Prador Moon

A Novel of the Polity, Book 1

By: Neal Asher

Narrated by: David Marantz

Length: 7 hrs and 15 mins

Publisher's summary

Neal Asher takes on first contact, Polity style. This original novel recounts the first contact between the aggressive Prador aliens, and the Polity Collective as it is forced to retool its society to a war footing. The overwhelming brute force of the Prador dreadnaughts causes several worlds and space stations to be overrun.

Prador Moon follows the initial Polity defeats, to the first draws, and culminates in what might be the first Polity victory, told from the point of view of two unlikely heroes.

©2006 Neal Asher (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

Polity / Prador in a 'pp' contest

Neal Asher's Prador Moon describes the initial contact and subsequent 'war' when the Polity, the Earth originated societal / governmental entity that is mostly AI with a liberal sprinkling of humans meets an intelligent alien race, the Prador. With first contact, the Prador pull no punches and initiate the war to obtain Polity technology. Two augmented humans play a central role in the Polity's rapid pivot to a war posture, all while battling an internal separatist movement that believes the Prador offer them the opportunity to shuck off their AI overlords.

While Asher's main focus is on human augmentation, he spend less time with the AI entities themselves. The alien race, the Prador, is a bit disappointing as they are basically anthropomorphized crabs with a social order designed around cage matches and the boss from hell. Along with their total lack of any morality concept and sadistic streak, it's hard to envision how they've managed to ever reach the stars.

The narration is reasonable with moderate character distinction. Pacing is fine for this relatively short offering.

Strange ending

Is as standalone book I did not understand the ending at all. sorry I just like clear cut endings

was pretty good.

It was hard for me to get into the crab monsters. The story has a good face and it is an interesting read. Just not super my cup of tea.

good book poor narration.

the narrator constantly pronounces words incorrectly, its irritating and distracting but possible to get past.

must love Prador

Starts out with a warm welcome for our crabby friends and devolves quite nicely from there.

Decent

Nothing incredible. Certainly no Peter F. Hamilton. But it was enjoyable. I will move on to the next one.

Narrator Is Weak

I like the book but the narrator has the same monotone voice with very little variation. I found myself completely drifting off and nodding out. RC Bray would do this book excellent.

Chapters anyone?

Story is ok, but the random use of occasional chapters, started with "He" - he who?... must listen a few sentences to find out - makes it hard to follow during these few and randomly placed chapters.

Subpar narration drags the story down.

This is a fun, interesting book that manages to survive a bland narrator who can't even inform himself enough to pronounce the word "Occam" correctly. Most characters sound identical to one another, and scene changes are confusing because the narrative intonation and inflection doesn't change at all. Aside from that, I enjoyed the book.

Action Action Action

A great listen, action packed from start to finish. plus an extra surprise ending you'll never believe.