By Peter F. Hamilton.
Since his appearance on the UK Science Fiction scene back in 1994 with Mindstar Rising Peter F. Hamilton has established himself as one of, if not the most, popular writers of SF in the UK. With stiff competition from Ken MacLeod , Alistair Reynolds and the much rarer Iain M Banks, Hamilton has managed to put himself in the spotlight. The Commonwealth Saga, like its predecessor the Nights Dawn Trilogy is unashamed widescreen entertainment and fits neatly into the pigeon hole marked Space Opera.
Judas Unchained continues and concludes the story that started in Pandora’s Star. Set several hundred years into the future, though with the combination of life extending treatments and memory stores which make resurrection a routine affair, many of the protagonists are centuries old. Humankind has spread out through a large volume of space and has established colonies on over a hundred planets.
The scale of the story is enormous with interstellar and interplanetary travel provided via wormholes, hyperspace ships and mysterious ‘Silven’ paths. The wormholes are more or less permanently connected and a network of trains travels round the inhabited worlds. This convenient (and somewhat familiar) device means that the protagonists can get around over vast spaces without any tedious concerns over relativity.
Despite the numerous science fiction devices and cosmological back-drop this is not a “hard” SF book, but pure action adventure. The action is fast paced and often brutal as a prodigious array of technology and ordnance is brought to bear on hero and villain alike. It would be easy to get lost amidst the hardware and techno-babble but Hamilton has managed to populate his story with interesting and well rendered characters.
Equally, the range of locations and situations could be overwhelming, but the writer manages to keep the narrative going with descriptions detailed enough for the reader to understand, yet succinct enough to convey the speed with which the events are occasionally happening.
Hamilton’s previous major piece, The Nights Dawn Trilogy trod similar ground in some respects with its vast scope and multiple view points, but this set of two books is more focused. The various plot lines and character arcs start to coalesce quite early in the second book and while this may not be entirely convincing, it works within the context of the story and helps greatly with the narrative flow. Hamilton is not content merely to tell a story of interstellar war, but also throws in a vast conspiracy, a human terrorist movement and a quest for truth sought along magical paths left by what can only be described as “space elves.”
Many of the concepts and devices have appeared in other SF works and Hamilton recycles artifacts from the likes of Dan Simmons and Larry Niven among others. However, the artifacts aren’t the point of the story, but are dramatic tools or scenery and for the most part they are well used. Importantly, Hamilton avoids the more obvious clichés despite working within a well trodden genre.
Like its predecessor, this novel is some 800+ pages long but while it does take a dip around two-thirds of the way through when one of the major plot lines is resolved. The pace is generally very good so that it doesn’t feel like a long book at all.
Perhaps most pertinently, in this set, Hamilton delivers a much stronger conclusion, wrapping up all the major threads in a satisfying manner. There is the odd character “wobble” and some of the minor threads are left hanging, but as the book came to a close I was sad to say goodbye to a universe that had been vividly brought to life and populated with interesting people and events.
John Davidson Despite working in IT for the last 20 years and collecting comics for even longer, he is married, has two young daughters and lives in Scotland. Ideally he spends his spare time reading and watching movies, but this is curtailed by the calls of child-rearing and part-time study, not to mention the 'call of the internet'.