|
-
News
- Features
- Events
Calendar
- Editorials
- Monthly
Zine
- Offworld
Report
- Our Daily
RSS Feed
- Movie/TV
Reviews
> Recent movies
> Movies by year
> Movies by title
- Book
Reviews
> Recent books
> Books by year
> Books by title
- Home
- Worlds
- Biography
- Bibliography
- Appearances
- Reviews
- Blog
- Community
- Press
- Links
Become
an Advertiser
- Web
Site Directory
- Search
the Net
- StephenHunt.net
- WoodenRocket.com
- Check
your E-mail
- Non Sci-Fi
News
|
Pandora's Star by Peter F. Hamiliton
01/05/2005 . Source: Pauline Morgan 
pub: Pan MacMillan. 1143 page paperback. Price: £ 8.99 (UK). ISBN: 0-330-49331-0. Buy from Amazon US - Buy from Amazon UK
nb: US titles may only be available from Amazon US, and UK titles from Amazon UK. check out website: www.panmacmillan.com
Once upon a time, paperback books were nice slim little volumes that easily slipped into a jacket pocket or a handbag. Readers liked them because they could take them anywhere and not worry about leaving them on a bus or a train. Publishers liked them because they recognised that readers wanted easily portable books and as they were quick reads, they would buy more of them. Writers liked them because they were quicker to write and they could produce two or three a year. Everyone was happy. So what changed?
Now we have huge volumes, such as this one from Peter Hamilton. He is not the first person to write thousand plus page blockbusters and he does it frequently. The hardcover is too heavy to read except when seated and too large to carry around easily. The spine of a paperback gets broken or the corners become chewed. Is it because fewer of us read on public transport? Or are we looking for that large book to take on holiday, to read lying on the beach in a strange country? It is cheaper to buy and take one big book than several small ones. Do publishers think we will notice the book more if it falls off the shelf and breaks our toes? Do computers encourage authors to write more words because they do not have to retype the whole manuscript when they make mistakes or want to make plot changes? Do editors lack the courage to say cut? Perhaps it is a combination of all of these. Certainly with a thick book, both author and reader are asked to invest a lot of time to one story. Sometimes it is a pleasure to do so. Reading Peter Hamilton is enjoyable.
'Pandora's Star' is part one of this saga and combines a lot of elements, not just from Science Fiction but from other genres as well. It begins with the discovery of a revolutionary technological development. Just as the first manned mission lands on Mars, Nigel Sheldon and Ozzie Isaacs build a prototype wormhole generator which takes them almost instantaneously to Mars. Space travel becomes obsolete over night as humankind spreads out from Earth stepping from planet to planet via the manufactured wormholes. There is no need to control the population, surplus people can just move on to another world. There is no need for war. If you don't get on with your neighbour you can settle a new planet along with those who think the same way as you do. You can live on one planet and commute to work, via a wormhole, to a job light years away. Rejuvenation, too, becomes commonplace. When your body begins to fail, the clock can be turned back and youth can be restored but with all the experience of age retained. Death holds no fear. With a regular memory download a new body can be cloned and the memories restored to it, should the old one become too damaged for revival.
This sounds like a recipe for Utopia. The problem is that people are still human. They still have the same ambitions, jealousies, obsessive behaviours they always have had. There is still interpersonal conflict. So one element of the novel is a detective story. Paula Myo is the best detective in known space. She has always caught the perpetrator of any case she has handled, with one exception. She has been obsessively pursuing Bradley Johansson and Adam Elvin for well over a century. They are terrorists who believe that an alien known as the Starflyer has infiltrated the highest echelons of government and is manipulating humankind for its own nefarious ends. Johansson she believes is paranoid. He is also cunning. She suspects that someone is tipping them off as they always seem to be able to slip past her.
It is also a political thriller as the Burnelli family vie for influence. There is adventure as Ozzie Isaacs sets off to explore the Silfen paths. The Silfen are an alien race which seem simple and peace loving. Electronic gadgets tend not to work on the worlds they occupy and there are rumours that they have ways of moving from planet to planet without the use of wormholes.
This is a society that has become dependent on wormholes. Then Dudley Bose, an astronomer at a backwater university, makes an alarming discovery. It has been known for a long time that a pair of star systems have been surrounded by an impenetrable shield. At first it was thought that these were Dyson spheres so the systems have been generally known as the Dyson pair. Dose discovers that the shields around the systems appeared instantly and simultaneously. The question is are these force fields and have they been erected to keep something in or something out? Because of the distance the only way to investigate is to build a space ship and visit. The expedition is commanded by Wilson Kime, who was on the only manned space flight to Mars. What he and his crew discover is not good news.
This is a very complex plot and, by the end of this volume, the strands are only just beginning to come together. Some, as yet, seem unconnected from the whole. That is sure to change in the second volume as Hamilton does not introduce random factors without a very good reason. Although there is a tendency to lose sight of them during the narrative, they are strongly enough portrayed to be quickly remembered. It is a very large book and, as has happened with earlier novel by this author, it would not surprise me if the American publisher split it into two more manageable volumes.
Pauline Morgan
|
|
