Another excellent work from the master of the sprawling space opera epic

books:


	• Pandora's Star Peter F. Hamilton Del Rey, 2005 - 992 pages average customer review:based on 157 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

Another excellent work from the master of the sprawling space opera epic

_Pandora's Star_ by Peter F. Hamilton, the first part of his Commonwealth duology, is another excellent work from the master of the sprawling space opera epic. Hamilton is really good at what he does; he gives the reader an incredibly engrossing tale told on epic scale with dozens of well-drawn, interesting characters having thrilling adventures, introducing the reader to truly alien worlds and creatures, titanic struggles between good and evil, and lots of high tech gadgets, weapons, and starships.

Where to start...Hamilton introduced the reader in the cover blurbs and in the first chapter two of the most important concepts in Commonwealth, so I will go ahead and reveal these non-spoilerish bits. First of all, the setting is the year 2380 and humanity has spread out among the stars, living in what is termed the Intersolar Commonwealth, a region of stars some four hundred light-years in diameter and containing six hundred inhabited worlds. These various worlds are connected by a series of wormholes that work as transport tunnels between three different regions of space (Phase One, which contains Earth and the first settled worlds, Phase Two, the next region settled, and Phase Three, the most recently settled frontier worlds, farther out from Earth than Phase Two worlds). Starships do not fly between these worlds via the wormholes but rather trains are used, all manner of trains, from cheap to run and maintain steam engine trains on remote frontier worlds to monstrous fusion-powered incredibly advanced machines. All of these trains are owned and operated by Compression Space Transport or CST, the biggest company to ever exist. CST connects all of these worlds, making the Commonwealth possible, allowing people and goods to travel hundreds of light years in minutes and also with their exploration division find new worlds to colonize.

The second most important concept in the Commonwealth universe is that people are nearly immortal; sure, they grow old and can die from disease, accident, murder, war, or if allowed to, old age, but thanks to advances in technology can get a second chance, or a third chance, or fifty-third chance for that matter. Nearly everyone (there are a few cultural exceptions) gets fitted with memory cells in their head that store all of their memories. People periodically update these memories to safe storage outside of their body (a good thing to do if one has a dangerous profession) because these memories can be downloaded into a new body. When a person reaches the end of what they consider their youth or their natural lifespan (depending on personal preference and how much money they have) they can regenerate a new body; a new body is cloned, their memories downloaded, and about six months or so later they are alive and well again but physically in their late teens. If someone suffers "bodyloss" - they are murdered, killed, or otherwise vanish and are presumed dead - once the authorities agree that person is indeed dead someone can be "relifed." Needless to say this changes the culture quite a bit and while not creating a truly alien civilization by any means I did enjoy Hamilton's exploration of this concept.

The Commonwealth is a very peaceful, stable civilization, with a thriving economy, mostly happy people that focus on families, friends, their jobs, entertainment, and celebrity gossip. The Commonwealth is continuing to expand, showing no signs of slowing down. There is only one group that is not happy, a vigilante organization known as the Guardians of Selfhood. Led by one Bradley Johansson, they are based on a fascinating remote Phase Three world known as Far Away, a world that contains one of the few examples of alien technology ever found, a mysterious giant ship that landed long ago and was apparently abandoned. The Guardians believe it was piloted by a malevolent entity known as the Starflyer, an alien whose goal is to secretly manipulate the Commonwealth at its highest levels and eventually to destroy it. Very few believe the Guardians, regarding them as distant eccentrics at best, dangerous terrorists at worst.

They are pursued across space and time by Chief Investigator Paula Myo, one of the most celebrated detectives in Commonwealth history; indeed her investigation of the Guardians and their chief arms merchant and agent Adam Elvin remains her only unsolved case in over a century on the job.

At the same time, astronomer Dudley Bose discovers something extraordinary; over one thousand light-years away a star vanishes. It does not become a black hole or go supernova, it simply disappears in seconds. What happened? Is this an example of a vastly powerful alien race? Why would they encapsulate as it turns out two stars? Was it protection from something or to keep something imprisoned, something very dangerous? Though not a starship-using civilization, the Commonwealth decides to construct and launch a starship called the _Second Chance_, led by Captain Wilson Kime, an ex-NASA pilot, to go investigate.

Other plotlines include the saga of one of the members of the Guardians on Far Away by the name of Kazimir McFoster; Nigel Sheldon, one of the original discoverers of the wormhole technology and the day-to-day head of CST, one of the most powerful men in the Commonwealth; Ozzie Fernandez Isaac, the other discoverer of wormhole technology, who goes on the biggest walkabout of all time trying to find the enigmatic aliens known as the Silfen to see what they know about the Dyson Pair (as the stars come to be known); Mark Vernon and his family, a fairly typical Commonwealth family, always caught in the middle it seems; Justine Burnelli, a member of one of the powerful dynasties that dominate Commonwealth politics; and Melanie Rescorai (the latter two went from being fairly lightweight people to true heroines during the course of the saga). Though I have to admit it was not clear at all initially how the other plot lines tied together, I will assure any future reader that they indeed do and do so in surprising and thrilling ways.

for more information click here

An interesting universe

In this book Peter Hamilton creates a very interesting future universe. One in which all interplanetary travel is done through worm-wholes, instead of spaceships. This peculiarity, matched with nearly immortal people who can backup their personalities as if they were computer data creates a very different outlook on how on faces life.

This different perspective of life is well explored by the author in this book and its sequel - Judas Unchained.

Pandora's Star has a huge number of characters and though their relationship to the main plot is very frequently not obvious for quite some time, they are very easy to keep straight in your mind. The personal stories of these characters add to the richness of the universe as they give you further insight on how life would actually be under those circumstances. Sometimes the fact that the personal stories do not seem to be connected to the main plot can be a bit annoying but, in the end, all stories converge into the main plot.

for more information click here

Pacing problems

I would have given it 3.5 stars if possible. I enjoyed reading it quite a bit. There are interesting aliens, characters and situations. There are also a few surprises and twists. However I was sick of all the exposition by the hundredth time I read a two-paragraph description of some alien plant that does little for the story. Just when the action builds up and you can't wait to see what happens, you're off to some boring and depressing trek through the galaxy or a chapter how one family lives on a "green" area on one planet. I ended up skimming through much of the last fourth of the book. Some of the situations set off my logic buzzer, but I'll see how the follow-up, Judas Unchained, explains them.

for more information click here

Pandora's Star plus Judas Unchained is 2000 pages of sci-fi adventure!

Pandora's Star, by Peter Hamilton, is part one of a two part epic concluding with Judas Unchained. And it really is part one. Pandora's Star without Judas Unchained is half a story. These books don't stand alone.

The general theme is as follows. Because of their ability to control the formation and location of wormholes, humans have expanded throughout the galaxy. They've encountered a few sentient alien species, but none that were particularly harmful to human interests.

An astronomer was "lucky" enough to watch a star... disappear. However, it didn't just disappear. It was enveloped in some type of super cocoon. What technology could envelop a star? Did an advanced race put this cocoon up to protect it from a greater danger? Or was something very, very dangerous, penned inside?

We needed to find out.

As a mission approaches the barrier, it suddenly switches off, and humans meet MorningLightMountain. Let's just leave it at "bad things begin to happen."

These "bad things" result in a fight for, quite simply, the survival of humans as a species (in Judas Unchained).

If that's not enough, this series also has the mysterious Starflyer, possibly manipulating both races to get them to annihilate each other so that it can pick up the pieces. Of course, Starflyer is a myth, right? Only zealots care about Starflyer.

You don't want to miss the history of MorningLightMountain in chapter 18 of Pandora's Star (remember the tale of opening Pandora's box?).

Humans, by the way, have really ratcheted up their biotechnology: re-life, rejuvenation, memory crystals, defensive and offensive implants ("wet wired"), and connections to the unisphere.

Cool.

There are very complicated personal relationships in both books, and, I have to admit, they begin to get tedious. Hence the four stars.

Judas Unchained brings all the loose threads together. Will humans survive? Is Starflyer real? Do the interests of the Dynasty Families lie with the human race?

Your questions will be answered. Make sure you have time to read all 2000 pages!

for more information click here

Can't put it down!

I must admit, one star off for the weird grammar usage (punctuation misuse is more like it), but other than that this is definitely a page turner! I haven't finished yet, but the depth of the character profiles is intriguing; there are tons of characters to like and dislike in the first half of the book. Environments are nicely fleshed out (and there are many), and supporting characters are used sparingly. This is not 'hard' sci-fi, but includes some interesting tech. Hamilton's writing reminds me of Fredrik Pohl's 'Gateway' series, and I miss that in most of today's authors. Great find!

for more information click here

reviews: 1, page 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11

hot

not?

What's your opinion?

Write a review and share your thoughts!

recommendations

MY FAVORITE SCIENCE FICTION BOOKS
Science Fiction Suggestions
Books I read in 2007
Lucky's List
My top 10

search for books
pandora's star, pandora, star

Impressum / about us