Pandora’s Star Reviw
By JP Frantz |
Tuesday, March 2nd, 2004 at
10:24 am
The new novel from Peter F. Hamilton is reviewed by SciFi Weekly. They gave it a decent review, but not great, saying some might call it bloated and in need of editing. Also, its massive. And for John, the next book is due sometime in 2005 so you’ll have to wait until then to read it. I’ll probably wait to get it from Overstock or Bookcloseouts. I’m not sure I’m willing to pay full price for a Hamilton hardback book yet…
Filed under: Books
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And look who did the first review on Amazon.com!
You know, I used to hope that if I slept with a book under my pillow, the information would seep into my brain while I slept. Maybe that is what she does?
Shh! Don’t let John see that! He’ll go ballistic. Probably a 5 star too. Because there are so many pages, it must be great!
My goodness, why doesn’t she just give us the rest of the plot too?
Arrrgh!!! Does anyone see any content in these sugar-coated “reviews”? They are, as Kevin has noted, nothing more than dust jacket reviews. Actually, they are dust jacket plot summaries squeezed through a Brady Bunch thesaurus. Seriously, even Dan’s mom can write a better review with one hand tied behind her back. (Which would be one less than normal.) There is no depth. There is no insight. There is nothing but empty, positive praise that exists for the sole purpose of being quoted by a publisher. And surprise of surprises, it is a five star review posted on the day of the books release. Damn those Amazon weasels. I?ll give Harriet one concession though. This is ?Epix sci-fi?.
Don’t get me started…
Well, I was in the bookstore to pick up the new biography on Alan Shepherd (“Light This Candle”) and I spotted “Pandora’s Star” beckoning to me from the SF shelves…so I bought it. I’m not sure when I’ll get to it, but I’ll let you know what I think when I do.
Please do.
Well I’m halfway to this book.
All I can say so far is that I enjoy it so much !
To summarize my feeling, it is a giant “what if” or “alternate universe” story of its previous work on the reality dysfunction (RD).
Almost all the ingredients that made the “RD” a masterpiece are cleverly shattered from the very introduction of the book and the introduction of wormhole travel as a colonization mean.
Proof of this is that the timeline sets the plot in an earlier part of man’s future (about 200 years before) and even if technology is quite advanced, you feel it is less advanced than in “RD”.
In the beginning you feel like you’re going to be betrayed :
All the themes from RD are re-used : men have vainquished death, it has established lots of “capitalism in space” colonies, heroes include a hot blooded ace pilot female and a semi-hero space captain, you have an interplanetary police, a super conscience, a super criminal, a super evil lord, a transient alien species, planets or whole systems taken from the universe…
But what is close to genius is how all these themes are re dispatched to arrage a totally new background and set of characters.
It is just as if things to come have to come whatever the events. The initial giant shake in future possibilities has caused a remelting of those things to come so they come in a totally new light.
A great work in the making, analog in my opinion to Moorcock’s Multiverse vision.
Well, that wasn’t quite totally summarized. I must have caught the PF Hamilton “writing frenzy” virus.
I finished the book.
Now I’m longing for the second half to be edited in the same format around may 2006