Product Description

Flanagan (who is, for want of a better word, a pirate) has a plan. It seems relatively simple: kidnap Lena, the Cheo's daughter, demand a vast ransom for her safe return, sit back and wait. Only the Cheo, despotic ruler of the known universe, isn't playing ball. Flanagan and his crew have seen this before, of course, but since they've learned a few tricks from the bad old days (being particularly bad if you happen to have been one of the myriad sons or daughters the Cheo let die rather than give in to blackmail) and since they know something about Lena that should make the plan foolproof, the Cheo's defiance is a major setback. It is a situation that calls for extreme measures. Luckily, Flanagan has considerable experience in this area...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #569740 in Books
• Published on: 2008-08-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 512 pages

Review
'Well written, fast moving and defiantly weird in places ? definitely a new voice worth listening to' - Jon Courtenay Grimwood

About the Author
Philip Palmer is a film and television writer and producer who also writes for radio and theatre. He teaches screenwriting at Leeds Metropolitan University and runs a television drama series course in Brighton for Lighthouse.

Customer Reviews

One of the worst SF books I have ever read
It's not often that I'll finish a book and be actually angry at how utterly awful it was, to the extent that I'll take the time to write a review to help others avoid it.

The author takes many many ideas, most of them unoriginal, and crams them all in without any any development or explanation making them completely unbelievable. Sadly a similar approach is taken to the characterisation.

It's written in the style of a precocious teenager desperate to please the reader, and uses ridiculous techniques such as taking a whole page to write 'up ... up ... up ' diagonally across the page in order to describe flying... honestly.

The pacing is all wrong, it's completely juvenile, the plot lines are hackneyed, and the whole thing is a waste of your time and money.

If you're a fan of the likes of Iain M Banks or Alastair Reynolds, do yourself a favour and give this one a wide berth.

Worth persevering
The introductory pages really put me off. So much so that the book sat gathering dust for weeks on the bedside table. But I gave it another go, and I'm glad that I did. If you can break through the crust of the first 20-odd pages, you'll be rewarded with some great imaginary landscapes, ideas and future alternatives. But can't say that I liked the multi-narrator structure - to me very jarring. Maybe I'm just old fashioned. But I'd certainly consider reading what Philip Palmer comes up with next.

Maybe the next one will be better
This book intrigued me from the writeup on the back,but I ended up being massively disappointed. The book came across like a collection of development notes for a novel yet to be written; we get massive backstory from Lena,making her the most interesting character, a hint about Flanagan, and the rest of the cast are mere cyphers. The story too is all over the place- huge blocks of time pass in a matter of a couple of pages, the crew are seemingly superhuman and indestructible whilst everyone they meet is mere cannon fodder, giant space battles are barely described and seem like throwaway events as opposed to epoch-changing cataclysms. The "you are Prey" hook alluded to on the cover appears in the final third,but is barely a threat despite superb imagination.
Which is a shame as, in parts, this is great stuff. It is just let down by incoherent plotting and confusing story telling. I dunno,maybe I just got lost somewhere, but I was disappointed, frustrated and left the book feeling confused and let down.
I would read another book by this author, but just can't recommend this one...