Rating: 
Summary: Must Read!
Review: Don't hesitate to read this. This is my second Peter Hamilton
book and will not be my last.
D.P.
Rating:
Summary: Not your fathers sci-fi
Review: After reading hundreds of sci-fi books over the years, the originality of Peter Hamilton is very refreshing. That combined with the Dicksonian plots makes for real page turner novels. Pandora's Star creates a universe which contains the good, the bad and the ugly. It strives to create an atmosphere that is entirely plausible in the long term. Mr. Hamilton is at his best he brings you to a crucial turning point in a sub-plot and then changes focus. He is a master when it comes to writing a pager-turner novel and does not stint when comes to actually ending his novels. The only thing that drives me crazy is the wait for his next novel.
Rating:
Summary: Best Hamilton to Date!
Review: after reading the nights dawn trilogy i have developed a liking for Hamilton, and this book absolutly blew me away
a great read- entertaining, well written, deep plot line, developed characters... the list goes on
buy it today... you wont be dissappointed
Rating: 
Summary: Ambitious, but ultimately unengaging
Review: Being a huge fan of the 'Night's Dawn' trilogy, I was naturally very happy to get my hands on this book. If you liked 'Night's Dawn', there's a chance you will find something to your liking in here - but don't expect anything approaching the quality of 'The Neutronium Alchemist'.In this series (completed by 'Judas Unchained' next year), Hamilton seems to set out to do something similar to what he did in 'Night's Dawn': present a riveting, complex world and then take a sledgehammer to it. The universe in 'Pandora's Star' sure is awfully detailed, and parts of it (such as the trains that travel between worlds) are surely fascinating. However, the world just doesn't click as neatly as 'Night's Dawn', and I was left with the feeling that, as detailed as this novel was, I just didn't buy into it. There's a LOT of pages in this book used to describe the world, but instead of being mesmerising, they tend to be very frustrating as the author takes the reader by the hand to guide him through yet another human colony vaguely based on Western places, such as Venice or California. I think this is one of these books that would have benefited from having less, not more. Some parts were very carefully crafted and interesting, while other sub-plots were frustrating for being so boring and leading nowhere. In some cases (the fanfic-level chapter on the court case of a rich businessman, to quote one) was so poorly written and so unappealing that they almost convinced me to put down the book and pick up something else. Because of the number of secondary characters in the novel, some characters become such clichés that they`re actually painful to read. Mark, the "everyday normal guy" witnessing the events of the novel in the midst of his very boring life, made me groan every time his name showed up. Mellanie, the nubian naive girl who gets mistreated by the rich man she loves blindly, was also very painful to read so stereotypical she was. It's a pity, because they ultimately bury great characters such as Nigel Sheldon or Ozzie, that show a bit more fleshing out. Oh, and to show you how poorly fleshed-out these secondary characters turned out to be, I was unable to find one woman in the novel that was not somehow beautiful and closer to a man's fantasy than an actual believeable woman. Still; throughout all these gripes is an interesting bit of space opera waiting to unfold. The beauty of 'Night's Dawn' was to see a fully realized world fall to pieces under a new threat. 'Judas Unchained' promises to do exactly that to the world of 'Pandora's Star'. This promise has kept me going through this very long novel: that all I read so far was preparation for Peter Hamilton taking an awesome sledgehammer to his carefully constructed world. That is not to say I harbor fantasies of revenge upon this long novel, but rather that this long preparation might be worth it once Hamilton turns things upside down. If the followup is up to par with Hamilton's previous works, then this novel might be worth slowly wading through. Here's hoping that it will be: because Pandora's Star in itself is ambitious, but so flawed that it failed to fire up my imagination and really engage me.
Rating:
Summary: Seriously addictive reading
Review: Do NOT buy this book if you have other responsibilities! One of the best reads ever. Highly recommended - enjoy.
Rating:
Summary: Pandora's reviewer. Why write a spoiler for a recent book?
Review: Frodo gets the Ring to Mt. Doom, Gandalf lives but Gollum dies.
So does Saruman, he's killed by Wormtongue.
Aslan dies but rises again in The Lion, Witch, and Wardrobe.
Darth Vader is Luke's father. Harriet K, WHY did you write a SPOILER without a warning?? I bought this book yesterday and read it until 2am. I'm on about page 300 so not even close to half way. Now rather than heading towards the "amazing cliff hanger" described by the other reviewers you've exposed the whole mountain range! The reviewer above who posted when he was on about page 250 shows that readers will check this page before they finish the book. Let alone buy it. Great book, it has the same addictive quailities as the Night's Dawn trilogy.
Rating: 
Summary: A Glittering Future
Review: Hamilton has combined into this novel many ideas that will be familiar to science fiction writers. He depicts a future where you can rejuvenate your mind into a younger body. But before this, you can also regularly backup your mind so that if you die in an accident, this backup can be used to restore your mind from when it was last written to. The analogy to existing computer backups is clear. This future raises very hard questions about consciousness and mortality. If you die, your consciousness still dies. A new thread started via a backup is still a different consciousness. But Hamilton describes people as reasoning that how different is this from a normal waking from sleep? Given the premise that such a backup and restoration might be feasible oneday, this reasoning is surely what will arise. Most recently, the idea of mind backup and restore was explored in "Altered Carbon" by Richard Morgan, which essentially devotes that entire novel around it. But Hamilton is far more ambitious. In a standard SF novel, the above issues are enough for a strong exposition. He goes further. He depicts a spacefaring civilisation that achieves this via wormholes from planet to planet, traversed by trains. Visually quite compelling. Grand Central Station to the max! This idea alone would suffice for many a novel. More yet. The main plot complication is due to an expansionistic, militarism of an alien race, that has been confined to two stellar systems by another more powerful race. Similar to the Moties in "The Mote In God's Eye" by Niven and Pournelle. Though there, the Moties were confined by natural means. Niven and Pournelle then wrote "The Gripping Hand" sequel, which showed the Moties getting loose and threatening mankind. Hamilton in essence incorporates the ideas in these two books, by having his humans accidently release the aliens. Who proceed to make genocidal war against them. Hamilton does tend to go on and on in his novels. A trend from his earlier works. For the most part, it is well done. Perhaps the most interesting to some readers will be his depiction of human society. Fleshed out at some length, with enough entrancing detail of its underlying intricacy. Computers are deeply interwoven into this society, and indeed physically into the humans themselves. He extrapolates the Internet into a pervasive web that people can always access on any civilised planet, with each person having her own "intelligent agent" mediating this interaction.
Rating:
Summary: A torrent of new images and ideas
Review: Hamilton's latest work is a flood of novel images. I was a fan of his previous work but this, while similar in scope and tone, is much refined. I will not reiterate the plot points above, but this is a beautiful, thoughtful work that should appeal to all readers.
Rating:
Summary: This is the real stuff
Review: I have read a lot of these big SF multi volume epics. Kim Stanley Robinson is good, Vernor Vinge is great, Neal Stephenson is undoubtedly brilliant, and I read Alistair Reynolds or Kevin Anderson when there's nothing new by the other luminaries.
But then Peter F Hamilton puts out a new novel and everything else is put into perspective. (Although Misspent Youth left me a bit cold, but I forgive him now that Pandora's Star is here.)
Other reviewers have compared his work to Arthur C Clarke or Asimov, but in reality there is no comparison. Respect to the old guard, but Hamilton writes way better than either of them. I cut my teeth on those guys, so I don't say that lightly.
So, Pandora's Star, what can I say? I started it yesterday and I am on pae 271 right now, but I am so excited that I had to put up a review already (even though it means taking a few minutes out from reading).
Hamilton's writing is perfect. He has an uncanny, almost supernatural, grasp of the form, and his agile plotting, the nuances, the characterisation are all flawless. I love this guy. The science is hard, the bad guys are wickedly complex and the heroes are all too human. The way it unfolds is utterly fascinating.
Pandora's Star is a detective story, and as such is unputdownable. Rolled in to boot are the epic quest and a breathtaking vision of society three hundred years hence. Like the Night's Dawn books, Pandora's Star makes me wish I lived in Hamilton's imagination.
The Hard SF Opera has become a kind of cliche - the same ideas roll around from one author to the next, recombined in new and different ways. Some authors are happy with this, but there only are a couple who, in my opinion, consistently create masterpieces in the genre. Greg Egan is one. And Peter F Hamilton is the other.
Rating:
Summary: Hamilton hits it out of the Park
Review: I have read every book that Peter F Hamilton has written and this one has just blown me away. I dont know where he gets his idea's from but please keep going. The technologies, characters and settings are brilliant, couldnt put it down till it was finished and cannot wait for the next book. This bok is so good i wanna go out and found an intersolar dynasty and start working towards this future.....awesome
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