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martyfried 's review for:
Pandora's Star
by Peter F. Hamilton
I'm enjoying this book, but it does require a bit of dedication to keep on reading, as it lapses into a lot of details that seem unnecessary, but usually interesting. I think perhaps they are there to help see the overall picture of what the world is all about. There are a lot of characters to keep up with, and since most people live for a very long time, the relationships become complicated, especially due to the dynasties that rise up out of the long lives. People go for rejuvenation therapy, and come back as whatever age they choose. Some come back pretty young, and then spend the next several years reenjoying sex in their young bodies, and others choose a more mature age to give them more respect.
The main story so far is the discovery of a planet that had been mysteriously enclosed in some sort of force field by an unknown race. Turns out there may have been a good reason for this, because when they are inadvertently released, it's like when you kick an anthill and the ants start coming out like crazy, except in this case, each ant has a fair amount of intelligence, and can connect with all other ants somewhat like distributed computing. So all together, they have capabilities that far surpass those of us lonely humans. Oh, yeah, and their main goal in life seems to be to kill all other races so there will be no competition for them, although their goals are unclear, and seem to be about equal to the ant's.
There's a bit of everything in this book - super AIs, strange aliens, unknown subversives, sex, etc. It's all lots of fun, but it ends right in the middle, so it's obvious that you need to keep reading the next installment, which I've already started.
The main story so far is the discovery of a planet that had been mysteriously enclosed in some sort of force field by an unknown race. Turns out there may have been a good reason for this, because when they are inadvertently released, it's like when you kick an anthill and the ants start coming out like crazy, except in this case, each ant has a fair amount of intelligence, and can connect with all other ants somewhat like distributed computing. So all together, they have capabilities that far surpass those of us lonely humans. Oh, yeah, and their main goal in life seems to be to kill all other races so there will be no competition for them, although their goals are unclear, and seem to be about equal to the ant's.
There's a bit of everything in this book - super AIs, strange aliens, unknown subversives, sex, etc. It's all lots of fun, but it ends right in the middle, so it's obvious that you need to keep reading the next installment, which I've already started.