Salvation

By: Peter F. Hamilton

Narrated by: John Lee

Length: 19 hrs and 2 mins

Publisher's Summary

In 2204, humanity is expanding into the wider galaxy in leaps and bounds. Cutting-edge technology of linked jump gates has rendered most forms of transportation - including starships - virtually obsolete. Every place on Earth, every distant planet humankind has settled, is now merely a step away from any other. And all seems wonderful - until a crashed alien spaceship of unknown origin is found on a newly located world 89 light-years from Earth, carrying a cargo as strange as it is horrifying. To assess the potential of the threat a high-powered team is dispatched to investigate. But one of them may not be all they seem....

Bursting with tension and big ideas, Salvation is the first book of an all-new series that highlights the inventiveness of an author at the top of his game.

©2018 Peter F. Hamilton (P)2018 Tantor

Critic Reviews

“Peter F. Hamilton smashes through the crazy battlefield of space opera like a giant all-conquering war-robot. His newest is loud, proud, and beyond epic. Accept no substitutes, this is the real deal. You need Salvation, my friend.” (Ian McDonald, author of the Luna series)

Wait For Book 2

I had patiently waited almost 2 years for a new Peter F. Hamilton book, and, unfortunately, as expected _Salvation_ is a 19 hour introduction to this new series. It's a series of short stories setting up the arc with the bulk of the stories being back story for the main protagonists. Anyone who has read his Commonwealth series will see many similarities, though this is not the same universe. While not a bad book, I was quickly aware that no real progress was going to made, just lots of groundwork being laid so my advice is to wait for at least the second book to be published where some progress might actually be made in the plot.

42 of 43 people found this review helpful

John Lee not at his best

I really like the book -- the story, but John Lee is another matter. Which is odd because I have mostly liked his narration in all the other P.F. Hamilton books, but in this one his characters seem to meld together into some odd "Transylvanian" accent. Like something from a vampire cartoon. Not only that, but he will have an accent going for a character and it will shift into the vampire accent and I get lost immediately trying to figure out who is talking because now the next character has the same or similar accent.

He has used this accent more sparingly in other books, and I have not liked it there either, but one or two characters. Okay. I can excuse/live with that. But smeared all up and down and over all the characters. No way.

It takes away from the book because I am having trouble following the jumping from story to story, but add in not being able to follow who is talking and a mish mash of epic proportions ensues. I stop the audio, go back and try to sort it out. I can't always.

Lastly, who speaks like this? Honestly, just cartoon vampires from Transylvania. It's not even a thick British accent as some have commented.

15 of 15 people found this review helpful

excellent plot. Probably better on paper.

I enjoyed this tremendously. The characters were well developed. The performance was excellent. the world's that Hamilton creates are rich. The one downside is that Hamilton jumps around from place to place and across different time periods. and, that is difficult to keep track of when you're listening to an audiobook.

but the book ends with a cliffhanger. Unfortunately we now have to wait to find out what happens next.

6 of 6 people found this review helpful

if Dan Simons and Peter Hamilton wrote a book

Far to much like other PFH books with a very similar structure to Hyperion. A fun read, but nothing we haven't seen before. The narrator was fantastic as always.

4 of 4 people found this review helpful

not enjoyable said it all

thats it . it just drugggggggggggg on and on and on. and i usually like these kind

4 of 4 people found this review helpful

Fan of the commonwealth? Lower your expectations

I love the author's series the Commonwealth and had a hard time putting them down but unfortunately this one was hard to finish.

the Bland characters doing nothing of consequence that seems until the very end of the book makes it a tedious read that feels like a very very long prologue.

that isn't to say it is not well written it just feels like it is only the introduction to an actual novel, I can say that I will purchase the next book in the series but I hope it is not in three different time periods as well. It didn't really work out for this book

4 of 4 people found this review helpful

Waste of time

Maybe this tale is interesting if not involving, somewhere near the level of the Bobiverse. Ok, maybe that's hoping for way too much. I couldn't make it past chapter 6. The narration was just too impenetrable, off-putting, dense. Some of that might be the text, as there is a fair bit of description, some of it fairly technical, though generally I enjoy that if it's at all logical or at least possible. The narrator gives each character pretty much the same voice, so it's hard to tell which character is speaking at times. And he tends to drop his voice at the end of sentences to almost inaudible levels. Life is too short to spend 15 more hours trying to get into this one.

4 of 4 people found this review helpful

poor narration very heavy accent difficult to hear

narration has very heavy uk accent. recorded at a very low volume level. heavy accent made the book very hard to understand and follow, in addition sometimes also monotone

7 of 8 people found this review helpful

I wasn't able to get going on this one...

I have to remember not to get books with John Lee as the Narrator. He has this weird syncopation to his reading that just distracts me so bad. I know most of the time he is reading "in character" but it annoys me no end. As to the book, several times I found myself saying out loud "I have no idea what is going on here!" so... Love Peter F Hamilton but... pass. Wish I could return it...

11 of 13 people found this review helpful

Canterbury Tales of first contact

The storytelling format may throw you off at first as it's a bunch of disconnected tales of life in future earth as well as of distant future humanity. It's reminiscent of Dan Simmons's Hyperion Cantos in some ways. At first, I was irritated and distracted by never getting to stay with anyone long enough to get into the characters. These aren't quite self-contained short stories with a satisfying ark (as in Hyperion). However, this is Peter F Hamilton - and this is Book 1. All those tales are tied together and deeply interconnected - and you only get the first hints of that near the end of this novel. There will be a lot more text before it's all clear. And I can't wait.
It may not be for everyone - it's long-winded space opera, but seems less frustratingly long winded than some of Hamilton's earlier work.
My biggest complaint is that John Lee's narration has all started to blur together for me. I've listened to a lot of Hamilton's work narrated by Lee. Lee doesn't have the biggest range of truly distinct voices - and Hamilton's novels have a huge cast. Within a single novel, character voices start to get a little blurred together - and after a few, I'm frequently confused which character I'm hearing and if they're from this novel or not...

6 of 7 people found this review helpful