Pandora’s Star is the first half of a long space opera by Peter Hamilton, Britain’s second biggest seller when it comes to space opera (behind Iain Banks). It’s a rich, incredibly detailed work, and many the amount of detail can serve as an illustration of one key way that the new space opera (sometimes called “Baroque space opera”) differs from the space opera of the 1930s and 1940s. There are numerous extra details and extra touches, the society (societies, actually) are complex and again shown in detail, and even some of the technology is explained. Contrast this with, say, Doc Smith’s books, where we really know next to nothing about the societies involved (other than the Lensman act as a police force, and the Earth has a planetary government of some sort), and what we do know is rather flat.
This is both a great strength of the new space opera in general and Hamilton in particular, though in Hamilton’s case it’s also sometimes a flaw. The current volume is 988 pages long. It’s a good book – a very good one in many ways – but it would have been even better at perhaps 750 pages. There are a number of different threads involved, and while in the end all are important, the earlier parts of some could have been trimmed back. For example, a major thread involves a police inspector tacking down a terrorist. It’s interesting in its way, but it’s also distracting from the main thrust of the book (at least until later in the book when the thread begins to be tied in more tightly). This is of course a danger for any ambitious author who has many plot threads: some interest the reader more than others, and I at least found myself getting a bit impatient during some of the threads, wanting to get back to the ones that interested me more.
After an amusing prologue (in which the first expedition to Mars is surprised by the inventors of wormhole travel, who reveal their new discovery to the world by greeting the Martian expedition), the novel starts several hundred years in the future. Humanity has used wormholes to spread out to a number of nearby stars and create the Commonwealth. Since the wormholes allow direct planet-to-planet travel, we really don’t have starships; we don’t need them. Meanwhile, advances in the life sciences have allowed humans to regenerate themselves periodically, making them virtually immortal. And downloaded backups mean that even someone who is killed can be re-lifed from the backup. Several alien species have been encountered, but they are all friendly, and in some cases quite strange.
As the novel starts, astronomers make a major discovery. A routine sky survey has shown that two stars seem to have disappeared. Closer examination indicates that they may have been surrounded by Dyson spheres. One astronomer travels to the correct location in space such that he can watch the time when the stars are enclosed and makes an even more amazing discovery: the envelopment of the stars was almost instantaneous. So, humanity builds its first real starship to go and investigate. Why was the barrier built – to protect someone, to retrain someone, or for some other reason?
Another plot thread involves what at first seems like a crack-pot group. An crashed alien starship had been found years before on the most distant of humanity’s settlements. A cult, the Guardians of Selfhood, grew up there that believes that the pilot of the ship – the Starflyer – survived and that moreover it has infiltrated human government and is manipulating us. It all seems rather crazy at first, but as the book goes on, it seems less crazy.
Another subplot involves one of the inventors of the wormhole – Ozzie Isaac – who goes following the alien Silfen. Silfen are almost elvish and seem to have the ability to walk between worlds. Ozzie follows in an attempt to learn more about the Dyson stars. This whole segment though is another example of what I mentioned above. Parts are interesting enough, and it’s important to the overall plot, but it’s too long. The first world Ozzie gets to is an ice world, and Hamilton gives us several dozen pages of description of what goes on there. A couple of pages would have been better, despite the fact that Ozzie is perhaps the most engaging character in the novel: he boy genius who despite everything really in some ways hasn’t grown up – but who remains very sharp and insightful.
It’s nearly half way through the book before we finally get to the first Dyson star and exploration start. At this point, things pick up, and the second half of the book moves along much better than the first. I may be a cliché to refer to something as a “page-turner,” but the second half of Pandora’s Star qualifies. Somehow, after the humans get to the first Dyson star and being their explorations, the huge energy barrier surrounding the star vanishes, releasing the inhabitants.
These aliens are a remarkable example of creating truly alien aliens. Hamilton gives us a bit of their history and shows how their society is put together, and it is very non-human. They are also about the nastiest aliens around. They are group minds – central, immobile beings serve as the central brain, completely controlling mobile members of the species; their goal seems to be to be the only intelligence around: in fact, each “individual,” which can comprise hundreds of immotiles and thousands upon thousands of motiles, wants to be the only intelligent being, and seeks to overcome and wipe out the others. They’ve been waging war against one another as each central consciousness tries to become the only one (they’ve wiped out every other life form on their planet), and, with the barrier down, now try to spread out in the galaxy, toward human space. It’s both fascinating and frightening.
Hamilton has done a fine job of world building, of society building, and of alien building. He’s also done a good job with his characters, ranging from Ozzie, the several hundred year old hippie (that’s the only way to describe him) to Paula Myo, the obsessive criminal investigator to Wilson Kime, the commander of the Martian expedition who gets a second chance as he leads the first mission to the Dyson stars. They’re all well-drawn and believable. Moreover , the extensive political maneuverings and the way the people and the society work – in ways different from our own, in particular in it’s pace and it’s longer view – seem to fit for society of people with very long lives.
Yes, I think it’s too long by a bit, but despite that, it’s a good book and a lot of fun to read. I don’t think Hamilton is quite to the level of Banks, MacLeod, or Reynolds, but he’s still worth reading, especially if, like me, you enjoy space opera. (I’d also heartily recommend Hamilton’s short fiction, by the way.)
Pandora’s Star is just the first part of a longer novel. I plan to read the second part – Judas Unchained – within the next few weeks.
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