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The Gabble - and Other Stories
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The Soldier
- By: Neal Asher
- Narrated by: Peter Noble
- Length: 16 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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A hidden corner of space is swarming with lethal alien technology, a danger to all sentient life. It's guarded by Orlandine, who must keep it contained at any cost - as it has the power to destroy entire civilizations. She schemes from her state-of-the-art weapons station, with only an alien intelligence to share her vigil. But she doesn't share everything with Dragon....
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Answers some questions from previous books
- By Jamie on 29-05-18
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Gridlinked
- Agent Cormac, Book 1
- By: Neal Asher
- Narrated by: Ric Jerrom
- Length: 17 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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In outer space you can never feel sure that your adversary is altogether human. The runcible buffers on Samarkand have been mysteriously sabotaged, killing many thousands and destroying a terraforming project. Agent Cormac must reach it by ship to begin an investigation. But Cormac has incurred the wrath of a vicious psychopath called Pelter, who is prepared to follow him across the galaxy with a terrifying android in tow.
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excellent scifi
- By Petteri on 22-05-18
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Shadow of the Scorpion
- By: Neal Asher
- Narrated by: Ric Jerrom
- Length: 12 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Ian Cormac was raised to adulthood during the end of the war between the human Polity and the vicious arthropoid race the Prador. In Neal Asher's Shadow of the Scorpion, Cormac is haunted by childhood memories of a sinister scorpion-shaped war drone and the burden of losses he doesn't remember. In the years following the war, he signs up with Earth Central Security and is sent out to help either restore or simply maintain order on worlds devastated by Prador bombardment.
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Shadow of the Scorpion
- By David on 18-12-18
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The Technician
- By: Neal Asher
- Narrated by: Peter Noble
- Length: 16 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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The Technician, the Theocracy has been dead for 20 years, and the Polity rules on Masada - but it is an order that the rebels of the Tidy Squad cannot accept, and the iconic Jeremiah Tombs is top of their hit list. Tombs, meanwhile, has escaped his sanatorium. His insanity must be cured, because the near-mythical hooder, called 'the Technician', that attacked him all those years ago did something to his mind even the AIs fail to understand.
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Engaging from start to finish
- By paul sparks on 16-08-18
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Cowl
- By: Neal Asher
- Narrated by: Peter Noble
- Length: 14 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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The Heliothane Dominion is triumphant in the solar system after a bitter war with their Umbrathane progenitors. But some of the enemy have escaped into the past, intent on wreaking havoc across time. The worst of these is Cowl, an artificially forced advance in human evolution but one who is no longer human. Polly, desperate to obtain funds to support her habits, is unprepared for her involvement with Nandru Jurgens, a Taskforce soldier, and the killers pursuing him.
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I loved it when I read it!
- By Anonymous Coward on 21-10-18
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Hilldiggers
- By: Neal Asher
- Narrated by: Peter Noble
- Length: 16 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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In Neal Asher's Hilldiggers, during a war between two planets in the same solar system - each occupied by adapted humans - what is thought to be a cosmic superstring is discovered. After being cut, this object collapses into four cylindrical pieces, each about the size of a tube train. Each is densely packed with either alien technology or some kind of life. They are placed for safety in three ozark cylinders of a massively secure space station.
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Another great Polity story
- By paul sparks on 07-09-18
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The Soldier
- By: Neal Asher
- Narrated by: Peter Noble
- Length: 16 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
-
Story
A hidden corner of space is swarming with lethal alien technology, a danger to all sentient life. It's guarded by Orlandine, who must keep it contained at any cost - as it has the power to destroy entire civilizations. She schemes from her state-of-the-art weapons station, with only an alien intelligence to share her vigil. But she doesn't share everything with Dragon....
-
-
Answers some questions from previous books
- By Jamie on 29-05-18
-
Gridlinked
- Agent Cormac, Book 1
- By: Neal Asher
- Narrated by: Ric Jerrom
- Length: 17 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In outer space you can never feel sure that your adversary is altogether human. The runcible buffers on Samarkand have been mysteriously sabotaged, killing many thousands and destroying a terraforming project. Agent Cormac must reach it by ship to begin an investigation. But Cormac has incurred the wrath of a vicious psychopath called Pelter, who is prepared to follow him across the galaxy with a terrifying android in tow.
-
-
excellent scifi
- By Petteri on 22-05-18
-
Shadow of the Scorpion
- By: Neal Asher
- Narrated by: Ric Jerrom
- Length: 12 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ian Cormac was raised to adulthood during the end of the war between the human Polity and the vicious arthropoid race the Prador. In Neal Asher's Shadow of the Scorpion, Cormac is haunted by childhood memories of a sinister scorpion-shaped war drone and the burden of losses he doesn't remember. In the years following the war, he signs up with Earth Central Security and is sent out to help either restore or simply maintain order on worlds devastated by Prador bombardment.
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Shadow of the Scorpion
- By David on 18-12-18
-
The Technician
- By: Neal Asher
- Narrated by: Peter Noble
- Length: 16 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Technician, the Theocracy has been dead for 20 years, and the Polity rules on Masada - but it is an order that the rebels of the Tidy Squad cannot accept, and the iconic Jeremiah Tombs is top of their hit list. Tombs, meanwhile, has escaped his sanatorium. His insanity must be cured, because the near-mythical hooder, called 'the Technician', that attacked him all those years ago did something to his mind even the AIs fail to understand.
-
-
Engaging from start to finish
- By paul sparks on 16-08-18
-
Cowl
- By: Neal Asher
- Narrated by: Peter Noble
- Length: 14 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Heliothane Dominion is triumphant in the solar system after a bitter war with their Umbrathane progenitors. But some of the enemy have escaped into the past, intent on wreaking havoc across time. The worst of these is Cowl, an artificially forced advance in human evolution but one who is no longer human. Polly, desperate to obtain funds to support her habits, is unprepared for her involvement with Nandru Jurgens, a Taskforce soldier, and the killers pursuing him.
-
-
I loved it when I read it!
- By Anonymous Coward on 21-10-18
-
Hilldiggers
- By: Neal Asher
- Narrated by: Peter Noble
- Length: 16 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Neal Asher's Hilldiggers, during a war between two planets in the same solar system - each occupied by adapted humans - what is thought to be a cosmic superstring is discovered. After being cut, this object collapses into four cylindrical pieces, each about the size of a tube train. Each is densely packed with either alien technology or some kind of life. They are placed for safety in three ozark cylinders of a massively secure space station.
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Another great Polity story
- By paul sparks on 07-09-18
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Prador Moon
- By: Neal Asher
- Narrated by: Ric Jerrom
- Length: 9 hrs
- Unabridged
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The Polity Collective stretches from Earth Central into the unfathomable reaches of the galactic void. But when the Polity finally encounters alien life in the form of massive, hostile, crablike carnivores known as the Prador, there can only be one outcome - total warfare. Chaos reigns as, caught unawares, the Polity struggles to regain its foothold and transition itself into a military society. Starships clash, planets fall and space stations are overrun.
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Great stuff!
- By MR N FURZE on 09-10-17
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Dark Intelligence
- Transformation, Book 1
- By: Neal Asher
- Narrated by: Peter Noble
- Length: 15 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Thorvald Spear wakes in hospital, where he finds he's been brought back from the dead. What's more, he died in a human vs. alien war which ended a whole century ago. But when he relives his traumatic final moments, he finds the spark to keep on living. That spark is vengeance. Trapped and desperate on a world surrounded by alien Prador forces, Spear had seen a rescue ship arriving. But instead of providing backup, Penny Royal, the AI within the destroyer, turned rogue. It annihilated friendly forces in a frenzy of destruction, and years later it's still free.
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very good reading.
- By Amazon Customer on 25-09-17
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The Departure
- Owner Trilogy, Book 1
- By: Neal Asher
- Narrated by: Peter Noble
- Length: 16 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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The Argus Space Station looks down on a nightmarish Earth. And from this safe distance, the Committee enforces its despotic rule. There are too many people and too few resources, and they need 12 billion to die before Earth can be stabilized. So corruption is rife, people starve, and the poor are policed by mechanized overseers and identity-reader guns. Citizens already fear the brutal Inspectorate with its pain inducers. But to reach its goals, the Committee will unleash satellite laser weaponry, taking carnage to a new level.
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A story of two halves
- By J Hitch on 22-01-18
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The Engineer ReConditioned
- By: Neal Asher
- Narrated by: Todd McLaren
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Mysterious aliens...ruthless terrorists...androids with attitude...genetic manipulation...punch-ups with lasers...giant spaceships...what more do you want? A collection by the author of Gridlinked, The Skinner, In the Line of Polity, Cowl, Brass Man, and The Voyage of the Sable Keech.
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Fantastic Sci-Fi Storytelling, need more of this !
- By Bodosa on 04-10-14
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Galaxy's Edge, Part IV
- By: Jason Anspach, Nick Cole
- Narrated by: R.C. Bray
- Length: 19 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Fight to win. Survive the future. With the galaxy in turmoil, the Legion initiates Article Nineteen, a hard reset designed to halt the corruption and ineptitude that continues to spill forth from the Galactic Core. But when the House of Reason aligns itself with the bloodthirsty zhee extremists, the Legion has no choice but to commit to a savage campaign of Total War. As Legion Commander Keller attempts to coax the Republic and Black Fleet into a winner-take-all battle at the heart of the Galactic Core, Wraith uncovers secrets from Tyrus Rechs’s past.
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Loved
- By Amazon Customer on 15-02-19
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Shadow Captain
- By: Alastair Reynolds
- Narrated by: Clare Corbett
- Length: 13 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Returning to the universe of Revenger, award-winning author Alastair Reynolds delivers another thrilling tale set among the stars. Two sisters ran away from home to join the crew of a spaceship. They took on pirates, faced down monsters and survived massacres...and now they're in charge. Captaining a fearsome ship of their own, adventures are theirs for the taking - and there's hoards to loot and treasures to find in the darkest reaches of space. But the rules are also more relaxed out on the fringes, as they're about to discover....
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Excellent!
- By Sokratesagogo on 15-02-19
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Orbus
- The Spatterjay Series: Book 3
- By: Neal Asher
- Narrated by: William Gaminara
- Length: 14 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Old Captain Orbus commandeered a ship to flee Spatterjay, desperate to escape the violent planet. Orbus’ alien enemy, the Prador Vrell, is also moving on. The Spatterjay virus mutated him into something even more dangerous. And he’s hunting the Prador King himself - who sought to kill him, to bury the secret of their similar transformations. Orbus and Vrell clash in the Graveyard, a lawless zone where the Prador have seized a key space station. Official action by humanity or Prador would end peace, as a centuries-long cold war simmers.
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very entertaining
- By Ch3nz on 05-01-18
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The Skinner
- The Spatterjay Series: Book 1
- By: Neal Asher
- Narrated by: William Gaminara
- Length: 15 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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The savage ocean planet of Spatterjay draws visitors with very different agendas. Erlin is immortal and seeks a reason to keep living. Janer hosts a hive mind, which paid him to find this planet. And Keech is an agent of Earth who’s been dead for 700 years – but still hunts a notorious criminal. On Spatterjay’s vast waterscapes, only the Old Captains risk the native life forms and their voracious appetites. However, they are now barely human. And somewhere out there Keech’s target – the Skinner – runs wild.
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First class horror Sci-Fi
- By Christopher on 01-12-11
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The Voyage of Sable Keech
- The Spatterjay Series: Book 2
- By: Neal Asher
- Narrated by: William Gaminara
- Length: 16 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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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.
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An excellent sequel
- By Huw Evans on 22-07-15
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Salvation
- By: Peter F. Hamilton
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 19 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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AD 2204. An alien shipwreck is discovered on a planet at the very limits of human expansion - so Security Director Feriton Kayne selects a team to investigate. The ship’s sinister cargo not only raises bewildering questions but could also foreshadow humanity’s extinction. It will be up to the team to bring back answers, and the consequences of this voyage will change everything. Back on Earth, we can now make deserts bloom and extend lifespans indefinitely, so humanity seems invulnerable. We therefore welcomed the Olyix to Earth when they contacted us. But were the Olyix a blessing or a curse?
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Great story, just a little slow getting going.
- By Mr. B. Hirst on 01-10-18
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The Prefect
- By: Alastair Reynolds
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 19 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Tom Dreyfus is a Prefect, a law enforcement officer with the Panoply. His beat is the multifaceted utopian society of the Glitter Band, that vast swirl of space habitats orbiting the planet Yellowstone, the teeming hub of a human interstellar empire spanning many worlds. His current case: investigating a murderous attack against one of the habitats that left 900 people dead, a crime that appalls even a hardened cop like Dreyfus.
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Prefect near perfect
- By Patrick on 19-09-11
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The Collapsing Empire
- The Interdependency, Book 1
- By: John Scalzi
- Narrated by: Wil Wheaton
- Length: 9 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Our universe is ruled by physics, and faster-than-light travel is not possible - until the discovery of The Flow, an extradimensional field we can access at certain points in space-time that transports us to other worlds, around other stars. Humanity flows away from Earth, into space, and in time forgets our home world and creates a new empire, the Interdependency, whose ethos requires that no one human outpost can survive without the others. It's a hedge against interstellar war - and a system of control for the rulers of the empire.
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Juvenile
- By Sally on 14-04-17
Summary
Neal Asher has firmly established himself as one of the leading British writers of science fiction. Most of his stories are set in a galactic future-scape called The Polity, and with The Gabble - and Other Stories, a collection of marvellously inventive and action-packed short stories, he takes us further into the manifold diversities of that amazing universe.
No one does monsters better than Neal Asher, so be prepared to discover the lives and lifestyles of such favourites as the gabbleduck and the hooder, to savour alien poisons, the walking dead, the Sea of Death and the putrefactor symbiont.
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- paul sparks
- 03-08-18
Excellent companion to the Polity series
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
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- Dave
- 22-11-17
Great story ,shame about the narration
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%..