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I love Neal Asher, but Jack Four is one of his least inspiring novels. This stated, it is still a very fun read. Jack Four is something like Die Hard in a science fiction setting, specifically, the Polity, but this is really a stand alone novel in this universe. Jack Four is our main protagonist, and the book starts off with him awakening along with 19 other clones (10 'Jacks' and 10 'Jills'). Obviously, they are about to be traded to some Prador, the nasty crab-like aliens that feature in so many of his Polity novels. Most of this story is situated in the 'Graveyard', basically something like a DMZ between the Polity and the Prador Kingdom, populated with outcasts from both empires for lack of a better word.

If you have ever read any Polity novels before, you know there was a nasty war between the aggressive Prador and the Polity; this took place many centuries before Jack Four. One of the nasty things the Prador did during the war was make 'thralls' or slaves out of humans, basically taking out their brain and inserting a 'thrall unit' under the command of a Prador. The problem was that 'normal' humans could not survive this, so one Jay Hooper, a renegade pirate from the Polity, found a solution by infecting people with the splatterjay virus first, making them 'hoopers' and extremely tough. Millions of people were thereby made into Prador thralls.

Once the war was over, the trade in human 'thralls' was outlawed, but it still happens in the Graveyard, which is basically lawless. We know the Prador King has also been infected with the virus and it seems some of his minions are still experimenting with the virus and thrall tech. Jack Four and his fellow clones were produced as 'blanks' and traded to the Prador so they could experiment with them and the virus. Yet, Jack is not a blank; in fact, he still has some memories and they are getting stronger. Why? It seems there is some new nanotech crystals that 'back up' memories and such and Jack Four had them while the other clones did not.

Once Jack and his fellow clones are on the King's massive ship, Jack manages to escape, but he remembers vividly the people that traded him and basically vows vengeance, but this will take some doing as he is stuck in the bowels of the King's ship. How can he escape and obtain his revenge? That is basically the plot.

As may be expected, this is a non-stop action thriller once we get past Asher laying out the characters and situation, so while it may start off slow, it quickly picks up and proceeds at a frenetic pace until the denouement. One of the issues I had with it was the first person narration, something Asher has done before, and I can see why he did it here, e.g., having the events unfold from the eyes of Jack, but nonetheless, it was a bit of a turn off and a bit confusing at times. Further, Asher does not really add anything to the Polity universe here. We do not have snarky AIs, massive space battles, or strange alien worlds, but rather a rehash of what he has done before. Yes, we have hoopers, some of the strange aliens and environments (especially when Jack is planetside), but nothing new and exceptional. Maybe Asher has reached the end of the Polity universe; in a way, I hope so, as I would like to see his wonderful imagination turned onto something new and exciting. 3 stars.