From the mind of Neal Asher, world-renown author of more than 20 books and nominee for both the Philip K. Dick and the British Fantasy Society awards, comes a new action-filled science fiction Polity epic. Three visitors arrive on one of the most unique (and deadly) worlds science fiction has ever seen, in the start of a classic Polity series from Neal Asher.

Welcome to Spatterjay . . . where sudden death is the normal way of life.

On the remote planet Spatterjay arrive three travelers: Janer, acting as the eyes of a hornet Hive mind; Erlin, a xenobiologist searching for an ancient sea captain; and Sable Keech, who himself has been dead for 700 years. On this ocean world, visitors are rare, and the native hoopers--humans infected with a local virus that renders them nearly invincible, though at monstrous cost--patrol the open seas, risking the voracious appetites of the planet's deadly wildlife.

Somewhere out there is Spatterjay Hoop, the last member of a band of pirates, whose many years spent on the planet have transformed him into a grotesque monster. And a vicious alien prador is about to pay Spatterjay a visit as well, intent on extermination. 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 . . . and death.