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The Voyage of the Sable Keech is the sequel to Neal Asher's acclaimed Skinner, set again on the Line planet Spatterjay: a world of many monsters, some of them human. So pull up a stool, matey, pour a mug of seacane rum, and listen to more salty tales of titanic man-eating whelks, leeches the size of sperm-whales, swarms of vicious rhinoworms, glisters and heirodonts....

Spatterjay is a hellhole, in the fine old SFnal tradition of Harry Harrison's Deathworld, where life is hard, men are harder, and predators are big, fierce and very, very hungry. Spatterjay is a waterworld, with wooden ships and exotic-alloy men, men to match their monsters: the Hoopers, the Old Captains, infected with a leechborn virus¹ that makes them almost immortal, and very, very strong. The Old Captains date back to the days of the Prador Wars, almost a thousand years ago. The Prador are not nice. They make Larry Niven's Kzin look like house cats. And you'll be learning some nasty secrets about Prador's murderous, incestuous, impenetrable royal politics....

The Voyage of the Sable Keech carries over most of the cast of Skinner, and is told in the same overlapping, multi-viewpoint mosaic style. Which gets confusing at times, even to the author. But Asher is as feverishly inventive as ever, and keeps those pages turning -- a good thing, too, with 500+ of 'em to turn!

This isn't quite the book that Skinner was -- but then, few are. If you're new to Asher, that's still the place to start. If you liked Skinner, you'll definitely want to read The Voyage of the Sable Keech too. As the cover blurb says, this is SF with the volume turned up. Recommended.

Pete Tillman has been reading SF for better than 40 years now. He reviews SF -- and other books -- for Amazon, Infinity-Plus, SF Site, and others. He's a mineral exploration geologist based in Arizona. Google "Peter D. Tillman" +review for many more of Pete's reviews.