[By Nic Lindh on Wednesday, 02 May 2007]
Judas Unchained is Peter F. Hamilton’s continuation of the story begun in Pandora’s Star and it is utterly brilliant. Like Pandora’s Star (my review here), Judas Unchained is huge, sprawling, and realized with an uncanny eye for detail.
It is also faster-paced than Pandora’s Star, which had to spend a lot of time and energy in setting up the universe and the characters.
Not only is Hamilton a first-class universe-builder, but his plotting is also incredibly strong, and he creates sharply-drawn characters, both human and alien.
This is the gold standard for science fiction. If you enjoy the genre at all, you owe it to yourself to read these novels.
The one problem, and it’s not one that can be blamed on Hamilton, is that the cover for Judas Unchained doesn’t emphasize enough that this is the second volume in a novel, and it barrels straight into the action, leaving a reader who hasn’t read Pandora’s Star completely adrift. Caveat SF nerd.
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