Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6036 in Books
• Published on: 2008-04-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 551 pages

Customer Reviews

Not up to his other books
There's something not there in Hilldiggers that Asher's Cormac and Spatterjay books do have. I can't quite put my finger on it, but this book didn't grip me like his others.

The characters were largely not that gripping and the plot wasn't that involving even when the big action scenes got going. I also couldn't help feeling that the infodumps at the start of the book could have been done in a better way. It's still a good book, but it just doesn't get up there with Neal Asher's other works.

First Neil Asher book
This is the first book of Neil Asher that I have read. I must admit it took a bit of getting into. However, once I had the style sorted out it was a good read.
I will certainly be trying others of his.
Surprised to find that again he was another brit sci-fi author. H G Well certainly spread his genetic influence far and wide.

A very boring book
"Hilldiggers" is very much unlike other Asher's books. It is as if it's written by a different person. It's boring.

I love his "Skinner" and still re-read it every now and then; the "Voyage..." is almost just as good. His Cormac books are also finely written. This one, I could barely finish it. The plot is predictable, all characters are flat and the writing style is extremely boring: page after page of monotonous narrative, irrelevant details and dry dialogs. No sense of humor whatsoever, and in fact very little emotions at all.

Despite his obsession with details, Asher doesn't bother to be consistent with his prior Spatterjay books (one example: in both the "Skinner" and the "Voyage..." hoopers occasionally get dunked into the deadly Spatterjay sea and, while being eaten alive by various creatures, they do keep afloat like any normal human would. In "Hilldiggers", the Hooper character McCrooger is for some reason much denser than normal people and would instantly sink to the bottom). Not to mention the idea of sending the Hooper, twice-infected by conflicting viruses, to make first contact with a paranoid and warlike civilization... Not to mention the silly "tiger-on-the-ball" Tigger drone... Or the four obviously suspicious "worm children" so easily allowed to raise to the top of the society...

If you like Asher and don't want to be disappointed, stick to his earlier Spatterjay books and avoid this one.