The Gabble - And Other Stories cover art

The Gabble - And Other Stories

 Preview

Audible Standard 30-day free trial

Try Standard free
Select 1 audiobook a month from our entire collection.
Listen to your selected audiobooks as long as you're a member.
Get unlimited access to bingeable podcasts.
Standard auto renews for £5.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

The Gabble - And Other Stories

By: Neal Asher
Narrated by: Ric Jerrom
Try Standard free

£5.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for £12.20

Buy Now for £12.20

About this listen

An extraordinary collection from the architect of the Polity universe, Neal Asher's The Gabble - And Other Short Stories reveals a universe of unbridled imagination, and each one is a delight in itself.

Much of Neal Asher’s fiction is set in the galactic civilization he calls the Polity, an alliance of human-populated worlds. And in this collection of thirteen marvellously inventive and action-packed short stories, Asher is on top form.

You can expect conflicted humans, fiendishly clever plot twists, extraordinary technologies and so much more. The discerning reader can also savour tales of alien poisons, the walking dead, the Sea of Death, and the putrefactor symbiont.

No one does weird, wonderful and downright gruesome aliens better than Neal Asher, so prepare to visit his favourites. Sample the lifestyles of creatures such as the gabbleduck and the hooder, as Asher takes you on a wild ride into his vividly-imagined futures.

 Adventure Anthologies & Short Stories Cyberpunk Fiction Hard Science Fiction Science Fiction Short Stories Space Opera

Continue the series
The Engineer ReConditioned cover art
The Engineer ReConditioned By: Neal Asher

Critic reviews

Asher serves up tales that are economical, crisp and frequently fiendishly clever. The stories featuring the gabbleducks, dangerous aliens who ‘speak’ in a nonsensical language, are particularly impressive. Neal Asher: the Lewis Carroll of space opera anyone?
Fans of Asher's Polity future history will not be disappointed by his third collection . . . Asher delights in depicting the universe as a Hobbesian nightmare. He's superb at detailing, with macabre relish, the frailty of the flesh.
The way his characters interact with the strange locations and technologies creates more than enough to keep the pages turning. If you've never sampled the delights of Asher's work then this rather entertaining collection would be a very good place to start.
With this collection of thirteen marvellously inventive and action-packed short stories, Neal Asher takes us further into the manifold diversities of that amazing universe.
The master of weird, wonderful and downright gruesome alien creature creations. Add this to the great way in which Neal can quickly draw you into a story and you've got a must have collection of some of the best science fiction out there . . . this is one of the better author specific collections I've read and that Neal is one of the must read authors in the science fiction genre.
All stars
Most relevant
I don’t normally like short stories as I prefer a full length story that carries you along, I have to say this book changed my mind, it has expanded the mythology of the Polity and given background to some of the novels I have read and I really appreciated the authors notes at the end, that gave me more depth into the authors story and the evolution of his books

Excellent companion to the Polity series

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
STORIES SET IN NEAL ASHER'S UNIVERSES EVEN IF YOU HAVE OR HAVEN'T READ ALL HIS BOOKS THERE ARE LOTS OF INTRUIGING TALES FULL OF EXCITEMENT TWISTS AND TURNS.

WONDERFUL COLLECTION OF STORIES

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Another set of great stories by Neal Asher. Worth suffering the poor narration for. It sounds like the narrator is half asleep and the speed is very slow. I could only listen by altering the speed to 125%..

Great story ,shame about the narration

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
So I had set out with tentative hopes that I could find a new "space opera" author to get into after a few false starts and to begin with I was impressed. Asher reminded me of Iain M Banks of all people but... I don't know... it kind of lost me part way through the collection. Some of it seemed really dated, some boring or repetitive, and I just paused... for a while. Recently finished so I could start a new book. I may come back to Asher via a novel instead of a short story. There's enough there I think. Narration mostly ok. A few odd pronunciations.

I'm unsure

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.