Nor does he know that the most brutal Prador of all is about to pay a visit, intent on wiping out all evidence of his wartime atrocities. Keech does not realise that Hoop`s body is running free on an island wilderness, while his living head is confined in a box on an Old Captain`s ships. Somewhere out there is Spatterjay Hoop himself, and monitor Keech cannot rest until he can bring this legendary renegade to justice for atrocious crimes committed centuries ago during the Prador Wars. Spatterjay is a watery world where the human population inhabits the safety of the Dome and only the quasi-immortal hoopers are safe outside amidst a fearful range of voracious life-forms. Janer is directed there by the hornet Hive-mind Erlin comes to find the sea captain who can teach her to live and Keech - dead for seven hundred years - has unfinished business with a notorious criminal. and death.To the remote planet Spatterjay come three travellers with very different missions. As the visitors' paths converge, major hell is about to erupt in a chaotic waterscape where minor hell is already a remorseless fact of everyday life. For one of the most brutal of the alien Prador is about to pay the planet a surreptitious visit, intent on exterminating all remaining witnesses to his wartime atrocities. Meanwhile, Erlin thinks she has plenty of time to find the answers she seeks, but could not be more wrong.

While Keech is discovering that Hoop is now a monster - his body and head living apart from each other - Janer is bewildered by a place where the native inhabitants just will not die and angry when he finally learns the Hive mind's intentions for him. But somewhere out there is Spatterjay Hoop - and Keech will not rest until he brings this legendary renegade to justice for hideous crimes committed centuries ago during the Prador Wars. Outside it, only the native Hoopers dare risk the voracious appetites of the planet's wildlife. This remote world is mostly ocean, and it is a rare visitor who ventures beyond the safety of the island Dome.

On the planet Spatterjay arrive three travelers: Janer, acting as the eyes of the hornet Hive mind, on a mission not yet revealed to him Erlin, searching for Ambel - the ancient sea captain who can teach her how to live and Sable Keech, on a vendetta he cannot abandon, though he himself has been dead for 700 years. Neal Asher, whom Tor introduced to the American audience with Gridlinked, takes us deeper into his unique universe with an even more remarkable second novel, The Skinner.

The Skinner by Neal Asher