Hilldiggers by Neal Asher
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Neal Asher is always a good bet for space opera action, biological (often alien) oddities, and some seriously nasty body-horror elements. Sometimes all at the same time.

In this, we return to the remnants of the old Earth factions so far removed from the Polity and its AI masters that there needed to be a tentative inquiry into rejoining the human race. No, no, this isn't a novel about what is human. All these peeps are so far beyond what we consider human that neither side fits the bill. I mean, between a peep with a dual variant on the Spatterjay virus making him half-monster and half-immortal, extensive biological enhancements/alterations on all the old-time humans to live on this caustic worm-laden world, and all manner of uploading consciousness and vat-grown clones, what we really have here is a hard-SF tale distilled down to essentials...

Like loyalty, conscience, family, and stopping the damn civil war.

Didn't I mention? Yeah, this is a civil war novel. :)

Quite fun. :)

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