Publisher: Orbit
Publication Date: October 2009
Format: Paperback
UK ISBN: 9781841496245
US ISBN: 9780316018937
UK eISBN: 9780748120420
US eISBN: 9780316032902
Extracts
Click here to read an extract from Red Claw
And click here to read a second and much funnier extract from Red Claw
Buying Links:
UK Print: Amazon.co.uk | Book Depository | Play.com | Waterstone’s | WHSmith
UK eBook: Amazon.co.uk | iTunes | KoboBooks | Waterstone’s | WHSmith
US Print: Amazon.com | BarnesandNoble.com | Borders.com | IndieBound.org | HachetteBookGroup.com
About the Book:
Professor Richard Helms is the head of a research expedition sent to explore New Amazon, a lush, savage planet as dangerous as it is beautiful and strange. When they are done cataloguing every detail of this vast, unfamiliar ecosystem, they will burn it to the ground and make it fit for human habitation. But when the team falls under attack, Helms and his followers are forced to flee into the depths of the alien jungle.
The scientists and the soldiers soon end up fighting for their lives – against the robots designed to serve them, against the planet they came to explore, and most of all, against each other.
The countdown into madness is ticking …
Palmer burns a new path for science fiction in this gripping, dark tale of man’s place in the universe.
The above is what the blurb on the book says. Here are some other comments about this, my second novel.
SFX generously described Red Claw as “less bonkers than his debut Debatable Space, but we’re talking in relative terms here.” [I really don't know if this is a compliment or an insult!]
The Guardian reviewer wrote: “Palmer follows his much-praised debut, Debatable Space, with another riotous, wildly inventive space opera …crawling with over-the-top monsters and crazy biological dangers… Red Claw is that rare treat, an intelligent action adventure replete with intellectual rigour, human insight and superb storytelling.”
Sci Fi London’s critique of the book said: “Red Claw hooks the reader in right from the get-go and doesn’t let up until the final page. The pace is relentless and the plot… is utterly compelling, twisting and turning and keeping you guessing till the very end … Red Claw is an utterly satisfying, fast and furious read, violent, sexy and laugh-out-loud funny in places, it provokes thought but doesn’t preach and all the while it’s hugely entertaining. Definitely recommended.”
The website Emotionally Fourteen commented: “A marvellous mix of the ridiculous and the sublime, mashing pulp sci-fi with a seedly Heinlein style utopian dystopia, and some pretty dark humour as well. …The story twists like a twisty turny thing … This is one of the best novels released this year. 10/10.”
SF Crowsnest called it: “a roller-coaster ride through destruction, intrigue, murder and chaos … It’s fun, it’s brutal and it’s exciting.” And the My Shelf reviewer observed, “The cover echoes the charming naivety of a 50s B movie or pulp novel, but open it up and you have a tale for the Noughties … Mr Palmer does it all particularly well with attention paid to every satirical detail.”
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Red Claw was just as good as I was expecting. This would make a far better film than the weedy ‘Avatar’.
Your screenwriting skills are very much in evidence – as is the imaginative free-reign you’ve allowed yourself.
I read the new Houllebecq book and ‘Riddley Walker’ this week, along with Red Claw, and the uniqueness of worldview and approach to writing in your novel was just interesting as in those.
Thanks for those lovely comments Doug….I have to say I thought Avatar was a triumph of design over content, and was totally hollow-hearted. And I’d love to see Red Claw on screen….well, one can dream!
Oh God, I loved this book so much. You are an amazingly talented author.
I am curious. I just started reading “Day 12″ in read claw. I noticed that in the diary of Hugo Baal, there are two words that both have the number five as a foot note, but there is no foot note number five? Is this just and editorial mistake, or something more?
Yikes! No one else has spotted that. It’s a proofing error. The original draft had:
Unfortunately he is now being held in protective custody, following his selfish and deranged actions which led to the death of 383 Scientist and Soldiers on New Amazon, in two separate ghastly massacres and a few smirmishes inbetween , (5)
And the footnote was:
Dr Gloria Baker is excluded from this tally, since she was killed by the planet not by DRs.
Bravo for reading this novel so amazingly thoroughly…