Review: Pandora's Star

Pandora's Star by Peter F. Hamilton
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I finally finished this book, but it took some effort. The overall premise of the story is fascinating, but it was hard to slog through. There are many, many character arcs to try to keep up with and there were times when I had to go back and re-read to try to figure out who was doing what and where they were doing it. I liked Pandora's Star because of the interesting ideas, but I'm hesitant to continue reading the series.

Aside from the massive scope of the story, the thing that wore me out the most was the seemingly unending exposition. Yes, I get it, we're reading about an entire civilization of interlinked worlds, but there were many pages that I just skimmed because my eyes were glazing over and I was about to fall out of my chair.

The character development on some of the characters within the novel was good, but I had a hard time really connecting with many, or admittedly most of them, which was another factor that made it that much harder to slog through. The plot elements that kept me going were Ozzie's Silfen arc (i.e. what was he going to discover out there on the Silfen paths?) and the suspense behind the Starflyer conspiracy theory (i.e. who or what is the Starflyer and what is its agenda?)

The technical elements of Pandora's Star (i.e. the interlinking commerce of wormhole connected worlds, re-lifeing and rejuvenation, the wet-wired culture of humanity, and the borg-like nature of the antagonistic aliens) made for some great reading, but a lack of loveable characters made it hard to really feel like part of the story.

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