Rating: 
Summary: Somewhere under all that fat...
Review: Somehow it all went wrong with the Naked God...ten sub-plot jostling for page space until the bitter end. The same with this tree killer. Lots of characters and very little action - and when it happens it catches you almost off guard' and in a semi-comatose state of endless pap and hackney'd character development. Somewhere under all that fat lurks a damn fine story. But like his previous soap epic it needs some damn tight editing and slicing off useless subplots and endless descriptions of hang-gliders on mountain tops, industrial parks and silly love scenes.
Come on Hamilton...don't write shaggy dog stories. You have immense talent and super ideas...just compress them a bit like you used to do in the early 'leaner days' of the Nano Flower.
...Oh, and stop trying to write like an American. It's a bit embaressing mate!!
Rating: 
Summary: Build it up, smash it apart
Review: The Commonwealth has expanded through the galaxy via a network of planet-anchored wormholes. It's a golden age of man where rejuvenation treatments allow near-immortality, the next planet is just a train ride away, and alien contacts have been friendly. When an astronomer makes a startling discovery about two distant stars, a wormhole driven spacecraft is designed and built in order to investigate the mystery. The intrepid explorers unlock a terrible menace that could tear apart the Commonwealth. As the outside threat looms, a cult called the Guardians of Selfhood fights within the Commonwealth because they believe a sinister, hidden alien has taken over the government.Pandora's Star definitely contains interesting ideas and careful, complex world building. Hamilton doesn't just trot out cool technologies, but also explores how they might affect society. He takes us on a sprawling journey to dozens of worlds using a large cast of characters. At first, the book feels more like a leisurely travelogue through Hamilton's new universe instead of a novel. Rambling around these planets, ideas, and technologies is a lot of fun, but it can also get a bit tiresome if you can't feel the plot going anywhere. However, Pandora's Star grows more compelling as the multiple plot threads start to merge and the action picks up. Hopefully the pace won't slow down again in the sequel. I really enjoyed exploring Hamilton's new universe - he has some fascinating concepts and he excels at building up an intricate society and then smashing it apart. I'm looking forward to the next installment of this space opera, but the first book would have benefited from better pacing.
Rating: 
Summary: He does it again.
Review: The only bad thing I can say about this is that it is obviously part of a trilogy, and only the first volume -- this one -- is out yet. The action and character development are better even than in Neutronium Alchemist. As I was reading the book, I wondered how the disparate threads would come together -- and they did come together, rather nicely.
It is an A1 read in the hard science fiction catagory.
Rating:
Summary: Another fantastic vision of the future
Review: The thing I like the most about Peter Hamilton's writing is his vision of what they future may well bring, and truth be known, it might not be that far away.
Yet again we have been treated to a massive tome of work with Pandora's Star weighing in at over 1,140 pages. And it's only book one! I love a massive book as it really allows me to get into the characters, the storyline and the entire universe that the author creates. Sure there are some sub-plots in this first book which have me wondering just where Peter is going with them, but I have no doubt it will come together in the next book, especially if it's of similar size to this one.
While Pandora's Star is undoubtedly a book of science fiction, and some very interesting future concepts are used, I wouldn't call the writing "high" science fiction. By that I mean it's very readable and I'm not left with my head spinning around concepts I can never hope to understand. This is not to say the book is dumbed down, not at all, I just don't feel like I require an advanced quantum physics degree to enjoy it.
Hands up who wants an e-butler? I know I want one.
Beautiful worlds, beautiful and sexy characters, a menacing alien race and another possible supernatural angle. Oh yeah, give me more of that classic Peter Hamilton imagination that had me enthralled with the Night's Dawn Trilogy.
Rating:
Summary: Some niggles but still pretty good
Review: The universe is nicely realised -- the characters are believable, the effects of rejuvenation on society well thought through, and the stagnating effects of longevity and instant communication are also well thought through. I have one niggle, his grammar sucks. The last sentence is an example of his style: he doesn't appear to know when to use a semicolon. The simple rule is if you could use a full stop, a semicolon could also apply. Another thing: his science is rather vague. He talks about "arrays" when we would use "computers" today, but there is no explanation of the difference (other than that people making big money out of computers suddenly went bust). Another example: the physics of wormhole interfaces is left to the imagination a little more than I like. In the earliest example, one side of the wormhole is in California, the other on Mars. Without something like an airlock on the originating side, the higher air pressure in California would have generated suction something like that when an aircraft window blows out in flight. Also, the relative velocities on both sides of the wormhole would require constant adjustment of the coordinates to create an illusion of a stationary portal. In the Mars example, Earth and Mars have different speeds of rotation and are in different orbits around the sun (also at different speeds). Keeping the wormhole "stationary" is a nontrivial problem. Both of these issues are hinted at later in the story (the relative speed one becomes critical at one point), but I prefer the scientific basis of SF to be established early, not allowed to drift with the plot.
Another aspect I find a bit unbelievable (but a pretty common flaw in this kind of fiction) is how so many of the critical characters manage to meet each other in a universe with hundreds of human worlds.
The book is structured around episodes, so you need a reasonable memory (aided by the dramatis personae at the front of the book) to keep track. This is a useful literary artifice to keep the story moving at a rapid pace, yet build up substantial personalities and background over a lengthy tome.
Another thing I like about the book is the way it's structured as a detective story. The overall puzzle to be solved stretches over 2 volumes, but there are sub-puzzles which are resolved faster.
I found this a pleasant summer read; I'm hoping the sequel will be out as promised in time for my next summer break (end of year in the Southern Hemisphere).
Rating:
Summary: Really Picks up speed at the end
Review: This is an excellent, high drama, opus. I can't wait for the next book and the action sections really buzz with excitement. The descriptions in the book could be edited down but they do give you a deep understanding of the characters and the true gut feel for the good versus evil battle.
Rating:
Summary: Extremely Boring, Almost no Action, Mostly "Filler"
Review: This novel is 700 pages. The fisrt 600 pages are basically people having converstaions. Almost nothing happens until the end when Humanity is attacked by the aliens> Then we find oiut that the novel is continued in a second book. It seems that the first 600 pages are "filler" that one can sleep through.
Rating:
Summary: Good book, too much sex...
Review: This was a pretty good book. Worth the read. But it all the characters had pretty lose morals and seemed to be sleeping with everyone. It got rather anoying. There were some serious breaches in the laws of physics. Everyone knows that wormholes won't work the way sci-fi authors would like them to. But Mr Hamilton didn't see to care. There were wormholes shooting people all over the place... they're a nice plot device but they make me think of the book as more of a fantasy novel than sci-fi. There are also some "Magical" aliens that do things that are so far beyond possibility that it has to be "Magic" and not technology. I'm sure that, as usual, the author just wants us to think they are "So far advanced" that we just don't understand. But some things just aren't possible. Finally, this book is a cliffhanger... and I mean that quite literally, if you read it you'll get the joke. Anyway, there is NO sense of conclusion at the end of the book. Basically, the book doesn't end... it just flows into the next one, that hasn't been written yet. So it's like someone just yanks the book out of your hands and you have to wait for the next one.
Rating:
Summary: A great book
Review: This was the first book I read from this author and now I know Ill have to pick up the Confederation Series. Pandora's Star is aptly named after Pandora's Box with the exception that the main characters were not the ones with the key. Those behind the scenes are what really drives this book. I cant wait for the next installment. One word of CAUTION. the US edition was edited short by 130pp and the character glossary was cut out. Pick up the British edition from Amazon.co.uk. It has 881pp to the US's 759.
Rating: 
Summary: How to Spend 800 Pages Killing Momentum
Review: What a disappointment "Pandora's Star" was. Peter Hamilton's "Reality Dysfunction" series was an imaginative, fast-paced and well-written space opera that, though definitely overwritten (it could have been half the length), was fun throughout. "Fallen Dragon" was mindless but at least quickly paced. However, "Pandora's Star" seems to bring out all of Hamilton's weaknesses at once. To begin with, it is grossly overlong. It could have been half the length without anyone feeling a loss. Indeed, reducing it in size could only have helped it, because it would have meant eliminating a number of one-dimensional characters who simply take up space in the novel. "Pandora's Star" is "The Mote in God's Eye" meets the Borg, with a few notions, like a "train between the stars" thrown in for good measure. This last concept, a quick and easy and instantaneous form of faster than light travel, introduces the most interesting science fictional questions in the novel, but is basically little more than a plot device. Questions about the difficulties of avoiding the spreading of disease and alien species across the galaxy are studiously avoided. Instead, what the novel concentrates on is a Big Dumb Object, which soon becomes a Malicious Alien Race, and the machinations of dozens of one-dimensional characters running around trying to deal with the problems posed by said Object and Race. But the biggest problem is that whenever the plot gets the slightest, tiniest bit interesting, Hamilton kills it dead with laser precision by starting the next chapter with a deadly dull chapter involving one third-rank character or another. The novel has all the momentum of a four hundred pound man running uphill. It makes the novel's length virtually deadly. For many people, it will just not be worth slogging through all the garbage to find out what happens in the end. Pass this one by and pick up the latest Alistair Reynolds novel instead.
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