Wednesday, January 04, 2006
Pandora's Star - Peter F Hamilton
First of all this is a massive book. I haven’t read a book of Peter Hamilton. This was the first. The story begins with the first human landings on the Mars. Although it should have been a monumental achievement for NASA they get the rug pulled away from their legs. Two young, cocky scientists develop a wormhole technology which makes space travel redundant. They use it to travel to Mars before the NASA group on the same day. Needless to say that NASA crew was less than enthusiastic about the new invention. Anyway inevitably wormhole technology brings an end to space travel as we know. And with the life extension technology which guarantees a virtual immortality these two inventors change the whole human life as we know it.
By 24th century, where the story mainly unfolds, humans have colonized many star systems & encountered several alien species. Although, most of them are not advanced as humans. But then astronomer Dudley Bose witnesses a seemingly impossible envelopment of the Dyson Alpha planetary system by some kind of artificial shielding system, an event repeated at the sister star Dyson Beta. Since this points to a hugely advanced civilization beyond human capability, they launch a spaceship towards the Dyson star system. The interstellar ship is captained by the same Wilson Klime, who piloted the first Mars landing. From this comes the title of the novel. In wanting to know whether this unknown civilization represents threat or opportunity, the mission unwittingly unleashes, as the title suggests, a catastrophic series of events. The only question remaining is who is responsible?
But bear in mind this is not simple as it looks. There are multiple plot lines with so many characters, events in this massive sci-fi novel. And this is just the beginning. The second part of this novel is “Judas Unchanged”. So at the end of “Pandora’s Star”, nothing is revealed. All the plotlines are unfinished. But it is not boring. Although some times you wish there were less description, the constant action & the differing plotlines kept me entertained until the end. The one downside is when I get to read “Judas Unleashed”, I may have to read “Pandora’s Star” again to get myself updated on those plot lines. But I guess that there would be sort of a summary in the beginning of the second part. It would be interesting to see how he summarizes such a huge & complicating like this novel to a few pages.
Others on Pandora's Star:
Barnes and Noble.com
amazon.co.uk
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