Pandora's Star

Commonwealth Saga, Book 1

By: Peter F. Hamilton

Narrated by: John Lee

Length: 37 hrs and 30 mins

Publisher's summary

Pandora's Star is the first part of Peter F. Hamilton's epic Commonwealth Saga duology – a fantastic galaxy-spanning novel from the master of space opera. For fans of Iain M. Banks and Alastair Reynolds.

At the edge of the galaxy something awakens – and it's coming for us . . .

Earth AD 2329: Humanity has colonized over four hundred planets, all interlinked by wormholes. For the first time in mankind's history there is peace. Then a star over a thousand light years away suddenly vanishes, imprisoned inside a force field of immense size. Yet who – or what – has that sort of technology? And what could this mean for us? Only a faster-than-light starship, captained by ex-NASA astronaut Wilson Kime, can reach that distance to investigate.

For Wilson, getting inside the force field could be easy. It may be harder to stop something else from getting out.

What if there was a very good reason to seal off an entire star system?

The Commonwealth Saga duology concludes with Judas Unchained.

©2004 Peter F Hamilton (P)2008 Tantor Media Inc

Critic reviews

The best book Hamilton has written in years (Guardian)

Anyone who begins this won’t be able to put it down (Publishers Weekly)

Compelling (SFX)

Long Winded But Enjoyable

Pandora's star is no light read (or should I say listen to), be prepared for a long haul that seems to take, at times forever to get where it's going. You may well believe that Mr Hamilton is paid per page as this detailed at at times rambling tale trundles along the tracks. However the author manages to invent a truly engaging and detailed Universe where Humanity despite being able to practially live forever is in true danger of being wiped out by an alien menace.

However understand that this is only the first part of the series, it isn't a stand alone book. So take the ride, settle in, give it a chance and I think you will enjoy this tale a great deal, the narrator does a fine job of bringing all the characters to life and the story, while long winded this is a very enjoyable one.

Tinker, Tailor, Zerg and Spy

The books is a typical Hamilton monster: long and meandering, but a fulfilling story. I liked John Lee back in the Spellmonger series, was a nice surprise to hear him also here. Recommeded for: trekkies

Great entertainment

Very entertaining and complex space opera. The books are connected. I am getting the second one as I type. Hhh

way too long

I don't understand why this book had to be that long. If you read the brief book description by audible then you know essentially *all* highlights and the rest of the book just turns out to be bland and boring with endless descriptions and numerous new characters introduced every 2-3 hours. It gets more interesting around hour 30 but you'd have to be very determined to get there. I won't be buying the sequel, I can't take another 40 hours of this.

lame narration.. could only listen for 2 hours

love sci fi when doing my cardio and was looking forward to an endless scifi saga, something that hooks you when you do sport. but this narrator does just the opposite. he just could not manage to grab my attention, i really tried hard. his voice is ok, but the tempo is awkward to say the least, his voice flattens at the end of each sentence. terrible. spoiled the content for me. zero stars.

Long and sometimes to detailed

It could be an interesting book , but the author just try to go into details and not let any thing to your immagination. So overall you listening 30 something hours and only to get to the begining of the 2nd book. At the moment I think I will not continue. Maybe spoiler, but basicaly the athor imagines the years of the 24th century as if were the 20th century with warmhole technology and without real death. Embarrasingly low level of a science fiction writer. I give 3 stars, because part of the slowly unfolding story are still interesting. I tried this because somebody rated it high above 3 body problem. 3 body problem was a page turner full of interesting ideas, and an exciting story from the beginning to the and of the 3rd book. This book is nothing like that, with its Diesel engines, and pick-up trucks, and nuclear bombs…

Pandora's Star

Great story, well narrated, although accents and voice modulation mixed for some characters.

Disappointed with the end. It was so abrupt that I went looking for an extra download, thinking I'd missed one of the download files. I would still recommend this book though.

Sad attempt at an epic scifi.

John Lee does an excellent job at the narration, however....

I consider this a very sad attempt to write an epic scifi book. Hamilton has crafted an excellent and intriguing story. Unfortunately it's dragged down into the gutter by how it is written and told. The main story line consists of MAYBE 10-15 hours of narration, the rest are merely side-stories that in the end has very little to do with the main story line but is there to justify a few deus ex machina-moments in the non-conclusion at the end of the book. I say 'non-conclusion' because the book doesn't really end and nothing is wrapped up, it instead continues into book 2.

This is a book that would have been served better with a shorter word count, 15 hours at most. Hamilton could then have published several prequel books containing the side stories. Combining everything into one huge, (and holistically speaking) dull mess distracts enormously from the story that's told.

If you're after an intriguing story and if you are the kind of person with A LOT of patience then I would recommend this book, otherwise, save your credits for something else.

Ponderous Text; Tedious Narration

John Lee's narration doesn't seem to work with this author's text. I've heard some great narrations by John but it didn't work for me. Moreover the story is in may place far too descriptive; a journey over a volcano seems interminable, and the account doesn't progress the narrative the character arc in any meaningful way. After just an hours listening I gave up listening and read the plot in Wikipedia. It's pretty good and in other hands I think I would have enjoyed it.

Sorry, this one isn't for me.

This 30 hour book was 22 hours too long.

I kept hoping it would improve, but then shallow character development, coupled with incomprehensible exposition, and forced romantic scenes just ruined it. I will not be going on to book 2.

The narrator was... Okay. He only has 3 or 4 character voices which made distinguishing between the indistinguishable characters even more difficult.

The pseudo-techology concepts introduced, however, were fantastic. A really neat view on a future human civilization that is rooted in plausible science.