Prador Moon: A Novel of the Polity

Asher's enjoyable if violent SF novel pits heavily augmented posthumans and the AIs who rule them, the Polity Collective, against the Prador, vicious, bug-eyed aliens out to conquer all human space. The Polity Collective, an eminently civilized society, despite a small separatist underground that resents the AI's benign rule, stands in contrast to the crablike Prador, who rule by brute force. Since the Prador have a technological advantage in space warfare, two human beings—the super-soldier Jebel Krong and Moria Salem, a technician with an illicit brain augmentation—must combine their talents to try to destroy the impregnable Prador warship threatening humanity. The Polity novels (Gridlink , etc.) lack the intellectual complexity of the best British space opera by such writers as Iain M. Banks, Ken MacLeod and Justina Robson, but if you don't mind the gross out (the Prador eat not only their young but also their human enemies), they're invariably a good read. (July)