corkscrew penis. What the frack
man!?!?!?!?!?!? And why the heck didn't I think to warn myself about
it back in my review in 2011? I'm wondering if I repressed the whole
thing.
Other than that, this was probably just as gory and violence filled
as The Skinner. Of course, throwing a hooder into the mix was
guaranteed to do that! I think this trilogy is the high tide of
Asher's violence. I don't remember any of his other books quite
reaching the heights scaled here. Some may be sad, some may be happy
about that. I for one am in the sad group. Aliens and entrail ripping
just go together in my book. Like peanutbutter and pickles on toast.
I liked this book. I liked all the various storylines and how they
fleshed out each other even while not necessarily being needed for
each other. I liked the few times that we really got to see the Old
Captains in action. I thought the prador Vrell's storyline was the
weakest. However, it did really come across to me just how long ago
the Prador/Polity war was. It didn't happen 15 years ago. It's been
long enough that most people aren't even sure it actually DID take
place. Not only does the space continuum of the Polity continue to
expand with each book, but so does the time side of things. This is
a firmly established universe and little things like that remind us
the readers of that fact.
One regret'y type thing is that after this trilogy I don't think we
see the Hive Minds again. I would really like to see a book dedicated
to that at some point. Oh well, if it hasn't happened by now, it
probably won't.
★★★★☆
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