pixelthis 's review for:

Salvation by Peter F. Hamilton

4.0

---

Another very good book from Hamilton. Starting up a new series, completely divorced from his prior series(s). It's a bit slow at the start and the story is told in the style of Canterbury Tales where a bunch of folks on a journey (in this case to inspect a crash landed alien starship) fill us in on elements from their backstory while the journey goes on. In a bit of a variation from the way this is usually done is that between each backstory and bit of the frame story, there's a flash forward to many centuries hence where a group of younger characters are dealing with the outcome of what's going to happen as a result of the visit to the alien starship.
The basic story is hard SF, but each of the back stories twists the genres a bit; we get an adventure/romance story, a kidnapping investigation story, a murder-mystery, a spy thriller, and an undercover espionage tale all in the same book.

It's well done and I'm looking forward to the next book