Duo Review
Aug. 21st, 2010 09:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bluegargantuaHi,
So one of my big pet peeves is books that can't be bothered to be complete in one book -- or if they must continue on, they should at least reach a decent stopping point.
Thus Pandora Star and Judas Unchained by Peter F. Hamilton is on shaky footing from the start. You're really looking at one large book broken down into a pair of 700-page novels. Pandora's Star ends quite literally on a cliffhanger and, mercifully, Judas Unchained doesn't bother with any recap or "as you know" malarkey -- it just picks up the story and keeps running under the assumption you know what's going on.
It's not a bad assumption, because despite the formatting (and the spelling errors in my copy of Judas Unchained that some previous patron felt compelled to edit with a pencil), the pair of books is a pretty compelling story that pretty much means if you finish the first one, you'll want to see it out to the end.
In the far future, wormhole technology links the human worlds of the Commonwealth with a star-spanning rail system (it's got trains...and later airships...I'm so weak for this one you guys). Thanks to cellular rejuvenation, clone and memory back-ups, immortality is within reach of everyone. Things are going pretty well.
Then an astronomer watches as a forcefield snaps into place around a star and an expedition is mounted to develop and build an FTL ship to investigate. Meanwhile a genetically-engineered police detective continues a centuries-old pursuit of a terrorist who works for a fringe cult claiming that humanity had been infiltrated by an alien being called the Starflyer.
The ship goes off to investigate the alien artifact and things go terribly wrong from there (as if the name Pandora's Star isn't suggestive).
The writing was pretty strong although there was this kind of weird fetishization of first-lifers, people who hadn't been rejuvenated or re-lifed yet. One character pretty much sleeps her way from plot point to plot point and is utterly desired by almost every major male character and a couple of female ones. Outside of that, other characters were pretty believable and realistic (at least in the context of a sci-fi future).
And there's plenty of characters to choose from. The narrative shifts smoothly from one knot of people to the next weaving together a wide range of threads. By the last half of the book, you can watch everything pull tight into the conclusion. There are action scenes and intrigue scenes and political scenes and philosophical scenes and romantic scenes so there's plenty of variety as you read.
Overall a good pair of books if you want a big meal of sci-fi.
later
Tom
So one of my big pet peeves is books that can't be bothered to be complete in one book -- or if they must continue on, they should at least reach a decent stopping point.
Thus Pandora Star and Judas Unchained by Peter F. Hamilton is on shaky footing from the start. You're really looking at one large book broken down into a pair of 700-page novels. Pandora's Star ends quite literally on a cliffhanger and, mercifully, Judas Unchained doesn't bother with any recap or "as you know" malarkey -- it just picks up the story and keeps running under the assumption you know what's going on.
It's not a bad assumption, because despite the formatting (and the spelling errors in my copy of Judas Unchained that some previous patron felt compelled to edit with a pencil), the pair of books is a pretty compelling story that pretty much means if you finish the first one, you'll want to see it out to the end.
In the far future, wormhole technology links the human worlds of the Commonwealth with a star-spanning rail system (it's got trains...and later airships...I'm so weak for this one you guys). Thanks to cellular rejuvenation, clone and memory back-ups, immortality is within reach of everyone. Things are going pretty well.
Then an astronomer watches as a forcefield snaps into place around a star and an expedition is mounted to develop and build an FTL ship to investigate. Meanwhile a genetically-engineered police detective continues a centuries-old pursuit of a terrorist who works for a fringe cult claiming that humanity had been infiltrated by an alien being called the Starflyer.
The ship goes off to investigate the alien artifact and things go terribly wrong from there (as if the name Pandora's Star isn't suggestive).
The writing was pretty strong although there was this kind of weird fetishization of first-lifers, people who hadn't been rejuvenated or re-lifed yet. One character pretty much sleeps her way from plot point to plot point and is utterly desired by almost every major male character and a couple of female ones. Outside of that, other characters were pretty believable and realistic (at least in the context of a sci-fi future).
And there's plenty of characters to choose from. The narrative shifts smoothly from one knot of people to the next weaving together a wide range of threads. By the last half of the book, you can watch everything pull tight into the conclusion. There are action scenes and intrigue scenes and political scenes and philosophical scenes and romantic scenes so there's plenty of variety as you read.
Overall a good pair of books if you want a big meal of sci-fi.
later
Tom
