The Polity Collective stretches from Earth Central into the deepest reaches of the universe. But when humans finally encounter alien life in the form of massive, hostile, crablike carnivores known as the Prador, there can be only one outcome – total warfare. But for Jebel Krong and Moria Salem, trapped at the centre of the action, this war is far more than a mere clash of cultures. This war is personal.
This is a review of “Prador Moon”, the second book in Neal Asher’s Polity Universe series – although it was the first when I bought it. It is also aproximately the sixth book written, published in 2006.
The book that was first written and published in this universe, is “Gridlinked” (2001).
It was definitely an interesting universe, and more explanation about it would have been nice. Not necessarily an in-depth lecture, but defintiely needed more information to further flesh it out becauset he hints were interesting. And the fact that AIs were mostly in control but not trying to take over and enslave humanity, was a nice touch.
I liked the characters Jebel Krang, Moria Salem, the robot Uranus, and the AI calling itself George. They had potential that could have been developed a lot more even in such a short book. It would have all made a much bigger impression if they had.
Unfortunately that is all the good I could find.
The book struggled with info-dumps. Though one expects such in a sci-fi world that needs to explain things, there were just far too many of them, being used as tell-rather-than-show. It slowed the story horribly. It was also bogged down with numbers. It was an obvious way to emphasise the technology and sci-fi, and also a way to illustrate how much death the evil Prador caused. But it was mostly meaningless, and everything could have been shown in different and better ways.
The big evil aliens are essentially crabs. Crabs that are here to enslave and eat humans, and also are very much enslaving and eating each other too in order to keep the hierarchy among them. It was a bit too ridiculous, the sheer amount of time devoted to explaining them and their evil. And though it would have been nice to have something driving the Prador, it is still rather ‘human’ of them to just do it because they can.
It made me think that the rest of the series would be the fight against the Prador. But then I checked Goodreads, and apparently they only show up in the next two books. And a book published later but set before this one – “Weaponized” (2022) – apparently has other aliens than the Prador. I haven’t read the book, but if this is true, then it further ruins this book and the Prador themselves. Takes away their oomph and impact.
There was also a horribly sudden time-skip between two chapters, and it wasn’t clearly marked. And each chapter had more than one point of view, so it skipped from one character to the other to a third and maybe even a fourth. Couple it with the info-dumping, and soon you lost all interest in the story, got confused about what the timeline was, and stopped caring about even the characters you had started liking. It got so bad that I started skimming through the book well before page 100 out of 222 pages.
This is a book that seems written in a way that sets up the next two books – which is fine. But it also seems to rely on you actually having read those books first.
Confusing, stereotypical, and thoroughly killing its own potential, this book is not something I would recommend.
I will not be continuing with this series.
Librarian's Ledger 