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 149 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

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

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

Excellent, but way too long.

I generally don't write reviews for the books I read, mostly because I find that others articulate my joys or frustrations better than I can. In the case of this particular book however... I also have nothing new to add.

But I must side the with those who say this book is overwritten. I felt like I had to put in a lot of work at times just to turn the page. That 15 to 20 page narrative early in the story on how to hang glide on an alien planet was about 15-20 pages too long.

But that diversion wasn't the only sin Peter committed. In all, I felt that this book was literally twice as long as it needed to be. Entire subplots were unncessary and nearly made me give up on the novel. And that's a shame because this could have been a truly great one. It just required someone to tell Mr. Hamilton that when we read about a large mansion, we don't really need to know about how the original builder had financed the thing, or how the original builder made his fortune, or about how the architects were influenced by the great architects of a bygone era. I don't need to know any of that stuff, especially when the mansion has been described in painstaking detail for several pages earlier in the book anyway.

This is the first book of his that I have read. I was surprised when I realized that he had written so many other published works. He has an eye for detail, no doubt about that. But the gentleman can't seem to properly pace a book to save his life.

After all that complaining, I still liked the book. It caters to my tastes. After almost putting the thing away after the first 400 pages of going nowhere it hit a stride of sorts and I felt that there was at least some momentum beginning to build - albeit in a 3 steps forward, 2 steps back sort of way.

Once I convinced myself that a society that has created wormhole technology and FTL spaceships (something I wouldn't expect to be possible for tens of thousands of years, if ever) must still use diesel powered vehicles for getting about planetside (Something we could bypass in a few decades) somehow makes sense, I slowly found myself buying in and enjoying the book more and more.

By the end, I finished and reluctantly purchased Judas Unchained. I'll give it a go and pray for Mr. Hamilton to have mercy with me.

Oh yes, one short diversion I did enjoy - a reference to a collector coming upon a first edition of the novel Raft. If it is the same Raft that was written by Stephen Baxter than call me giddy. I would recommend some of Stephen Baxter's older books over this one. Timelike Infinity, Ring, or his Manifold Trilogy. Those are all superior to Pandora's Star.

And while I'm recommeding alternatives, anything by Alastair Reynolds.

for more information click here

Good book, overall.

On a whim, I ordered the book from Amazon to fill in the void left after finishing up the Dune series again. Sometimes these things are a gamble, as you can't flip through it quickly, and you've no idea the tastes of the other reviewers in comparison to your own.

However, after spending about 3 weeks in-between work and home reading through all 900 some odd pages, I have to say I liked the book. I suppose my tastes are sort of picky. I like some Fiction, some Detective stories (particularly Holmes), the occasional Fantasy book, and a good bit of Sci-Fi.

The book is a bit "Lower Sci-Fi" than what I'm used to reading, in that it's technology level seems depressingly appropriate for a few hundred years into the future. Every possible technology in the book is firmly based in real-world physics, and very little "Fuzzy Logic" is needed to fill in the gaps and make me believe that it is, indeed, the "future."

Pandora's Star is set a few hundred years ahead of us where interplanetary travel has been solved by wormholes. The setting itself is very solid, and seems to assume that the future will be much like the present itself, with mega-corporations and super-powerful families running everything behind the scenes. It's not thick on political intrigue or espionage, and a lot of the events are simply brute-forced through by massive amounts of cash from said corporations or families, which has two effects for me: The first being that it successfully puts the perspective of power in the right spot for key players, and the second is that it seems to pigeon-hole the book just a tad into the "Ultra-rich" characters. There are Joe-Schmoes playing parts in the book, but they seem to be catalysts, while the financially too-well-endowed are the main event most of the time.

It's also not big on action. This is definitely not some Military-Sci-Fi book, and sometimes that's a relief as the genre itself seems to keep falling over the "Aliens" syndrome a little too often for my tastes. What action there is in the book is described adequately and flows rather well.

I was a bit surprised that the book turned out to be almost a detective novel, both in the main story-arch, and in several of the intimate stories concerning the main characters. In fact, there really seem to be two different stories and two different genres happening here. One is your sci-fi detective story, brought to you by the character Paula Myo and Adam Elvin, and the other seems to be almost a generic Sci-Fi theme of "Spaceflight + Aliens = Book".

However, the author does capably blend the two, and while I found myself sort of wondering where everything was going in the beginning quarter of the book or so, the meat of the book is really contained in the latter half, and now I'm considering buying the sequel my next trip through B&N.

Overall I'd say it's well written, the flow of events is pretty, and the book kept me firmly trenched in my suspension of disbelief. I bought the whole thing line and sinker, and with only the scant things perking up my sarcasm.

However, with the praise for the book, there are a few things which I found to take away from the experience (and these may be my personal preferences, so take them as you will):

-New characters are being added continuously up until about half or three-quarters the way through the book. Trying to keep track of them all can be a bit dizzying, and some of them seemed to take up too much space for being the side-characters they were.

-The exhaustive descriptions of landscapes got to me towards the end. Some may not fault him for this, but the cities and surrounding environments easily get the most attention to detail. With as many curious situations as the book finds itself in, I found this to be a bit annoying, but it's not a deal-breaker.

-This may be very nitpicky, but along with a good chunk of the genre, "saturated with sex" is also rather appropriate to describe this book as well. It happens, and it happens often. It's a casual thing in this book, and many others, and I think that it can definitely take away from the wonder of a good Sci-Fi story. I don't mind the occasional bout of bedtime fun in my books, don't get me wrong, but it's rarely done well. Yes, yes, sex in the future is like brushing your teeth, everyone does it twice a day, I get it... It doesn't need to be pointed out so directly. I think a more subtle approach could be taken, and much better results had. Deal breaker? No. Some of the encounters are well done and appropriate in Pandora's Star, but a significant portion seem to be in only because "It's what the readers want."

Would I recommend it? Well, if you don't mind a lengthy book, and want to see a good creative mind at work at a Sci-Fi detective story that has a few good twists, I would. This -is- a good book, the prose is excellent, and provides a nice fertile area to stretch the mind in a different way before leaping back into another fast-paced post-apocalyptic Starship Troopers type of novel.

4/5 stars for this one.

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

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

Critics have compared the engrossing space operas of Peter F. Hamilton to the classic sagas of such sf giants as Isaac Asimov and Frank Herbert. But Hamilton?s bestselling fiction?powered by a fearless imagination and world-class storytelling skills?has also earned him comparison to Tolstoy and Dickens. Hugely ambitious, wildly entertaining, philosophically stimulating: the novels of Peter F. Hamilton will change the way you think about science fiction. Now, with Pandora?s Star, he begins a new multivolume adventure, one that promises to be his most mind-blowing yet.

The year is 2380. The Intersolar Commonwealth, a sphere of stars some four hundred light-years in diameter, contains more than six hundred worlds, interconnected by a web of transport ?tunnels? known as wormholes. At the farthest edge of the Commonwealth, astronomer Dudley Bose observes the impossible: Over one thousand light-years away, a star . . . vanishes. It does not go supernova. It does not collapse into a black hole. It simply disappears. Since the location is too distant to reach by wormhole, a faster-than-light starship, the Second Chance, is dispatched to learn what has occurred and whether it represents a threat. In command is Wilson Kime, a five-time rejuvenated ex-NASA pilot whose glory days are centuries behind him.

Opposed to the mission are the Guardians of Selfhood, a cult that believes the human race is being manipulated by an alien entity they call the Starflyer. Bradley Johansson, leader of the Guardians, warns of sabotage, fearing the Starflyer means to use the starship?s mission for its own ends,.

Pursued by a Commonwealth special agent convinced the Guardians are crazy but dangerous, Johansson flees. But the danger is not averted. Aboard the Second Chance, Kime wonders if his crew has been infiltrated. Soon enough, he will have other worries. A thousand light-years away, something truly incredible is waiting: a deadly discovery whose unleashing will threaten to destroy the Commonwealth . . . and humanity itself.

Could it be that Johansson was right?

From the Hardcover edition.

for more information click here

hot

not?

What's your opinion?

Write a review and share your thoughts!

recommendations

Authors worth collecting in their entirety
First 25 books of 2008 (1/1 - 4/24)
Books my Sci-fi book club has read
Wandering of the Mind
Lucky's List

star

The Complete Visual Dictionary of Star Wars: The Ultimate Guide to ...
Revelation (Star Wars: Legacy of the Force, Book 8)
Finding Your Own North Star: Claiming the Life You Were Meant to Live
Threats of the Galaxy (Star Wars Accessory)
Star Wars: A Pop-Up Guide to the Galaxy

search for books
pandora's star, pandora, star

Impressum / about us