Pandora Star (Audible Audio Edition) Peter F Hamilton John Lee Pan Macmillan Publishers Ltd Books
Download As PDF : Pandora Star (Audible Audio Edition) Peter F Hamilton John Lee Pan Macmillan Publishers Ltd Books
Britain's bestselling SF writer returns to outer space.
In AD 2329, humanity has colonised over four hundred planets, all of them interlinked by wormholes. With Earth at its centre, the Intersolar Commonwealth now occupies a sphere of space approximately four hundred light years across.
When an astronomer on the outermost world of Gralmond, observes a star 2000 light years distant - and then a neighbouring one - vanish, it is time for the Commonwealth to discover what happened to them. For what if their disappearance indicates some kind of galactic conflict? Since a conventional wormhole cannot be used to reach these vanished stars, for the first time humans need to build a faster-than-light star ship, the Second Chance. But it arrives to find each 'vanished' star encased in a giant force field -- and within one of them resides a massive alien civilisation.
Pandora Star (Audible Audio Edition) Peter F Hamilton John Lee Pan Macmillan Publishers Ltd Books
This book is huge investment of your time, especially considering that it doesn't end. It simply pauses so you can purchase the second half of your 2,000 page commitment. These are the reasons I wish invested my time elsewhere.1) Editing. WTF.
Reader, take heed of how many reviews, even positive ones, mention this flaw. To me its unforgiveable. Every passage in a well written book must exist for one or more of these reasons: move the plot forward; offer vital background; give character depth; or say something profound about the human condition. Hamilton writes like he’s being paid by the word. Lengthy, excruciating details of places never to be revisited, incidents and characters barely relevant to the plot line, and technical descriptions of machinery - it just goes on and on. Remember this review when you get to the hang gliding scene!
2) Poorly written women.
Hamilton writes like a man in midlife experiencing his second adolescence. All the women are sexually voracious tropes, except for the one asexual professional woman, Paula Mayo. Apparently the only reason sexual harassment is no longer an issue in the far future of humanity is that women are so very horny that sleeping with their workplace superior is simply a given. Hot sexy teenagers! Hot sexy older cougars who may or may not be lesbians lusting after the hot sexy teenagers! Hot sexy ship crew member with a heart of gold! Did I mention the women are hot and sexy?
3) Character development.
Just because it’s “hard” science fiction doesn’t mean you get pass on character development. Hamilton introduces character after character with no indication of their true importance. Some reappear, some don’t. Many of his sadly two dimensional characters blur together, creating confusion. Have I met this guy before? I think so, but I can’t remember. Hamilton even gives an early throw away character the SAME first name, Nigel, as the main character. Why? I think his characters are so forgettable the author himself doesn’t remember their names.
And I have to mention the ridiculousness of Ozzie. You know he’s a bohemian because he has a big afro and likes to say “Hey, man” “dude” and “groovy!” He walks the paths of the elves. Cool! He’s not wise or thoughtful or deep. But he’s cool. Groovy even!
4) A future filled with 300 year old adolescents.
Hamilton postulates a world where humans can “regenerate,” so people can live 300 or 400 years with the physical and cognitive vigor of a 30 year old. Yet somehow, not a single character develops the tiniest degree of wisdom, compassion or emotional evolution. Hamilton’s future is filled with ancient adolescents interested in nothing more than wealth and power and sex. And more sex! With hot sexy teenagers! Did I mention the hot sex?
5) Absolutely awful audible narration by John Lee.
Just torture. Fortunately I also had the kindle whisper sync, so I could skim endless passages and take a break from Lee. He swallows words at the ends of sentences so they can barely be heard. He drones on without variation. All the characters sound the same. He takes the worst of Hamilton’s flaws and makes them even worse, which hardly seems possible.
6) The worst sin of all for me is that Hamilton took 37 hours of my life, and had nothing go “say.” Ok, you want to write a book where humans live to be almost a half a century old without ever actually growing up into wise and thoughtful people, so the society is also wholly lacking in wisdom and compassion. The rich and powerful get increasingly rich and powerful. Humans still use internal combustion engines and desecrate the environment in extractive rather than sustainable economics which extends out into the galaxy. Rich and powerful men actually have harems. Harems! That’s an appalling and disgusting concept in a world where women supposedly have significant political power. Hamilton offers this up as our future, not as a cautionary tale, not as a dystopian future. This is the world of Hamilton’s mind. I'm not suggesting a book should have a "this is the moral of the story" moment. But shouldn't there be some kind of take away? Some sense of what the author thinks about life, society or the human condition?
There is some creativity here, there are some good points to the book, and I did finish it. I could have given it two stars because there are probably worse books out there. But I want to draw attention to the significant flaws which you can choose to consider before making the hefty commitment of time this book demands. Believe me, this is no Dune!
Product details
|
Tags : Amazon.com: Pandora's Star (Audible Audio Edition): Peter F. Hamilton, John Lee, Pan Macmillan Publishers Ltd.: Books, ,Peter F. Hamilton, John Lee, Pan Macmillan Publishers Ltd.,Pandora's Star,Pan Macmillan Publishers Ltd.,B005NDFK6S
People also read other books :
- Mendoza Estacion Ecologica Uno nº 1 Spanish Edition eBook Edwin Stark
- Hidden story word search variety puzzles edition by L M Boelz Crafts Hobbies Home eBooks
- The Wrong Shade of Yellow eBook Margaret Eleanor Leigh
- Old Valentines A Love Story Munson Aldrich Havens 9781141630653 Books
- My days and dreams being autobiographical notes Edward Carpenter 9781176302181 Books
Pandora Star (Audible Audio Edition) Peter F Hamilton John Lee Pan Macmillan Publishers Ltd Books Reviews
I have my experience with long-winded books – Tolkien, Martin, Eco, they all like to take extensive detours to describe menial stuff that's mostly unrelated or unimportant to the plot at hand – but this one trumps them all. It happened to me for the first time in my life that I eventually sinned and skipped a few paragraphs here and there.
What kept me reading though were all the interesting concepts that the author keeps introducing rather boldly. These aren't necessarily flawless or super coherent (the imagined universe has nowhere near the same "real" feeling as Herbert's Dune, despite what the publisher says), but they're still pretty clever, even radical and novel The unisphere, d-sinks, OCtattoos, various inserts, RI/SI, re-lifing, cellular reprofiling, electromuscles, accelerants and - dig this - aliens who're mostly ignored by humans because they behave like stoned child-hippies speaking with flashy opulence and painful ambiguity.
Interestingly, there are enough ideas, characters and twists to build a huge Netflix series next to which The Expanse would feel like a backyard sci-fi.
You'll like this book if you
- enjoy fat books (full of not-always-likeable-nor-important characters)
- enjoy hard sci-fi (one that occasionally goes "a bit too far", but not stupidly so)
- enjoy novel ideas that provide food for thought to munch on long after you've put the book down
PS and yeah, despite all my criticism - hoping for the book to just end sometimes - I went and read the second part of the saga eventually. crazy, right? )
The story is fun and creative but the writing is weak at times. New characters get introduced throughout the story, I mean like nearly every chapter even after you are way deep into the book. It makes making attachments difficult, it makes following the story line at times extremely difficult. It is a bit disjointed - the flow of the story is very frustrating, but the ideas and concepts being played with are fun enough that it almost makes up for it. I struggled to finish this book and I feel like the author had a story they could have told that would have made the pleasure of reading it easier for most readers.
The set up is typical of the genre earth in the future has developed travel via wormholes, allowing colonization of three "rings" of planets, each an increasing distance from earth. Several alien species were encountered, but none hostile, and the expansion essentially eliminated frictions. Meanwhile, wealth and power are increasingly concentrated in a few wealthy families.
Add to this mixture an alien race on a far distant planet. Earth decides to investigate, unintentionally freeing the aliens from isolation. The alien mindset is one of expansion, and any life form is considered competition to be eliminated.
This sets up the penultimate battle scenes between humans and aliens. So far, so good.
However, we add to this a couple of extra plots. A possibly mythical super force in the galaxy, which may or may not exist, and may or may not be infiltrating earth. This entire plot line seems pointless, except as possible foreshadowing for the second volume.
A third narrative thread involves mysterious "paths" created (or at least used) by a third alien species, which are unpredictably open to humans. This plot line seems completely disconnected from the action, and never goes anywhere...again, one assumes the author is laying the ground work for the second volume.
All of this makes this a REALLY long book. I felt that the extraneous plots should have either been eliminated, shortened, or made more relevant to THIS volume.
This book is huge investment of your time, especially considering that it doesn't end. It simply pauses so you can purchase the second half of your 2,000 page commitment. These are the reasons I wish invested my time elsewhere.
1) Editing. WTF.
Reader, take heed of how many reviews, even positive ones, mention this flaw. To me its unforgiveable. Every passage in a well written book must exist for one or more of these reasons move the plot forward; offer vital background; give character depth; or say something profound about the human condition. Hamilton writes like he’s being paid by the word. Lengthy, excruciating details of places never to be revisited, incidents and characters barely relevant to the plot line, and technical descriptions of machinery - it just goes on and on. Remember this review when you get to the hang gliding scene!
2) Poorly written women.
Hamilton writes like a man in midlife experiencing his second adolescence. All the women are sexually voracious tropes, except for the one asexual professional woman, Paula Mayo. Apparently the only reason sexual harassment is no longer an issue in the far future of humanity is that women are so very horny that sleeping with their workplace superior is simply a given. Hot sexy teenagers! Hot sexy older cougars who may or may not be lesbians lusting after the hot sexy teenagers! Hot sexy ship crew member with a heart of gold! Did I mention the women are hot and sexy?
3) Character development.
Just because it’s “hard” science fiction doesn’t mean you get pass on character development. Hamilton introduces character after character with no indication of their true importance. Some reappear, some don’t. Many of his sadly two dimensional characters blur together, creating confusion. Have I met this guy before? I think so, but I can’t remember. Hamilton even gives an early throw away character the SAME first name, Nigel, as the main character. Why? I think his characters are so forgettable the author himself doesn’t remember their names.
And I have to mention the ridiculousness of Ozzie. You know he’s a bohemian because he has a big afro and likes to say “Hey, man” “dude” and “groovy!” He walks the paths of the elves. Cool! He’s not wise or thoughtful or deep. But he’s cool. Groovy even!
4) A future filled with 300 year old adolescents.
Hamilton postulates a world where humans can “regenerate,” so people can live 300 or 400 years with the physical and cognitive vigor of a 30 year old. Yet somehow, not a single character develops the tiniest degree of wisdom, compassion or emotional evolution. Hamilton’s future is filled with ancient adolescents interested in nothing more than wealth and power and sex. And more sex! With hot sexy teenagers! Did I mention the hot sex?
5) Absolutely awful audible narration by John Lee.
Just torture. Fortunately I also had the kindle whisper sync, so I could skim endless passages and take a break from Lee. He swallows words at the ends of sentences so they can barely be heard. He drones on without variation. All the characters sound the same. He takes the worst of Hamilton’s flaws and makes them even worse, which hardly seems possible.
6) The worst sin of all for me is that Hamilton took 37 hours of my life, and had nothing go “say.” Ok, you want to write a book where humans live to be almost a half a century old without ever actually growing up into wise and thoughtful people, so the society is also wholly lacking in wisdom and compassion. The rich and powerful get increasingly rich and powerful. Humans still use internal combustion engines and desecrate the environment in extractive rather than sustainable economics which extends out into the galaxy. Rich and powerful men actually have harems. Harems! That’s an appalling and disgusting concept in a world where women supposedly have significant political power. Hamilton offers this up as our future, not as a cautionary tale, not as a dystopian future. This is the world of Hamilton’s mind. I'm not suggesting a book should have a "this is the moral of the story" moment. But shouldn't there be some kind of take away? Some sense of what the author thinks about life, society or the human condition?
There is some creativity here, there are some good points to the book, and I did finish it. I could have given it two stars because there are probably worse books out there. But I want to draw attention to the significant flaws which you can choose to consider before making the hefty commitment of time this book demands. Believe me, this is no Dune!
0 Response to "≫ Read Gratis Pandora Star (Audible Audio Edition) Peter F Hamilton John Lee Pan Macmillan Publishers Ltd Books"
Post a Comment