The Skinner
This is the fourth Neal Asher book I’ve read in quick succession. My reviews so far have ranged from indifferent to boring, and I’m sorry to say that this one is no different.
Sometime back I mentioned that the best science-fiction right now was coming out of Britain. I still think that is true, but Asher is proving to be a minor light in the firmament. And I was pulling for him! I wanted to find another fine writer unknown to me. Figures that the first time I buy a block of books based on buzz, I get burned.
What’s wrong with The Skinner?
It’s dull. Sure, Asher has imagination. He’s created an interesting world with a hellish collection of fauna. His AI-Ruled Polity is a fascinating culture. He certainly isn’t short of ideas, like the seven hundred year old walking corpse, a member of the sect of Anubis, using augmentation to keep his mind alive and his dead body animated and preserved. That right there was some compensation for that read.
But overall, the story just doesn’t come together. Like most of his books, you have a splintering of plots and characters, all converging to a resolution that doesn’t always depend on them accomplishing their goals. In The Skinner, the death of the title character really didn’t matter, while the largest threat in the book was dispatched by the AI without much human involvement. It all just meanders along, immediately interesting, but lacking any deeper affectation on the reader.
When I finished the book, I was a bit sad that a lot of interesting ideas where squandered in merely competent storytelling.
The British still shine in Science-Fiction. Unfortunately, Asher isn’t on the same tier as Richard K. Morgan, Alastair Reynolds or Peter F. Hamilton.
Filed under: Reviews (Books and Movies)
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