Salvation Lost by Peter F. Hamilton

Peter F. Hamilton’s latest tome, Salvation Lost, is fantastic and well worth your time. 

I have been a fan of Peter F. Hamilton since I first got Fallen Dragon as an SFBC book of the month. I fell in love with his worldbuilding and excellent characters. I plowed through the Nights Dawn series and still remember how I felt when, not realizing it was not a standalone novel, I blitzed through Pandora’s Star when it was first published and howled with dismay as I turned the last page and realized I was left with a cliffhanger as momentous as when Riker said “Mr. Worf, fire.”

So of course I was excited when the Salvation trilogy began last year, and of course I couldn’t wait to find out what happened after the cliffhanger at the end of the first volume. I was lucky to get an eARC from Net Galley and it did NOT disappoint. 

In addition to following the same characters as the last book in both the near future and far future timelines, Mr. Hamilton has added a number of additional characters - a British Street gang of thieves and drug dealers who make up their own found family. This group had some well rounded characters in it that you want to root for as well as some venal and despicable people that bring to mind Hamilton’s take on the ghost of Al Capone or an early obnoxious Dudley Bose. 

I don’t want to get into too many spoilers, but this volume follows directly from the end of the last book, but does not progress too far in time. It had a bit of middle-book-in-trilogy syndrome, inasmuch as, at times, it felt like it was building without conclusion or spinning its wheels. Having read most of Mr. Hamilton’s work, I know that I cannot fully judge this book until the series is concluded and I finish the reread - only then will I understand exactly why he made some of the choices he did. 

None of that detracts from my overall conclusion that this book is fantastic and I cannot wait for volume 3!