Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Too little, 4 Nov 2003
By A Customer
After thoroughly enjoying Neal Asher's other books set in the same universe (Gridlinked, The Skinner and The Line of Polity), I had high expectations for this one. The delivered book, however, was extremely disappointing. A very, very short collection of stories in a very poor quality printing - a real letdown. The quality of the writing is not nearly as fast paced or as polished as his other work. Looking at the publishing dates, it looks as if these were written prior to Gridlinked. Certainly some of the characters from Gridlinked appear here (Horace Blegg, the Dragon and Agent Cormac), but they are poorly fleshed out and the prose very stilted in places. I've given only 2 stars as it doesn't bring out any new ideas, and it is not nearly as good as his other published work.
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2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Bland, at best., 17 Mar 2007
I have read only one of Neal Asher's books prior to this; Cowl. I picked that up at random from my local library and, although rather put off by the protagonist's history at the beginning, I stuck with the book and eventually grew to enjoy the story to the point of being unable to put it down.
Thus, I too had my expectations of this book. A collection of short stories by the same author seemed a fantastic way to get more into him without immediately reading every single novel he'd written.
Runcible Tales, however, is filled with utterly pointless stories with little-to-no-plot and far too much emphasis on doing everything on large scales. Gigantic monitor lizards, gigantic explosions, a story immediately after with an entire planet exploding, and so on and so forth.
Asher also seems convinced throughout this that the average reader will know what his story-specific terms will mean, too. Multiple references to "Dante", to "runcible gate" (fair enough that one's easy to work out), Skaidor and Prador (yes, the Prador are lobsterish aliens, as I took from the story), quince etc.
Add this to a cover that looks like it was made in MS Paint, and with more grammatical errors in each story than in entire books by other authors, and you have what seems a shoddy and pathetic attempt to cash in on what is obviously some of Asher's first forays into the world of writing. Every single story leaves you wondering just what it is that you just read, with the possible exception of Blue Holes and Bloody Waters which, thanks to its smaller scale, is much much easier to keep track of.
All in all not a book to pick up, no matter how big a fan you are. The stories contained in Runcible Tales are poorly thought out miniature works that give you the impression Asher wrote them only to put in word one tiny idea he'd had.
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by Neal Asher
by Neal Asher
by Neal Asher
by Neal Asher
by Neal L. Asher
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