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Peter F Hamilton
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Book
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Publisher | Tor | ||
ISBN | 978-033044302 | ||
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Reviewer
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Ann
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Synopsis
AD 3580. The Intersolar Commonwealth has spread through the galaxy to over a thousand star systems. It is a culture of rich diversity with a place for everyone. A powerful navy protects it from any hostile species that may lurk among the stars. For Commonwealth citizens, even death has been overcome. At its centre is a massive black hole. This Void is not a natural artefact. Inside there is a strange universe where the laws of physics are very different to those we know. It is slowly consuming the other stars of the galactic core - one day it will have devoured the entire galaxy. Inigo, a human, has started to dream of a wonderful existence of the Void. He has a following of millions of believers. They now clamour to make a pilgrimage into the Void to live the life they have been shown. Other starfaring species fear their migration will cause the Void to expand again. They are prepared to stop them no matter what the cost. And so the pilgrimage begins...
Review
This should come with a warning - read the Commonwealth books (Pandora's Star, Judas Unchained) first, otherwise you may feel, like I did, that you have started at the second act and are reading with a handicap.
This is a huge book, both in size and in scale, full of detailed descriptions of futuristic cities, landscapes and battles. If you were to stop each time to visualize the scene, it would take forever. Good for a desert island. The individual, quite disparate components are depicted in separate chapters then the chapters become shorter as the links become apparent - except that to me they didn't, and having fought my way through to the End, there wasn't one! I do think that each book of a trilogy should be able to be read as a complete unit.
Lots of very interesting ideas, like the Silfren, u-shadows who do all the dull stuff for you and the lives of multiple selves, all of which could make a novel in themselves, but the main dichotomy of a political, aggressive space scenario and an agrarian fantasy doesn't sit easily together - although I would love a trilogy about the latter, Edeard's world. (Unfortunately this name kept reminding me of Eddie Izzard, which didn't help.)
I note that this is available in audio, which, if read with different voices for each character, would be a great help with remembering who's who, what, why and where. Perhaps the second and third novels of this trilogy will make everything slot into place, but I don't have the time or interest to find out.
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