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The Voyage of Sable Keech: The Spatterjay Series: Book 2 Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

Neal Asher (Author), William Gaminara (Narrator), Macmillan Digital Audio (Publisher)

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The Voyage of the Sable Keech is the second book in Neal Asher's Spatterjay series, following on from The Skinner.

Sable Keech is a walking dead man. Was he resurrected because he was infected by the Spatterjay virus, or it took place late in a tank of seawater? Taylor Bloc wants to know the truth. He also wants more – adulation, power, control – and will go to any lengths to achieve them.

An ancient hive mind has sent an agent to this uncertain world. Does it merely want to obtain the poison 'sprine' that is crucial to immortality? Erlin, still faced with the ennui of immortality, is interrupted by an angry whelkus titanicus, and begins a strange journey.

Deep in the ocean the Spatterjay virus has wrought a terrible change that will affect them all. Something long-dormant is breaking free. And Sniper, its Warden, finally receives his new drone shell. It's better than his old one: powerful engines, more lethal weapons, thicker armour. He's going to need them.

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Product details

Listening Length	16 hours and 47 minutes
Author	Neal Asher
Narrator	William Gaminara
Audible.com.au Release Date	18 January 2011
Publisher	Macmillan Digital Audio
Program Type	Audiobook
Version	Unabridged
Language	English
ASIN	B00NX0T1M2
Best Sellers Rank	56,378 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals) 280 in Hard Science Fiction (Audible Books & Originals) 1,181 in Space Opera Science Fiction (Audible Books & Originals) 1,247 in Hard Science Fiction (Books)

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1 star		2%

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CC Man

A Delirious Ride

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 28 September 2017

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Bit of a glorious mess this one. Mr Asher has built his Polity novels into a coherent and fascinating Space Opera universe over the past years, particularly in his Agent Cormac series. His world building includes truly alien aliens, nasty bad guys in the crab-like alien Prador and their ultra-Darwinian society, Golem soldiers, sentient A.I.s, augmented humans and rabid nanotech married to hard science and hard-driving plots. There's also a liberal smattering of graphic violence and a generally dark tone which is definitely appealing and quite a contrast to some of the more upbeat Space Opera out there, such as Jack Campbell's Lost World series. It owes more than a little to the Culture novels of the late Iain M Banks, although not as artfully written or gleefully subversive as that author. Mr Asher's novels tend towards the weighty in terms of length and this one tips the scales at a generous 584 pages. And every page is filled with stuff - reanimated humans, intelligent ship sails, huge wooden sailing ships with atomic engines, cynical war drones, dog-eat-dog alien wildlife, hornet hive-minds. It's a delirious mixture bordering on incoherent as you find yourself struggling to keep up with all the characters, human and otherwise, which teem throughout the book. The viewpoint continually jumps from character to character and while the ideas are flying in every direction it is all a bit undisciplined. It could probably have done with some editing to pare down the book and its multifarious plotlines to a more manageable scale. The book is the final one rounding out a series based on the alien world of Spatterjay, which has a hugely carnivorous flora and fauna, all of them infected with a virus that causes massive mutations in the wildlife, including the humans it infects. These infected humans are the nearly indestructible and long-lived Old Captains, leading protagonists in this novel. The basic plot follows the attempt of human Taylor Bloc and his followers to set up a base for their revival cult on Spatterjay. Bloc and his followers are dead, yet their bodies are kept from decay by nanotech, micro-motors, memory crystals and other high tech implants. Their aim is to achieve new life, possibly with the help of the Spatterjay virus. It's all a breathtaking ride, including a vengeful whelk - not the Earth one; this beastie is 20 metres tall and weighs 100 tons - and a renegade Prador warship. Believe me, you have to read the novel to make sense of the description and it definitely helps if you have read the previous Spatterjay novels. All in all not the best of Mr Asher's work but readable none the less.

Fleecy Moss

All aboard the Sable Keech for a fabulous ride.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 23 February 2019

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Having loved The Skinner, book one in the Spatterjay series, and having survived the vicious lifeforms of that planet, I immediately moved into book two and felt as though I'd never left. Reacquainting myself with old characters whilst meeting quite a few new ones, the book shot off in a very logical continuation of the original and I adored it.

Full of action, great pace, and wonderfully comic moments, Asher also delves into discussion of the metaphysical re the two Golems and allows it to form the developing spine of the tale.

A fine second book that sets the scene for an even better third (and I'm only a hundred pages into it).

Fleecy Moss, author of the Folio 55 SciFi fantasy series (writing as Nia Sinjorina), End of a Girl, Undon , and 4659 now available on Amazon.

Shaun H

Not enough of my favourite characters from the first book.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 31 January 2012

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Ten years ago Sable Keech was one of the walking dead. A reification; a walking corpse with high tech embalming fluid running through his veins, animated by servo motors at his joints, and controlled by a copy of his brain running on a memory crystal. That was until by a combination of nanotechnology, makeshift medical care and a large degree of pure luck he was resurrected back to real life.

Now, ten years on, a whole cult/religion has been founded around the events that lead to his resurrection and an enterprising reification named Bloc is building a huge one kilometre long sailing ship to take the faithful and those willing to pay, on a journey to emulate Keech's voyage to a new life.

I really enjoyed book one of the Spatterjay series, but to be honest this second book just didn't hit the spot for me. The pace was very slow right from the beginning, which is not too surprising as most of the main character are shambling walking dead. My favourite characters from the first book were the Artificial Intelligences controlling the drones and the mind of the Warden but these characters were relegated mainly to minor supporting roles with only brief appearances. I also felt like there was not enough original material in this book and it felt very much like a rehash of book one. There were some high points, especially any scene featuring Sniper - a cantankerous old war drone with a serious attitude problem, but there were not enough of these in my opinion.

Overall: 3 stars - I would actually like to give it 3.5 stars as 3 feels a little too harsh, but 4 feels too generous. It is not a terrible book by any means and I will definitely be reading more by Neal Asher, but this book has not encouraged me to want to read the next in this particular series.

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Usul

Don't fall into the sea!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 15 November 2014

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Another weird and wonderful tale from the vicious planet of the aptly named Spatterjay from Neal Asher. Readers should start with the earlier volume The Skinner of which this is a continuation. A more hostile place you could not dream of, so much so this could arguably be put in the Horror section of books. Set in the wider Polity universe Spatterjay is a Polity protectorate governed by one of the ruling AI's and the Polity's old foe the monstrous Prador features heavily. The planet's creatures, a set of monstrous and deadly denizens are the background on which another fantastic tale which if described would sound too far-fetched but it all works beautifully and this and indeed all Asher's Polity and Agent Cormac novels are highly recommended.

Dancer

Fun, but not gripping

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 5 December 2008

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This is not a bad book, but it is not an especially good one either. Asher has written some outstanding stuff, but I'm afraid that The Voyage just doesn't stand up to The Skinner or Gridlinked.

By placing the action in the same setting with the same characters, the book comes off as a bit twee. The eponymous Sable Keech has easily enough character to act as the principle in another work, but it would need to be away from Splatterjay to avoid retreading old ground.

Asher shows some real flare when he writes of Sniper, but allot of the action with the Hoopers was just too familiar to be really gripping.

It is the curse of a great author to be held to extremely demanding standards, but at the end of the day it would be another of his books that I would recommend to a friend, or to you.

3 people found this helpful

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