I love the books of Peter F Hamilton! I love the Commonwealth books so much! I still remember the first time I read Pandora’s Star - specifically the chilling and alien sections from MorningLightMountain’s point of view - and I wish I could go back and read it again for the first time.
I also really enjoyed the Void trilogy, and I adore Great North Road. I thought the Salvation Sequence was hit and miss, but i loved A Hole in the Sky and its follow-ups.
So when I found out he had a new novel coming out I was excited. Then I found it it was a tie in to an RPG and I got more excited. Then I realized it wasn’t a tie in to a tabletop RPG and I got a little deflated. Then I got an eARC from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
One of my favorite things about Mr. Hamilton’s books is the world building - it is always intricate and detailed and it always hangs together. (It usually also involves portals and/or trains which are both fun.) The world building in this book has no trains, no portals, and doesn’t make a lot of sense. There are humans and celestials, which are post humans, but also uranic humans, and some people have high levels of tech and others seem like they’re barely ahead of us. And why do the humans need to grow crops on one planet to export to other planets where they have more advanced tech but still have to travel at relativistic speeds? It doesn’t make much sense.
Also, none of the characters are fun or memorable. There’s a screw-up who literally falls into good fortune, but he’s so boring. There’s a sleazy cop. There are squabbling space royalties and rich families and I can barely remember anything about them.
I am very much looking forward to everything else Mr. Hamilton chooses to write, but I don’t think this video game’s world building did him any favors.
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