Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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48 of 49 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Another Hamilton page-turner, 16 Feb 2004
Odd that Amazon considers it not yet published, as I just finished reading it this weekend after Amazon shipped a copy to me. Once again, Peter Hamilton has painted a broad canvas for his latest series of novels. Set in a relatively near future, but one in which wormhole travel to far stars is an everyday occurrence, where the elves are recognized as an off-world species who walk their own paths between the worlds, and a shadowy terrorist group, inspired by fears of a mysterious alien invader that no-one else believes to exist, Hamilton once again weaves dozens of individual stories into a seamless whole.The "Pandora's Star" of the title refers to a mysterious cosmic event hundreds of light years away, beyond the reach of the wormhole technology, where two solar systems are suddenly enclosed instantly by a pair of massive force fields. This drives the major action in the book, with its usual massive space battles, detailed descriptions of alien species, complex politics and the tragedy and small triumphs of individual lives. Hamilton has developed a star-spanning empire with new species, including his usual AI constructs and human memory archives, however this world is very different from the universe of the Neutronium Alchemist. There are the usual cliff-hangers at the end of this satisfying read, which make me certain to buy the sequel when it is released (hopefully this year!)
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16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
satisfying space opera, 16 Feb 2006
I am re-reading this first novel to be able to move on to the second, having forgotten some plot elements from my reading it a year ago.
To all those that say it is over long, I just say that this is space opera and there are many books out there that are over far too quickly. If you even begin to pick a book to read you must be doing so to envelope your self in a different world and storyline to that of your own life, so why should it not be all encompassing as PFH's works are. I do agree with some of the over long/boring passges, but aside from about 2 sections in this book ,the rest is necessary and adds to the allusion of space being BIG. He covers a lot of scifi basics in this but with good descriptive flair and originality, in a genre that has gone a little stale from other authors. I for one was hooked and read this again in 4 straight sessions.
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41 of 45 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Hamilton Returns to Space in Style, 22 Feb 2004
What do you do when you have written the last truly great space opera of the 20th Century? If you are Peter F. Hamilton, the answer seems to be to try and write the first great space opera of the 21st. He may have been pipped to the post by Alastair Reynolds' Inhibitor series in that regard, but The Commonwealth Saga, starting with Pandora's Star to be concluded in Judas Unchained, is an extremely impressive piece of work. In his Night's Dawn Trilogy Hamilton populated his universe with starships swallowing the void in artificial wormholes. In Pandora's Star wormholes directly link planets together, meaning visiting another world is as simple as getting on a train. There are no starships and the Intersolar Commonwealth is a peaceful, stable society. When two stars 1200 light-years away disappear, the Commonwealth builds the first faster-than-light ship to investigate. As the title suggests, this isn't a great idea and soon the Commonwealth is under threat of annihilation. Like Night's Dawn, this new series is complex, richly populated with interesting characters and with an effortless style which pulls you in and makes you care about what's happening, a skill most hard SF authors lack (hello Gregory Benford!). The ending is shocking, the humour is impressive (especially the prologue which must rank as one of the best SF novel openings ever) and the 18-month wait for book two will be interminable. Extremely impressive.
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