Nice review here of Orbus from Alex Cull.
Ever since reading Neal Asher’s The Skinner back in 2003, I have thought that the Prador (a race of enjoyably nasty and warlike crustacean-analogues from deep space) are among some of the best SF baddies to emerge since Terry Nation invented the Daleks. Furthermore I have believed it was high time that they had a whole novel to themselves, more or less, without any danger of the planet Spatterjay’s entertainingly horrible and ruthless oceanic fauna stealing the show. Asher’s 2006 novel Prador Moon came close to accomplishing this, the one caveat being that it was all too short, but at 438 pages, Orbus hits the bull’s-eye.
7 comments:
Ooh,sounds good to me! Prador are NASTY! Where on earth did you get the idea from for these?
Probably whilst bait collecting as a kid and flipping over rocks to see what scuttled out. Rockpools, streams and ditches were a perpetual fascination to me. Whilst other kids were playing football I was collecting water scorpions.
Incidentally, Larry, better for you to read the two books that come before this: The Skinner & then The Voyage of the Sable Keech.
That sounds like me as a kid Neal,except I was landlocked so it was stream dipping and rooting thru the undergrowth,then examining the small stuff under my microscope. Other kids were into football,I was into trees and stuff!
Nice review, and another perspective. I think the Prador need another book all of their own.
Me too, Larry. I had an excellent microscope as a kid, and a superb chemistry set since my dad was a lecturer at Chelmer Tech and obtained chemicals from there (the HSE would have a fit).
Always need the human perspective on the prador, Graeme ... and of course their role as fodder.
Prador Thermedor... didn't realise until this moment that I had often wondered if Prador would taste like crab, and whether we would enjoy eating them as much as they enjoy eating us... and funny enough, the last tiime I had a Crab from the Winking Prawn in Salcombe it gave me acid indigestion... as did Ebulan's last human meat.
Small Galaxy eh?
You know I once had crayfish as pets!
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