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Jack Four

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Jack Four

By: Neal Asher
Narrated by: Nathaniel Priestley
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About this listen

Created to die - determined to live.

Jack Four - one of 20 human clones - has been created to be sold. His purchasers are the alien prador, and they only want him for their experimentation program. But there is something different about Jack. No clone should possess the knowledge that’s been loaded into his mind. And no normal citizen of humanity’s Polity worlds would have this information.

The prador’s king has been mutated by the Spatterjay virus into a creature even more monstrous than the prador themselves. And his children, the King’s Guard, have undergone similar changes. They were infected by the virus during the last humans-versus-prador war, now lapsed into an uneasy truce. But the prador are always looking for new weapons - and their experimentation program might give them the edge they seek.

Suzeal trades human slaves out of the Stratogaster Space Station, re-engineering them to serve the prador. She thinks the rewards are worth the risks, but all that is about to change. The station was once a zoo, containing monsters from across known space. All the monsters now dwell on the planet below, but they aren’t as contained as they seem. And a vengeful clone may be the worst danger of all.

©2021 Neal Asher (P)2021 Macmillan Publishers International Ltd First Contact Genetic Engineering Hard Science Fiction Science Fiction Fiction Genetics King

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Critic reviews

"Neal Asher’s books are like an adrenaline shot targeted directly for the brain." (John Scalzi, author of the Old Man’s War series)

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Reminds me of the agent cormac series, 1st person though and some more gross descriptions

Decent space opera

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Good hard SF book with plenty of action in his familiar universe. Excellent narration.

One of my favourite SF writers.

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The Polity is one of the finest settings for fictional adventures I have come across. Much like The Ion Age in its lore and depth.

A very novel scifi story

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This was a great adventure and a new favourite from Neal Asher.

There are familiar monsters and familiar archetypes but I enjoyed how they were brought (or clashed) together.

Highly recommended.

One of my favourite

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Good, but mediocre compared to the rest of Asher's work.

This one goes in the very small pile of books in the Polity series that I didn't like that much.
There is usually so much interesting stuff going on in these books. And this time there was not much of the aforementioned stuff. I like all that nano-quantum-ancient-alien-race-subspace-cyber-ai-mutant nonsense.
Still better than most of the science fiction on the market.

I expected better.

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Loved the high octane pace you always expect from Asher. Another fine thread woven into the polity tapestry.

Excellent

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Annoying mispronunciation of Prador throughout which grated during a fast paced action adventure which just happened to be based in the Polity.

Has the feel of a spaghetti western .

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I did eventually listen to this all the way through, but it was hard work. Apart from the unnecessary gore-fest, the flaw with this book is that over and over again, the protagonist would be put into a dire situation and then at the last moment, "With one bound, Jack was free". Over and over again, bullets and missiles would just miss him, whereas he killed hundreds of opponents. Over and over again, his armour would stop him from being killed, whereas opponents' armour wouldn't protect them at all. Over and over again, he would be brought back to full health by magic so-called "autodocs", conveniently being given enough time between engagements to fully heal. I hate to criticise someone's creative effort, but this is just juvenile tosh. The narrator does a good job, but like many SF stories set lightyears from Earth, the protagonists seem to have a variety of UK regional accents - necessary I suppose to allow you to distinguish the characters, but bizarre all the same

Sorry, Neal, juvenile drivel

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Neal, I know you look at these things, For my perspective, i'd just started playing a game called "Empyrion" You wake up as a clone in hostile territory with a hunger... and I seem to eat every 5 mins in that game or i'm in real danger of dying of hunger - good to see Jack feels the same way..or was it me ? Bravo for the uncanny timing of this coming out. FOR THE LOVE OF BROCKLE never ever use this Narrator again, ever. For every one of your other books, the wonderful narrators say the word "Prador" and pronounce the "o" The genius narrator of this book has decided to pronounce it " Prader" with fekcin E instead of an O. It really really hurts to listen to the name diminished, it's just wrong.

Preder Preder Preder

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Maybe this genre isn't for me, but I don't get the 4.5 current rating. Good imagination and the story rounds off well, but how many times can someone be stupid enough to get captured time and time again? Get tortured? Get eviscerated? Rescued? And start all over again. the 3 stars is because there are some smart ideas in the story, but by the end, I couldn't wait for it to finish, then didn't realised it had until I realised I was listening to the glossary. Do I recommend this one, it's a marmite book obviously. Not for me.

Mediocre at best

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