Review (Novel): Prador Moon by Neal Asher

Introduction & Synopsis

The chronological first instalment in Neal Asher's Polity universe serves as an introduction into Asher's work, Prador Moon is a Sci-Fi space opera that takes place centuries into the future. The Polity universe primarily focuses on the relationships between a polity of multiple human worlds and various alien civilisations. Human beings have resigned from regulating their own civilisation, deferring governance of their nation to AI. This novel details humanity's first contact with an alien species. It goes as well as you would expect.

This novel was recommended to me by an associate. I first heard of Neal Asher's novels many years ago, however I've never had any interest in reading his work, mainly because Asher's work seemed too action-oriented for my personal tastes. However, in recent weeks, I have decided to give this series a chance to convince me of its quality. In time I hope to review the second and third chronological instalments in this series, Shadow of The Scorpion and Girdlinked.

The first instalment in Asher's Polity series, Prador Moon, was very well-written and, surprisingly, very entertaining. It was fast-paced, the world building was somewhat interesting, the action sequences were fun, but the actual characters and plot were rather stale.

Themes

Prador Moon is pure action, so themes take a back-seat. There is pretty much nothing to this novel in terms of thematic denotations. It's just a fun read.

The novel has a very strong Sci-Fi B-movie feel to it. This, at a few points, is explicitly lampshaded. It gives the novel a 'don't take this seriously, this is just supposed to be fun' feel, and it works fantastically for Prador Moon.

Characters

The characters, as already mentioned, are rather two-dimensional, and show no kind of development whatsoever. The protagonist, Jebel Krong, is a generic military man; gruff, tough and will happily employ violence to get what he wants. He never grows or develops, and is thoroughly lacking in any characteristic to make him interesting.

The deuteragonist, Moria Salem, is more interesting than our protagonist, though she still lacks any kind of development. She's introduced as a woman whom has just undergone cybernetic augmentation, only to find that the surgeon who performed the augmentation was a fugitive wanted for illegal experimentation with cybernetics. Her character shows some initial sign of depth, with some potential for development over the course of the story, yet fails to actually do so.

It was a shame that the characters were so two-dimensional. If there were more well developed and dynamic, this fun novel would have been a legitimately good novel.

Plot

As aforementioned, the plot is rather thin. A polity of AI-controlled human worlds make first contact with an alien race, it turns out that said race are hyper-carnivorous insectoid conquerors, and quickly develop a ravenous hunger for human beings. That's it, nothing else.

The rest of the novel is just action sequences, with ambiguously-lengthed and intermittent time lapses between each sequence. I cannot say much about the plot as a result, as very little happens. It's clear that Asher wanted to focus almost exclusively on action, and it's very entertaining.

*Mild spoilers*

Approximately half-way through the novel, it is revealed that the two wormhole gates ('runcibles') have disparities in exit-entrance speed, with both having a 70,000kmph disparity over the other; if you enter one travelling at 10kmph, you will exit the other travelling at 70,010kmph. The question I had throughout the rest of the novel is 'why?' We never find out why. It's a plot device used by Asher to have a character throw a moon at an alien spaceship. It may seem like a minor nitpick, but when the rest of the technical elements of the novel are so tightly written, this arbitrary inconsistency seems sticks out like a sore thumb.

Prose

The prose in Prador Moon is very strong. Like most science fiction novels, the prose is riddled with technical terminology and lacks the pseudo-eloquence of many fantasy novels, which works fantastically for science fiction. Once again, there is little to say about this element of the novel.

Conclusion

You may have noticed that within most sections of this review, I have said something along the lines of 'there isn't much to say.' And that's because there isn't much to the novel. It's a short and fun read, yet doesn't offer much that will stick with the reader.

Would I recommend it? As always, it depends on what you want to read. If you're looking for light entertainment, then I would highly recommend it, but if you're seeking something a bit weightier, then I would pass on Prador Moon.

3/5