by Neal Asher
At the centre of this conflict are two unlikely heroes. Jebel Krong was right in the firing line when first contact was made on Avalon, and the subsequent battle leaves him grieving for a dead lover and minus an arm. From that moment, his hatred of the Prador takes over his life and when, newly restored as a Polity soldier, he becomes ever more adept and ever more successful at killing this new enemy, he also becomes an unwitting hero and a symbol of the fight for humanity’s survival.
The other half of this story revolves around Moira Salem, a middle-aged scientist whose old-school beliefs leave her struggling to keep up amongst younger colleagues who have all been ‘augmented’ enabling them to work smarter, faster and more accurately than she. One day she bites the bullet and opts for augmentation, but, unknown to her, the device she receives is way more advanced than any normal ‘aug’ technology and Moira soon finds herself capable of mathematical and computer-modelling feats way beyond her peers, eventually coming under the tutelage of the Trajeen AI itself.
As the war and the fighting escalates, an attack by an anti-AI faction calling themselves The Separatists destroys the Trajeen AI, opening the door for the awesome power of Prador’s primary dreadnaught to bear down and destroy the humans once and for all and capture their Runcible technology. Against this backdrop, Moira finds herself taking the place of her mentor and she and Jebel have to work, brains and brawn together, to destroy the alien aggressors before they themselves are wiped out.
Neal Asher has crafted a nice short book here with a simple plot and straightforward narrative that doesn’t waste time getting to the action and keeps up the pace, pretty relentlessly, right to the end. But don’t be fooled by the apparently simplistic facade, this book has a nice depth and opens up some arguments that, while not really explored in the pages of the novel – this is Neal Asher, after all – stay with you after you put it down.
The crab-like Prador, are not just B-movie monsters with an obvious nod to Starship Troopers, they are well realised with a complex societal structure. Status and rank within that society is on a kill-or-be-killed basis and within families, older, stronger parents control their offspring using a combination of highly potent, natural pheremones, drug-enriched food and extreme violence. Status amongst Prador offspring is gained partly though strength and cunning and partly the inevitable eventual failure of your predecessor to please the Father.
The hive mentality onboard the Prador dreadnought and complete deference to the leader hold a nice mirror up to the Polity humans and the AI’s that control their everyday lives. Also, the utter disdain for life, any life, which the Prador show is mirrored by the behaviour of Jebel Krong and his merciless pursuit and destruction of his enemy.
And the comparisons don’t stop there. While the aliens perform gut-wrenching (literally!) experiments on human prisoners, their human counterparts perform medical procedures that seem not so dissimilar, other than the outcome at least, and very cleverly, through the Prador drone POV you experience the sacrificial future that faces some of them and you begin to feel some measure of sympathy.
Although a prequel, Prador Moon is a smart book. Less layered than some of his other work but no less thoughtful, it’s a quick and dirty read, chock-full of action and thrills that will serve as a great introduction for newcomers and a nice bite-sized chunk of Asher space opera for current converts.
Prador Moon is published by Tor through Pan Macmillan and is available from Amazon
Neal Asher maintains a blog. You’ll find it here.