Pandora's Star

By: Peter F. Hamilton

Narrated by: John Lee

Length: 37 hrs and 21 mins

Publisher's summary

Critics have compared the engrossing space operas of Peter F. Hamilton to the classic sagas of such SF giants as Isaac Asimov and Frank Herbert. But Hamilton's best-selling fiction - powered by a fearless imagination and world-class storytelling skills - has also earned him comparison to Tolstoy and Dickens. Hugely ambitious, wildly entertaining, philosophically stimulating: the novels of Peter F. Hamilton will change the way you think about science fiction.

Now, with Pandora's Star, he begins a new multi-volume adventure, one that promises to be his most mind-blowing yet. The year is 2380. The Intersolar Commonwealth, a sphere of stars some 400 light-years in diameter, contains more than 600 worlds, interconnected by a web of transport "tunnels" known as wormholes. At the farthest edge of the Commonwealth, astronomer Dudley Bose observes the impossible: Over 1,000 light-years away, a star...vanishes. It does not go supernova. It does not collapse into a black hole. It simply disappears.

Since the location is too distant to reach by wormhole, a faster-than-light starship, the Second Chance, is dispatched to learn what has occurred and whether it represents a threat. In command is Wilson Kime, a five-time rejuvenated ex-NASA pilot whose glory days are centuries behind him. Opposed to the mission are the Guardians of Selfhood, a cult that believes the human race is being manipulated by an alien entity they call the Starflyer.

Bradley Johansson, leader of the Guardians, warns of sabotage, fearing the Starflyer means to use the starship's mission for its own ends. Pursued by a Commonwealth special agent convinced the Guardians are crazy but dangerous, Johansson flees. But the danger is not averted. Aboard the Second Chance, Kime wonders if his crew has been infiltrated.

Soon enough, he will have other worries. A thousand light-years away, something truly incredible is waiting: a deadly discovery, the unleashing of which will threaten to destroy t...

©2004 Peter F. Hamilton (P)2008 Tantor

Critic reviews

"The depth and clarity of the future Hamilton envisions is as complex and involving as they come." ( Publishers Weekly Starred Review)

Be careful what you wish for

Pandora's Star is a space opera on a grand scale. The year is 2380. Many inhabitable planets are now part of a system know as the Commonwealth. The planets with plants secreting acid that burns through your space suit are considered off limits. Thanks to stem cell research in Europe, that was banned in America, your body can be rejuvenated. Your memories recorded and stored in a crystal at the base of your brain. Nobody really dies but you can live for hundreds of years and be young but with a lifetime of memories and knowledge. OC tattos, or organic computer, make your body connected to the Unisphere, the internet that is vast and shared with all the planets. A complex interstellar wormhole transport system, the CST, connects planets of the Commonwealth making travel to far away planets quick and easy. And amazingly enough all the planets of the Commonwealth are at peace. There are aliens and humans living in harmony.

One night while star gazing, astronomer Dudley Bose makes an simple observation of a lifetime. Something that will boost his lackluster career. Dudley sees a star 1000 light years away disappear. Simply vanish. Loads of speculation begins about what this could mean and how this could happen and why. It is as if a giant force field surrounded the star system. But who has the technology for this and why would they do this? Is it to trap the beings inside or keep others out? Or is there another reason. This star system is too far outside the Commonwealth to use the wormhole system to reach but the government wants to sent a ship there to investigate. But some mysteries are better left alone.

I enjoyed it and it kept me interested. There were some very clever concepts used in an extremely original way. You have to be patient with the first half of the book because everything he introduces has a purpose. I am not, however, in love with this book. Why? Because of the length and the vast number of characters (at least 70) and the pacing. It follows multiple characters and many seemingly disconnected story lines and for the first 300 pages or so you feel like there is no way all of these stories and characters can be brought together into a cohesive story line. But by the middle of the book I am on the edge of my seat with the suspense cheering and in shock, and at times laughing, only to have the rug pulled out from me by the story going in another direction and get bogged down with political discussion. It was like here is 300 pages of intriguing world building. Then 200 pages of why are these multitude characters being thrown into the book. Then I can't put this book down for another 75 pages. And then I am bored out of my mind with the political B.S. and family dynasty crap. Also there were some 21st century concepts and technology that to me would seem outdated in this time period. But by the end I am literally baffled by a strange cliffhanger ending and wanted to read the 2nd half of these two books because I invested so much time into reading about these characters.

John Lee does an excellent job with the voices, although the American accent is not quiet right, I can give him a pass on this. On to Judas Unchained but I think I will read the e-book to get through it quicker. 47 hrs is a lot of time to spend listening to one book.

if you stick with it its worth the effort

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

it's a good book but has a lot of wordy background(not bad if you like lots of small details but hard to know whats going on until later when everything falls into place)

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

yes it was but would be impossible its way to long

awesome production!

The story is intriguing and I could not stop listening. The author weaves a vast, complex world.

Likewise, the performance was good!

My only complaint is this: the novel jumps among many different story lines and it can be difficult to tell when those jumps occur and which story line it is. They really should have included distinct and obvious pauses at each jump.

Slow to start, great finish

Would you be willing to try another one of John Lee’s performances?

Unfortunately the weakest part of the experience was the narrator. It felt as if every american-accent was a bad impersonation of Captain Kirk - he'd quickly switch from melodramatic highs to near-whisper lows, almost dropping to the point where understanding was difficult. And whenever the characters hit an emotional or shouting moment, he did a sort of whisper shout which just sounded strange. His narration was great, but anytime he did dialogue I was in pain - although I got used to it by the end of this 37 hour marathon.

Any additional comments?

The book was really slow to get going - I feel its a bit of a fiction sin to have this many characters on this many worlds and then just dump the reader in the middle of it. Establishing all of his characters and the scope of the world took far too long. Honestly if I hadn't paid for the book, I'd never have finished it, I was so bored during the first 20 hours. He had moments of interesting things happening, but then you'd have to slog through another five hours of listening to characters you didn't care about doing things that weren't remotely interesting. However, once I made it past all of this, the book started to really pick up. He had some amazing moments in the later third of the volume that make some of the tedium worthwhile, especially when you realize the scope of the disaster that Humanity finds itself in - and the enemy he's created for humanity was incredibly fascinating and terrifying. I definitely don't regret listening to this book, even though I think the first portion could have been more carefully edited for pacing. I really look forward to the sequel, knowing that it won't have to bother with nearly so much establishment.

Good Story and a little hard to follow

If you could sum up Pandora's Star in three words, what would they be?

Long, Detailed, Good

What did you like best about this story?

The story is very well written. Maybe even a little too well written. It is long and there are a lot of mini plots to follow. When the reader changes from one plot to the next there isn't pause which makes it difficult to follow.

What does John Lee bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

I like the way the reader has a different voice for each character. I became confused at times when the

Fantastic Story, audio mixing issues

Fantastic story and performance.

The audio, however, sounds like someone messed up while mixing it. Most likely a compression issue, you’ll hear certain sentences start very loud and then the volume is suddenly quiet. My guess is the compressors attack time is too long, and the release is way too long.

Good story, narrator's cadence is monotonous

Overall I like the ideas and concepts, but the over description in places made me me ready to stop listening. The narrator's almost hypnotic, up and down without regard for content made it hard to pay attention..

Enjoyable story but bad reading

Pandora Star was a good story but the pacing was a bit slow at times and there were far too many pointless characters who's stories you needed to follow even though they had little effect in the overall story. It leaned on some sci-fi tropes but had some fairly new concepts of it's own too.

I did not enjoy the performance. The reader had a tendency to emphasize with speaking volume the first three to five words of a sentence and then trail off quietly for the remainder. it was an annoying affectation that didn't do anything for the drama and made me fiddle with my volume in my car constantly.

Ultimately, I would not recommend this audio book and suggest the paperback version instead.

Fun new world

A book about a bright future where humans have failings but not the issue to be fixed.

In for the long haul

If you're not already aware, there is a (necessary) sequel to this book, entitled Judas Unchained. If you're considering buying this book, be prepared to buy the next one too, less for unbounded excitement and more for a desire to complete the story arc. I'm not crazy about the narrator, but it gets the job done. I regularly lost track of who was saying which lines in a conversation, and I'm pretty sure the voice for a given character would change a bit from one conversation to the next. It felt like each conversation was made to have distinct voices for the duration, but the accents didn't necessarily follow the character to the next section of dialog. Narration aside, the book is very much "space opera". Absolutely do not expect fast-paced action. There is no piece of the storytelling that doesn't have at least a 15-minute backstory inserted somewhere along the way, although usually much longer than that. (5-part book, hint hint) The people you expect to be mere satellite characters are actually worthy of entire story arcs themselves, sometimes going through entire segments of their personal lives from years in the past for little other reason than to make it believable when they act a certain way later on. The author writes in an exploratory fashion... the writing is not concise and driven by fitting into X pages, but instead is a presentation of the lives of the characters, as they would act, even if it means little to the story at large. If you don't understand a friendly alien race, just wait and it'll come out eventually, however bad your anxiety attacks may be. The ending, although extremely thought-provoking of the entire story thus far, is really no ending at all, and the mysteries of the story are mostly presented by part 4, and left at that. There is some headway that can be made if you sit and scrunch up your forehead for the half hour after you finish the book, but some bits just can't be simply explained away in a rational fashion.