Falling Dragon, HIdden Review
Dec. 26th, 2009 03:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bluegargantuaHi,
Not much time left before my "year in reviewed books review", but on Chirstmas I finished up Fallen Dragon by Peter F. Hamilton. It's a stand alone book which, I'm told, is a bit unusual for him, but I'd heard good things about Pandora's Star/Judas Unchained and I wanted to see if I liked the author's style before getting too deep into it.
Fallen Dragon is mostly the story of Lawrence Newton, a soldier working for the Zantiu-Braun company's "asset recognition" program. Essentially, the ZB founded (or bought out) the human colonies that have been established and every few decades they show up to pillage the industrial production for high-tech goods and services to ship home to Earth -- which funds the starships that go out to pillage the next colony on the list. The current target is a planet called Thallspring and Newton is anxious to return to the planet in pursuit of a huge (and illicit score). The natives of Thallspring aren't taking this quietly, however, and they've got some secret help on their side to offset the tremendous power of the invaders.
This isn't quite the straight-up "rag-tag rebels beat off the evil corporation" story that you're expecting. If anything, the story revels in the moral shades of grey that make it difficult to categorize what's going on. The pacing is ok except that there are a number of flashbacks to Newton's life growing up as the wealthy son of a colony founder. These flashbacks are important, but they keep pushing you out of where you really want to be and aren't quite distracting enough. Still, they didn't derail the book entirely.
Overall it was a pretty good book. It offers a fair amount of meditation on the various paths societies can take and the various ways they succeed or fail at delivering on their promises.
later
Tom
Not much time left before my "year in reviewed books review", but on Chirstmas I finished up Fallen Dragon by Peter F. Hamilton. It's a stand alone book which, I'm told, is a bit unusual for him, but I'd heard good things about Pandora's Star/Judas Unchained and I wanted to see if I liked the author's style before getting too deep into it.
Fallen Dragon is mostly the story of Lawrence Newton, a soldier working for the Zantiu-Braun company's "asset recognition" program. Essentially, the ZB founded (or bought out) the human colonies that have been established and every few decades they show up to pillage the industrial production for high-tech goods and services to ship home to Earth -- which funds the starships that go out to pillage the next colony on the list. The current target is a planet called Thallspring and Newton is anxious to return to the planet in pursuit of a huge (and illicit score). The natives of Thallspring aren't taking this quietly, however, and they've got some secret help on their side to offset the tremendous power of the invaders.
This isn't quite the straight-up "rag-tag rebels beat off the evil corporation" story that you're expecting. If anything, the story revels in the moral shades of grey that make it difficult to categorize what's going on. The pacing is ok except that there are a number of flashbacks to Newton's life growing up as the wealthy son of a colony founder. These flashbacks are important, but they keep pushing you out of where you really want to be and aren't quite distracting enough. Still, they didn't derail the book entirely.
Overall it was a pretty good book. It offers a fair amount of meditation on the various paths societies can take and the various ways they succeed or fail at delivering on their promises.
later
Tom
