Review: Commonwealth Saga, by Peter F. Hamilton
The Commonwealth Saga is published in two halves, Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained. These two books could be put into several categories, but I think space opera is the most appropriate. If you don't know what space opera is, then these books are probably not for you.
In a nutshell, the Commonwealth Saga is this: In the distant future, humans have proliferated through the galaxy through wormholes when they stumble upon super hostile aliens and then depend mostly on a terrorist group and super old hippies to save civilization.
That might be an oversimplification, but if you're forced to give an elevator pitch to a distracted publishing agent, that's basically what you're left with. If there's one thing I like in this world, it is irony. And oversimplifying an epic like the Commonwealth Saga in 35 words or less, followed by a review in 400 words or less... well, it's ironic and fun. Note: the two books average about 800 pages each - quite large.
The good: This is a big story. I love a big story that I can submerse myself in for a long time, with lots of characters, locales, and plot twists. I also enjoyed some of the sociological implications of having wormholes that allow us to expand to other habitable worlds, only to have each one develop completely differently while still being part of the overall civilization. The ongoing mysteries were fun, the character collisions were amusing and the science part of the fiction was intriguing. Bravo.
The bad: I can totally understand how the anachronisms in the books can be explained, but I still don't like them. I don't like the idea of people driving a '57 Chevy in the year 2380, when they have neural implants, biogenesis, wormholes, hyperspace, robotech suits, etc. And who would still be smoking tobacco? Stop it. Moving on, I would have also preferred better section or chapter breaks. Everything was kinda just jammed together, which didn't accomplish anything good. Lastly, I know it's difficult to really resolve every single thread in a story this complex, but I can still complain that it felt open-ended. See? Just did it.
Bottom line: If you like PFH, or crave space opera, the Commonwealth Saga is worth the slog. Otherwise, tread at your own peril. I myself give it 3 of 5 stars.
Product link: Pandora's Star
Review: Blindfold, by Kevin J. Anderson
I recently listened to the audio book edition of Blindfold, and was both pleased and disappointed, as you'll see in my review. Let me paraphrase the publisher's summary:
"Atlas is a struggling colony on an untamable world, a fragile society held together by the Truthsayers. The Truthsayers are trained from birth as the sole users of Veritas, a telepathy virus that lets them read the souls of the guilty. Truthsayers are Justice—infallible, beyond appeal. Falsely accused of murder, Troy Boren trusts the young Truthsayer Kalliana... until, impossibly, she convicts him. Still shaken from a previous trial, Kalliana doesn't realize her ability is fading. But soon the evidence becomes impossible to ignore. The Truthsayers’ Veritas has been diluted so that Justice is truly blind while someone in the colony is selling smuggled telepathy. From an orbital prison to the buried secrets of a regal fortress, Kalliana and Troy seek to unravel the conspiracy that threatens to destroy their world from within. For without truth and justice, Atlas will certainly fall…."
This book was less than I expected from this author, as I was a fan of The Saga of Seven Suns. But in this particular case, the more intriguing ideas were glazed over in the spirit of space opera. I enjoy both hard sci-fi and space opera for what they are, but I want my space opera to only gloss over non-important or staple aspects of the genre in the interest of focusing on character, drama and plot. A few concepts addressed in the book that should have been given a more hard sci-fi treatment: rejuvenation process that allows someone to live for centuries, colony ships that travel for decades from Earth to Atlas, and the Veritas drug itself.
The narrator was excellent. I'm the first to criticize a mediocre narrator but this Jim Meskimen was a pro at attaching distinct voices to the characters so they could be recognized even without the author's help in identifying the speaker. His pacing and inflection were right on target, though there were some rare moments when he seemed to think the sentence was over prematurely. Not a big deal.
The characters were somewhat flat, with the most interesting ones being given secondary roles. There are basically four "main" characters who advance through the plot independently for the most part, and none of which deserve to be picked up for a sequel, if that were to ever happen. I won't call them out specifically, because that might be considered a spoiler.
The world was also not very alive. There was plenty of anecdotal descriptions of random aspects of the new world but they seemed to have been inserted as an afterthought. Perhaps after the editor pointed out the world could have been another major character and was being completely ignored.
I know believability can be a silly thing to criticize in this genre, but there were several occasions where I found myself asking "Really? Come on, now..." Like when the Truthsayers bite a Veritas capsule, they get an immediate rush and they turn into telepathic sponges, but I'm somewhat disbelieving that a virus-induced surge of neural activity can take effect that fast. The fast-acting viruses known to man take hours to really have an effect. I realize this is an alien virus, but human biology still has it's place. I would have liked the author to at least acknowledge this anomaly or better yet, explain it.
Bottom line: If you lean more heavily towards space opera than hard sci-fi, the book might appeal to you a great deal more. I myself give it 3 of 5 stars.
Product link: Blindfold
