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Pandora's Star (Commonwealth Saga) (Hardcover)

by Peter F Hamilton (Author)
4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (99 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Hardcover: 896 pages
  • Publisher: Macmillan (20 Feb 2004)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1405000198
  • ISBN-13: 978-1405000192
  • Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 15.8 x 5.6 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (99 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 258,181 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Product Description

In AD 2329, humanity has colonised over four hundred planets, all of them interlinked by wormholes. With Earth at its centre, the Intersolar Commonwealth now occupies a sphere of space approximately four hundred light years across.

When an astronomer on the outermost world of Gralmond, observes a star 2000 light years distant - and then a neighbouring one - vanish, it is time for the Commonwealth to discover what happened to them. For what if their disappearance indicates some kind of galactic conflict? Since a conventional wormhole cannot be used to reach these vanished stars, for the first time humans need to build a faster-than-light starship, the Second Chance. But it arrives to find each 'vanished' star encased in a giant force field -- and within one of them resides a massive alien civilisation.

About the Author

Peter F. Hamilton was born in Rutland in 1960, and still lives near Rutland Water. He began writing in 1987, and sold his first short story to Fear magazine in 1988. He has also been published in Interzone and the In Dreams and New Worlds anthologies, and several small press publications. His previous novels are the Greg Mandel series: Mindstar Rising (1993), A Quantum Murder (1994) and The Nano Flower (1995); and the bestselling ‘Night’s Dawn Trilogy’: The Reality Dysfunction , The Neutronium Alchemist and The Naked God. Also published by Macmillan (and Pan) is A Second Chance at Eden, a novella and six short stories set in the same brilliantly realized universe, and The Confederation Handbook, a vital guide to the ‘Night’s Dawn Trilogy’. His most recent two novels were Fallen Dragon and Misspent Youth.

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What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

Pandora's Star (Commonwealth Saga)
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Pandora's Star (Commonwealth Saga) 4.0 out of 5 stars (99)
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Customer Reviews

99 Reviews
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 (27)
3 star:
 (8)
2 star:
 (7)
1 star:
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Average Customer Review
4.0 out of 5 stars (99 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
48 of 49 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Another Hamilton page-turner, 16 Feb 2004
This review is from: Pandora's Star (Hardcover)
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
By N. Caldecutt (Rochdale, United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Pandora's Star: Part One of the Commonwealth Saga (Paperback)
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
By A. Whitehead "Werthead" (Colchester, Essex United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)      
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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Most Recent Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Just about worth struggling through
I don't mind long books as such but about two thirds of this book FEELS long. Too much detail that adds nothing to the story. Read more
Published 8 days ago by M. Green

5.0 out of 5 stars Unsurpassed
This, together with Judas Unchained, is the best Sci-Fi story of the last 30 years.
Hamilton weaves together the many plot strands to deliver an epic that will stand the... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Stephen Jamieson

1.0 out of 5 stars Pandora's doorstop
This is clunkier than a bag of spanners. There are long meaningless passages of irrelevant description and paper-thin characters having trite, leaden, humourless conversations... Read more
Published 7 months ago by N. sharrock

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant.
This was, in fact, the first Hamilton book I read. For me it was a 'stab in the dark'. I was pleasantly surprised. Read more
Published 8 months ago by Mrs. J. Askew

5.0 out of 5 stars This new series saves the space opera!
With Pandora's Star, Hamilton embarks on an 880-page deep space science fiction epic. In the year AD 2380 humanity has colonized over six hundred planets using a technology... Read more
Published 8 months ago by Richard Kunzmann

5.0 out of 5 stars Definitely good value per kilo...
I originally bought "Judas Unchained" (the second in the series) because I was going travelling for a few weeks and wanted as much reading as possible for a given weight of book... Read more
Published 8 months ago by Mike Sadler

5.0 out of 5 stars Great!
I'm a big fan of Hamilton since Nights Dawn Trilogy and he continues his style in another epic of intertwined characters. Read more
Published 11 months ago by Spup

4.0 out of 5 stars Nice book
Be prepared for a long read - this is a long book. But it is exciting and I found it hard to put the book down. Read more
Published 12 months ago by Stephen Holdway

1.0 out of 5 stars quantity, not quality
I was expecting a big, sprawling, colourful galactic-milieu story in the vein of Brin, Cherryh, or Niven. Book is big alright (1144 pages! Read more
Published 12 months ago by M Fear

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic, gripping space opera
I picked this up because I had read one Peter Hamilton book before, and quite enjoyed it, and liked the synopsis on the back.

Once I started it, I was hooked. Read more
Published 14 months ago by Steven Brown

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