Over 40,000 years of Human evolution, space exploration and new evolved species.
The 5 Queens of the Crown Dominion play the Great Game, with plots and political intrigue that extend over thousands of years.

When an Arkship from Old Earth arrives in the Kelowan system, the human’s are granted land on Gondiar by Finbar Jalgori-Tobu in exchange for the Arkship.

Fin has aspirations of becoming a Traveller with his own Starship. Trying to escape from his privileged, stifling family life and obligations. This sees him getting into some sticky situations.

The story weaves itself into the perfect space opera.

I really enjoyed my first time delving into a Peter F Hamilton space opera. He has always been on my TBR list and I wish I had of jumped in sooner. I have a lot of catching up to do!

Thanks to NetGalley and Pan MacMillan for allowing me to read this eARC.

Grand scale science fiction, huge universes, multiple characters, long reading. The usual elements from the author in a non-videogame dependent book which delivers everything you could expect. If you like videogames like Mass Effect, this has some vibes from there. Remarkable.

Millennia of space opera world-building crammed into Hamilton's latest doorstop

There is a lot going on in this book, and to try to summarise any of it in a review would be exhausting and redundant. But it's safe to say that this novelistic output from a collaborative RPG that Hamilton is working on with the developer is as thorough as his own works, with strange worlds and even stranger civilisations, Machiavellian machinations on galactic and millennial scales, and relatable protagonist in Finn, a scion from their present, and Ellie, a dilated space traveller from old Earth.

However, the advantages of being a collaborative work are outweighed by some of the obstacles. I'll note two that are both pro and con. For one, there are no aliens, instead all of the future races are derived from human stock, from the elevated Celestials who are the elites and rulers, to various Changelings, genetically modified post-humans that are specialised for particular jobs or social roles. This simplifies the backstory of the novel (and presumably the RPG) but ends up with the same moment for the various human protagonists to realise that although they are interacting with a human-adjacent being, that they are in fact not human. Which leads me to the second point I want to highlight. On the page, when a POV character realises, within the narrative, that another character isn't human, doesn't work for me, as conversations are in modern English, many of the names are comprehensible English (or Romance languages): it feels that too much familiarity is baked on and another enough future. Why would names be preserved from our present in tens of thousands of years from now? It took me right out of the world on the page, and into interrogating things that worked and those that didn't.

A flawed four stars. but I'll read the next one.

I’m in awe at the sheer scale of what this novel achieves! If you’re looking for a new SciFi world to immerse yourself in for the long haul, then The Archimedes Engine could be just what you’re looking for. The hefty size of the book could be daunting at first to those who are new to Hamilton’s books, but as you get lost in the story the pages honestly fly by. I think its long runtime is a great strength, as there’s plenty of time for elaborate worlds to be built and nuanced storylines to be woven. Around 300 pages in, I remember feeling excited anticipating what direction the story was going to go in, being only a third of the way through!

The book has three main storylines you follow, each with a distinct SciFi theme; you have Finn’s classic action-adventure arc (my personal favourite), Queen Helena’s story of court intrigue and political manoeuvring, and Terence’s detective and undercover ops drama. Exodus starts slow as all these characters and locations are established (which feels a little Tarantino-esque in execution, whilst you wait for the context that pulls the strings together). The world truly comes to life once characters start crossing into other story arcs, and everything is steadily drawn together like it's caught in a gravitational pull. The ending is satisfying and revelatory, but the story is far from over.

The worldbuilding in Exodus is pretty faultless to me, but I’m particularly impressed by the handling of time dilation in the novel. Hamilton incorporates time dilation fantastically into the world, and into the way characters think and act - they think differently about timescale, and extended lifespans mean they aren’t daunted by the possibility of losing years of their life on a voyage to a different planet or system. This really added to the immersion of the story and provided weight to the character’s actions, though I’ll admit I still struggled with comprehending the time differences whilst jumping between the storylines.

A huge epic tome, 913 pages, the length of three normal books. So it took a while to read!
But it was worth it.
I confess it took me a little while to get into this extraordinary novel, there is a lot of worldbuilding and backstory, and although one of the threads caught my fascination right from the beginning, the other stuff just needed to get ordered in my mind, I think.
But as soon as it all clicked for me, it rapidly grew into not only an all-encompassing story, but one that was utterly impossible to put down, or if forced to do so, it was one that my mind kept returning to, awaiting my return to the pages.
So I can't say I stayed up all night to read it, as the night isn't actually long enough. But I kind of wish I could have.
And there is going to be more! Not exactly left on a cliffhanger, thank goodness as I hate them, but there is definitely more of this story to come, and I for one, cannot wait!

Exodus: The Archimedes Engine by Peter F. Hamilton is a sprawling and imaginative science fiction epic, blending intricate world-building with high-stakes space opera. Set 40,000 years after humanity’s exodus from Earth, the novel introduces readers to the Centauri Cluster, where evolved humans, known as Celestials, rule over various Dominions. The protagonist, Finn, a young man born under the oppressive reign of the Crown Dominion, embarks on an epic journey after the arrival of a long-lost arkship.

Hamilton excels in weaving complex political dynamics with personal narratives, balancing the grand scale of interstellar conflict with intimate character development. The novel’s deep lore and rich setting immerse readers in a universe filled with intrigue, rebellion, and ancient secrets. Fans of hard sci-fi and expansive, multi-layered plots will find Exodus to be a captivating read, with plenty of twists and revelations along the way. A solid 4-star entry from one of the genre's best.

“Listen: I’ve got an appreciation for girth. Giggle if you must, but what I’m referring to are thick, dense novels where I can lose myself for days or even weeks – novels rich in story, characters, locations and all sense of mood and atmosphere.”

Ronald Malfi, from his Introduction to Devil’s Creek by Todd Keisling

Although the above quote is nothing to do directly with Peter Hamilton’s latest novel, a review Rob recently wrote for a horror novel gave me that quote.

The link? Well, one thing Peter Hamilton is known for is his lengthy science fiction novels. If Ronald Malfi read science fiction (I have no idea if he does!) I think he would love Hamilton’s latest, EXODUS: The Archimedes Engine.

Unusually for Peter (I think), this novel has been written connected to something that may not be entirely his - a role-playing-game is due in 2025, I understand.  It has been stressed to me, though, that this is not a novelisation of the game, but a story set in the same universe, with the game happening after the events of the book. You do not need to know the game to read the book – and I presume vice versa.

From the start of the book though, we’re into typical Hamilton material – I actually found it rather satisfying to find a long timeline at the front of the book, which put the whole book in perspective. We’re on a long timeline here. which shows us that forty thousand years ago before this book begins, humanity fled a dying Earth. Traveling in massive arkships, these pioneers spread out across the galaxy to find a new home. After traveling thousands of light-years, one fleet of arkships arrived at Centauri, a dense cluster of stars with a vast array of potentially habitable planets. The survivors of Earth signalled to the remaining arkships that humanity had finally found its new home among the stars.

Thousands of years later, the Centauri Cluster has flourished. The original settlers have evolved into advanced beings, known as Celestials, and divided themselves into powerful Dominions. One of the most influential is that of the Crown Celestials, an alliance of five great houses that controls vast areas of Centauri. Each of the Dominions has its Queen take turns in running the Cluster.

The issue is that the slower arkships are still arriving – expecting habitable planets, not planets colonised by the Celestials. As a result, we have people who have lived for thousands of years, thanks to time dilation and new longevity techniques, mixing with humans from 40 000 years ago. This creates tension and a threat to the stability of the Cluster.

Among those yearning for a better life is Finbar (Finn) Jalgori-Tubu, a young man for whom Earth is not a memory but merely a footnote from humanity’s ancient history. Born on one of the Crown Dominion worlds, Finn has known nothing but the repressive rule of the Celestials, though he dreams of the possibility of boundless space beyond his home.

So, when the Diligent, another ark ship arrives, previously thought lost, Finn seizes the chance to become a Traveler. These heroes explore the vast unknowns of distant space, dedicated to humanity’s survival. And they hope – one day – to find freedom.

With a book of such length there’s a lot to unpack here. In essence though, the narrative involves three basic story lines. The first begins with what I would call a James Bond moment which introduces us to Finn Jalgori-Tubu and Ellie Aponi. Whilst Finn is the son of a Marchioness on the planet of Gondiar, Ellie and her three-generations removed grandfather Josias Aponi are from the Diligent, the latest arkship arrival. They wish to settle into this new environment, whereas a bored Finn wishes to escape from it. The second is a police procedural that reminded me of Peter’s Great North Road, where a murder in the city of Santa Rosa on the celestial planet Gondiar becomes more complicated than human police officer Terence Wilson-Fletcher first thinks. Thirdly we have a plot line dealing with the political world of the Celestials – the post-humans in this future time who rule with an iron fist. We see both the political manoeuvrings of this society as the five Queens currently bound by an Accord jockey for position as well as the complicated process that the ruling Queen uses to appoint her successor.

Covering such broad and disparate elements, Peter throws all sorts into the mix – dangerous planets, unusual aliens, stranger trans-humans, living rock, space battles, corporate politics, Babylon 5-style jump gates, and even a Hunger Games-type trial.

Whilst the settings and situations may not be that unusual*, Peter’s writing elevates these threads into a complex, action-packed adventure. Really, all of these play to Hamilton’s strengths, and I do think that fans are going to love what happens here. It encapsulates all that fans of his work like.

At this point, it might be worth pointing out the obvious point - that with a book of around 900 pages, Exodus takes its time to develop. Things don’t really start happening in the first 300 pages or so as we map out this epic-sized universe. Much of the first part of the book is involved in creating this universe, introducing us to the characters and worlds before getting to the main point of the plot. This involves a series of set pieces – generally well done, if a little convenient at times. I did think that parts of the plot as we moved from point A to B did feel a little computer-game-like, especially in the first half of the book. The titular main element of the story – the Archimedes Engine - does not really become important to the plot until about 400 pages in, although the last 200 pages are a barnstormer of a narrative.

There are so many ideas involved in this novel that some of them worked less for me than others. There was almost a scattergun approach at times, where lots of ideas were thrown out there, leading to some of them ‘sticking’, whilst other were less attractive. Personally, I did find the idea of ‘livestone’ – a rock transformed by the power of thought, which oddly reminded me of that sand you can sculpt in water - was a little too much, and calling two Silicate soldiers ‘Dave’ felt like a misjudged attempt at humour, To be honest though,  there are so many new ideas here that such peculiarities became minor niggles in the bigger picture.

Talking of the bigger picture, it cannot be said that Peter skimps on the idea that this is a space opera with scale, both in terms of the length of time covered – relativity and time dilation plays a part in this - and in the number of places and the creatures that inhabit them. There are events across multiple star systems, dozens of planets and thousands of years, which build to make the point that this is a story beyond our solar system.

The sense of long time and deep space, where the Celestials think not in terms of years but thousands of years, over many star systems is impressive. The use of time dilation as part of daily life means that characters can disappear for years whilst others are left at home continue to age chronologically. This creates some interesting situations.

In fact, Exodus was so epic that I did wonder whether the book might be daunting for readers new to Peter’s work. The range and variety of characters could feel a little overwhelming at first, but I think over the length of the book becomes easier to absorb.

In summary, Exodus delivers what readers will want – big ideas, multiple plots, vast scale of time and distance, generally well told – that plays to Peter’s strengths. It is Hamilton ramped up to 11. With its immersive environment, exciting action scenes and epic range, as my Malfi quote said at the beginning of this review, Exodus is a book to get lost in, to immerse yourself in, a dense, thick novel that pretty much delivers what Hamilton’s readers expect.

I will admit that even though I consider myself a fast reader, this book took me over two weeks of solid reading to complete. Most other things came to a halt!

Obviously as the first part of a duology there’s a cliff-hanger ending. But it’s a good sign for me that I can’t wait to read the next part, The Helium Sea.




* The actual plot furniture itself may sound a little familiar – arkships go way back as generational spaceships (I’m thinking Heinlein but probably before that) and the differences in travel speed I’m reminded of C J Cherryh’s Merchanter series (Cyteen & Downbelow Station, for example) not to mention Allen Steele’s Coyote series from the early 2000’s. Peter himself has written a trilogy of audiobooks using this idea.

I love Peter's writing so I was really looking forward to reading this latest book, my favorite was the Nights Dawn trilogy which had a rich universe full of interesting characters and brilliant worlds that we got to explore.

This book was like that, it's Galaxy-spanning and really takes you into the story with Peters signature world-building. Each world is captivating and the many Human civilizations that inhabit them are complicated and amazing at the same time. I must admit that this book took some concentration, there is a lot of info at the beginning, including world and race names, and the cast of characters. but once you get past this, the book becomes an excellent story.

The worldbuilding as always is top notch, with the technology being explained and really making you take notice. It's hard scifi without being too detailed. You can tell that Peter really does his research when writing these books and for me, it always adds to the depth of the world, it's one of the reasons I like his work so much.

The characters are something else, although they are only a part of the galaxy spanning political theater. It's quite the cast and I found myself really connecting with some of them and following them through the adventure.

It goes without saying that I really enjoyed this book and if you are a fan of Sci-Fi and any of Peters other works I am sure you will enjoy this as well.

Happy Reading

Peter F Hamilton does not write for the casual or curious reader. This, like many of his novels, clocks in at almost a thousand pages. And it’s the first of two. The cast of characters listed at the front run to almost four pages. For those already familiar with the Hamilton style almost all of his tropes are present and correct here. A far future in which technology has enabled humanity to settle the stars. A constellation of star systems ruled by long-lived aristocratic and/or fabulously wealthy families. A starship captain with wanderlust. A downtrodden underclass. Rumoured powerful ancient technology whose discovery and operation can upset the ossified and unjust social system. And - a plucky police officer (the essence of a ‘joining character’ who can move from underworld to royal court) teasing apart a single case to uncover a systems-wide conspiracy.

Most or all of these could apply to the Commonwealth or Nights Dawn sagas. Here we’re in the far future - 40,000 years on - when humanity has travelled to a region of space called the Centauri Cluster, where advances in genetic technology have enabled them to become virtually immortal. These are the ‘celestials’ who rule over the less lucky humans who embarked on generation ships only to arrive thousands of years after the celestials. One thread of this typically multi-stranded plot follows the arrival of the arkship Diligent. Footloose human aristocrat Finn soon hooks up with them, sensing a way to break out of his stifling ruling class future. In another thread Terence is a police officer trying to uncover the links between local mobs and offworld spies. Finally, in the royal court itself (there are five eternal queens who move their minds from body to body, breeding generations of princesses for this purpose) an upstart noble bent on infiltrating the court undergoes a series of trials to prove her fitness to receive the Queen’s mind.

Reading this reminded me of many of Hamilton’s weaknesses - early on his cast of characters is so vast it can get confusing - here there are a lot of aristocrats with very similar sounding names. What the plot is, over and above the individual strands, can be hard to discern. If you are not into Hamilton’s slightly soap opera take on space opera then characters with names like Vilmana or Helene-Chione then this may not be for you.

Strengths? Like the Commonwealth and Confederation this is not so much world-building as galaxy-building. His care and detail in creating a vast and believable future history across many worlds is second-to none. His Big Dumb Objects are really big.

His other great strength is plot, and after the scene-setting the last quarter of the book when the world-moving technology brings all the principal characters to the same locale will have you thumbing through the pages at speed keen to see what happens next, and impatient for book two.

Would I recommend this as your first Hamilton book? I might direct you to the Pandora’s Star duology first, but this I would add to your list as a great next step.

There was a time in my life when I thought I would never stop reading Science Fiction. The real, hard stuff, full of physics, other worlds, aliens and especially full of new ideas. Somehow I drifted away from the genre when all I saw published were books in the Fantasy genre, a genre that doesn’t appeal to me as strongly as SF does.
But every now and then, ever since I changed my focus to (true)crime and thrillers and the like, I feel strongly that I need some SF. I’ve just finished a heavy tome by Peter Hamilton, it’s almost 1000 pages, and it completely fulfilled my wishes!
The Archimedes Engine is not the first book I’ve read by this excellent master but every time I’m astonished again about all the ideas, the humans, the aliens and not to forget the worlds. And at the same time, there are a lot of things that are recognizable, still. Even 40.000 years in the future, even now humanity has evolved to almost another form of life, there are quarrels and fights, and love and hope – with a very human touch. This makes reading The Archimedes Engine so great: you can still relate to the characters. Not all, of course, and not all characters are very honest or likable, but still. In between the sometimes rather difficult to read explanations about how the different starships work, there is a lot to explore (no pun intended) in this book.
A book by Hamilton is not the kind of book you read in short sittings. You really need to take the time to sit (or lay in bed, or on the beach) and dive in. You will be rewarded with a great experience. And even you’ve never read SF, or never any books by Hamilton, it’s good to give this one a try. I’m already looking forward to the second part in this story.
Thanks to Pan Macmillan and Netgalley for this review copy.

Wow! How can I not think 5 star review for a book so well written by someone who has an amazing imagination. The imagination of how we might evolve, having travelled 10's of thousands of years into the future, is above any other sc-fi I've read.

It's a long read. The early stages are hard work, especially reading electronically. A paper book would make frequent reference to the glossary easier, but a bit of a pain on an electronic device. So that said, I found the earlier part of the book slow and difficult to keep up with, names difficult to place, but go with the flow, as they say, and after a third of the book, you're right in there with what's going on.

A bit of a masterpiece this one. Don't expect an easy read, but very rewarding if you persist!

Another excellent series starter from Peter Hamilton, my only complaint - it's just a duology. Set in a future so far ahead that humanity has evolved in myriad directions, the status quo is challenged by a knackered old ship with millennia-old, unevolved refugees from a long abandoned Earth. Will they be the nail in the coffin of an incestuous cartel fight?

A richly told space opera novel with impressive depth. Contains elements of adventure, politics, economics, palace intrigue, espionage, romance, humour and plenty of action. I was amazed at the skill in how quickly the author draws you in to this far future universe.

As a non-gamer I was initially concerned that this is a novel in support of an upcoming game, but it certainly stands well as a novel on its own.

I eagerly wait for the second half of the Exodus story.

This was my first Peter F Hamilton novel - it will not be the last.

This was my first novel by this author and I really enjoyed it! As a sci-fi newbie, I found some of the language and concepts a bit hard to grasp but that totally didn't take away from the fun I had. If you like well-described and fast-paced sci-fi then this is probabbly one you won't want to miss!

Thanks so much to both the publisher and Netgalley for an advanced copy of the ebook in exchange for my honest review!

This was incredible. Such a vast world with such perfect writing. I am eager to see what is going to happen, in the story and other media.

I'm a big fan of Peter F. Hamilton, so I was extremely pleased to receive this ARC.

Before I being with the review proper, I want to say that, because I read my books on a Kindle, the formatting was quite messed up, including some tiny sections moved around. I found myself having to bring up the book in the NetGalley app on my phone to try and resolve the problems and catch up with what I should have been reading. This is purely a formatting error, and it does not reflect on the substance of the work, in any way.

As is typical of a Peter F. Hamilton book, this one is large and sprawling with a gigantic back story that can only be hinted at, despite it informing a lot of the actions and attitudes of the main characters. I mean, 40,000 years is kind of a large amount of history, more than human history so far. The author does a good job of finding a way to make some of the more advanced civilisations relatable to mere humans like some of the main characters (and the reader!).

The main concept involves a cluster of star systems where generation ships from Earth have all arrived at the same place, but in different waves. This book starts when the last generation ship arrives, 40,000 years after the first one. The star cluster is settled in its ways, and these new interlopers are causing some upset in the cultural norms of the age. Meanwhile, there's a sub-plot of revenge that only truly reveals itself quite a ways into the novel.

With such an advanced society, there's plenty of room for sense-of-wonder and some great Big Dumb Objects for the characters to explore. This is great hard science fiction space opera at its finest. In the meantime, there are some very interesting characters that run the gamut from completely self-involved to arrogant to downright malicious and several others in between. Some of the characters possibly aren't quite as well drawn as they could be (there's got to be a whole lot of backstory to several of them that gets glossed over), but overall what we get is sufficient to keep the plot moving and interesting.

Of course, the truly heart-breaking bit is when you get to the end and realise that you now have to wait for the next book in the series to come along. I really wanted to continue reading to see where this goes. I guess I'll just have to wait a while.

An epic space opera spanning millennia, across multiple star systems and a variety of advanced races, political machinations, and good old-fashioned humans. The skill of the author in building an intricate, inter-connected, believable set of worlds and cultures in which to set this story can’t be overstated. It’s quite an achievement.

**The Set Up**

The story is set 40,000 years in the future, in an area of space known as the Centauri Cluster. Playing the part of “advanced aliens” are humans that travelled to the Centauri Cluster, 16,000 light years from earth, “early” in the book’s timeline and made massive advances in technology and genetic engineering. They have highly sophisticated technology, and hugely extended lifespans. They are known as “celestials”.

And it’s just as well that they have extended lifespans, because there are no sci-fi tricks to allow anybody to travel or communicate faster than light: no hyperspace, no warp drive, no wormholes, no subspace communication. OK, so there’s one trick: a technology that allows very quick acceleration up to relativistic speeds (and deceleration), but this doesn’t change how relativistic laws still apply - including time dilation, where time passes more slowly for the people travelling than those left behind. And this is used to great effect in the story telling, where decades can pass on the planets while the plot follows some characters that are travelling between star systems.

The celestials originally arrived, as humans, in the Centauri cluster in generation ships - ships that travel at relativistic speeds, but still take millennia to travel between star systems (although it seems like less time to those on board). When they found an abundance of habitable worlds in the Centauri cluster, they sent out a “green worlds” signal to all of the other generation ships that had left earth. This ships then arrived in dribs and drabs over the next millennia, but aren’t especially welcome amongst the advanced (and now heavily populated) worlds of the Centauri cluster.

It is into this context that the latest generation ship arrives - the ‘Diligent’, which had been travelling away from the Centauri cluster when it received the “green worlds” signal, and thus has taken a somewhat circuitous route, to arrive late at the party.

And thus we have everything we need for an epic story of enormous scale. A downtrodden human population, into which new arrivals are injected. Plenty of opportunity for exposition, as the new arrivals have things explained to them about everything from technology, to politics, to celestial history. There are power structures amongst the celestials, with traditions and relationships that have spanned millennia, and are focused on retaining stability. There are secretive strategists, that have extensive information networks amongst their own, and their rivals, populations, and play the Great Game - a long game of strategy and political positioning.

And there is a rogue planet that is destined to enter one of the central star systems of the Centauri cluster, for reasons that nobody fully understands. And it is around consequences of the arrival of this planet that the main plot of the story revolves.

**But Is It Good?**

This book is… long. Obviously, I knew that when I started reading it. And it has to be reasonably long, given the scale and scope of the world building and the extensive cast of characters. And the length isn’t gratuitous at the paragraph level - there are no rambling descriptive passages that you can skip over. It’s wall-to-wall plot. However, the author does use plot to establish character and back-story, often telling entire sub-stories to flesh out a the background of a character, technology, or organisation. The fine details of these sub-stories aren’t always important - but they might add flavour or depth to a particular character or broader sequence of events.

So to really enjoy this book, you need to be engaged and interested enough to want to immerse yourself in the sub-stories, and for those to be satisfying in themselves. This is space opera in its “soap opera” sense - where you want to hear more stories of the characters, places and organisations for their own sake, and where the advancement of the overall plot can sometimes take second place. And this is where I had a problem. I’m going to compare this to Dune and Lord of the Rings, and not in a good way. Dune, because many of the characters aren’t particularly likeable, and I’m not particularly interested in political manoeuvring and power struggles; and Lord of the Rings, because many of the side quests don’t advance the plot as much as you might hope, and if you don’t care about the culture of dwarves in Middle-Earth (for example), you’re going to find it frustrating.

But Dune and Lord of the Rings are well liked, so perhaps it’s just me.

As I said at the beginning, there is no doubting the achievement of intricate world building that this book represents. If I was rating for that alone, it would get a solid 5 stars. But my personal enjoyment was hampered by my disinterest in the themes around politics and power struggles.

This is the first part of a duology. Will I read the second part when it’s released? I genuinely don’t know.

Thank you #NetGalley and Pan MacMillan Tor for the free review copy of #ExodusTheArchimedesEngine in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own

This is a very fascinating story taking place in 40000 years in the future and I loved reading Finn's story a quite interesting character. Still, its slow pace made me lose the concept of time dilation. I understand that some ideas had to be explained so we can understand the context but a bit too slow compared to the speed of light. Another point is 40000 years in the future and all this advanced technology and the evolution of humans into Celestials and the characters still use "Majesty" and "Yes, My Lord"? And I was hoping if not for a better world, future at least getting rid of titles and stuff like this. Maybe humans will be humans no matter where they live and how far in the future they go.
Anyway, overall Exodus is a great Sci Fi story and anyone who loves Sci Fi will enjoy this one as well.

Massively exhilirating. Few authors write 1000-page books that reel me in so effectively, and increase my pulse so much. The story has all the major components of what makes the author's previous sci fi sagas so amazing - exceptionally intricate and multi-layered world building (including politics, economy, etc), vivid and empathetic protagonists, political intrigue, ground-breaking ideas on what the future might hold, and, of course, attention grabbing writing and plot evolution.

It's equal to The Night's Dawn Trilogy and the Salvation sequence. Many ideas and concepts are shared, but enough is new. I think I would have found this book more groundbreaking if I'd read this first, but even as it is - it still comes across as among the best hard sci-fi books I've ever read.

I particularly liked the more sophisticated critique of class and privilege that is more visible in this book vs its predecessors. While the latter were often more action oriented, I do see a lot more nuanced meta social commentary here, and it's exhilarating - making the book so much better.

Highly recommended to any hard sci fi fan. If you loved any of the author's work, or frankly any other space opera at this scale of inventinevess (e.g., Culture, Expanse, or even the Foundation, for that matter), you'd love this book. I can't wait for the next part.

My thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an early copy of this book in return for an honest review.

Personalmente, leer un libro de Peter F. Hamilton es volver a mi zona de confort, a esa ciencia ficción de imaginación desbordada y sentido de la maravilla a paletadas. Si bien es cierto que empecé el libro con cierto recelo por tratarse de una franquicia, una novela de un juego que todavía no se ha estrenado y del que no conocía el lore, he de decir que es una lectura totalmente independiente de la experiencia del videojuego. Es posible que el juego gane enteros una vez leída (algo que me gustaría probar cuando salga) pero como obra literaria en sí misma es perfectamente independiente (salvo de la segunda entrega, claro, porque nos encontramos ante una bilogía).


La premisa ya es espectacular. Hace cuarenta mil años la humanidad escapó de una Tierra moribunda y se estableció, tras siglos de viaje, en una serie de planetas habitables (terraformados por una antigua raza alienígena). Allí han evolucionado, dando lugar a los Celestiales, que ya no se pueden considerar humanos por su desarrollo intelectual y genético. Hay cinco familias de Celestiales que se reparten el poder de forma cíclica, y las Reinas de cada casa, si bien no son inmortales, sí que transfieren parte de su conciencia a sus herederas, dando lugar a una línea dinástica ininterrumpida, que obviamente ofrece muchísima estabilidad.

Mientras tanto, las naves generacionales que fueron saliendo de la Tierra continúan llegando y estos humanos base deberán adaptarse a las condiciones que imponen los Celestiales, que abogan por una especie de servidumbre, llevadera pero irritante en su consideración de los humanos como inferiores.

En esta compleja situación política, llega otra nave generacional con el último hombre que anduvo por la Tierra TM, en un punto álgido del Gran Juego que los Celestiales llevan milenios desplegando, porque hay un planeta que se dirige hacia esta parte del Universo sin que se sepa muy bien quién lo ha puesto en esta trayectoria. Y no voy a hablar más de la trama, porque os aseguro que casi mil páginas de libro dan para mucha trama.

El reparto de Hamilton es muy coral, ya que da voz a diversos Celestiales, a humanos y a otros seres que habitan los distintos mundos. Resulta muy interesante ver cómo la manipulación genética de los Celestiales les lleva a crear muchos tipos de Awakened, que son como animales dotados de inteligencia o constructos biológicos desarrollados para una tarea en particular, siempre con la salvaguarda de que los Celestiales podrán influir en sus mentes. Esto es un comodín muy útil para que el autor se vaya sacando de la manga una serie de razas que nos irá mostrando como una muestra de todo lo que se le va pasando por la cabeza y a su vez, desarrollando toda una cultura específica para cada especie. ¿Le vienen bien unos seres de los que se aprovechan sus fluidos cuales ciervos almizcleros para crear drogas? Ahí los llevas. ¿Ahora necesitas gigantes forzudos pero complacientes para realizar trabajos manuales pesados? Toma unos cuantos.

Uno de los inconvenientes de un libro tan largo y con tantos personajes es que a veces parece que alguno de los hilos se le escapan entre los dedos y pasa mucho tiempo sin que sepamos qué les pasa a estos personajes. A esto también contribuye la dilatación temporal propia de los viajes espaciales, “solucionada” en este caso por unas puertas anteriores a los Celestiales que permiten aceleraciones brutales, siempre que haya un campo protector que envuelva a las naves. Hamilton compensa este distinto reparto de protagonismo intentando dotar del mismo interés cada subtrama, pero hay algunas que son de mecha lenta y hasta que avanza bastante la lectura no se ve claro su utilidad. Para estos momentos en que vuelven a aparecer personajes que hace varios capítulos que no hemos visto, el libro viene con un utilísimo dramatis personae.

Es cierto que el principio del libro, mientras se van recogiendo los elementos necesarios para la consecución de los objetivos, se cae en una especie de correveidile que recuerda mucho a los RPGs en general y supongo que al de Exodus en particular. Entiendo que esto puede aburrir a algunos, pero a mí mientras me sigan hablando de unidades astronómicas, geoanillos y antimateria, me siguen teniendo muy entretenida.

En definitiva, un libro de ciencia ficción al que el calificativo épico realmente hace justicia.