Book Review: Light Chaser, by Peter F. Hamilton and Gareth L. Powell
A novella about an "STL rebellion" crossing time and space.
Tordotcom, 2021, 173 pages
In Peter F. Hamilton and Gareth L. Powell's action-packed sci-fi adventure Light Chaser, a love powerful enough to transcend death can bring down an entire empire.
Amahle is a Light Chaser-one of a number of explorers, who travel the universe alone (except for their onboard AI), trading trinkets for life stories.
But when she listens to the stories sent down through the ages, she hears the same voice talking directly to her from different times and on different worlds. She comes to understand that something terrible is happening, and only she is in a position to do anything about it.
And it will cost everything to put it right.
This story reminded me a bit of Peter Watts, and I think Hamilton and Watts write in a similar tone, though Watts is harder and more pessimistic. Peter F. Hamilton's space operas have generally been too slow and bloated for me, but this short novel was about the right size.
Amahle is a "Light Chaser" who travels between star systems at sublight speeds. Spending most of her time in hibernation, she visits and revisits planets dozens of times, with a thousand years passing between visits from the perspective of the planetary inhabitants, but for her it's just making a routine circuit, picking up and dropping off goods. One of the things she drops off are necklaces that collect memories and experiences of their wearers. These are passed down from generation to generation before being returned to her on her next visit, so she can collect data and memories from all the planets she visits.
On one of her visits, she finds out someone has left a message for her in a necklace. Gradually she uncovers a conspiracy, notices things she's ignored until now in her long years of starfaring, and has to rebel against a superhuman enemy that literally controls her ship.
Light Chaser's ideas include AIs trying to control human evolution, communication and plotting between conspirators who are separated by light years and thousands of subjective years, and a love affair that survives millennia and multiple bodies. It's SF on the hard-ish scale, and like most of Hamilton's books I found it interesting but rather flat. However, being fairly short, it was a pretty good self-contained story.
Also by Peter F. Hamilton: My reviews of Pandora's Star, Judas Unchained, and The Dreaming Void.
My complete list of book reviews.
Tordotcom, 2021, 173 pages
In Peter F. Hamilton and Gareth L. Powell's action-packed sci-fi adventure Light Chaser, a love powerful enough to transcend death can bring down an entire empire.
Amahle is a Light Chaser-one of a number of explorers, who travel the universe alone (except for their onboard AI), trading trinkets for life stories.
But when she listens to the stories sent down through the ages, she hears the same voice talking directly to her from different times and on different worlds. She comes to understand that something terrible is happening, and only she is in a position to do anything about it.
And it will cost everything to put it right.
This story reminded me a bit of Peter Watts, and I think Hamilton and Watts write in a similar tone, though Watts is harder and more pessimistic. Peter F. Hamilton's space operas have generally been too slow and bloated for me, but this short novel was about the right size.
Amahle is a "Light Chaser" who travels between star systems at sublight speeds. Spending most of her time in hibernation, she visits and revisits planets dozens of times, with a thousand years passing between visits from the perspective of the planetary inhabitants, but for her it's just making a routine circuit, picking up and dropping off goods. One of the things she drops off are necklaces that collect memories and experiences of their wearers. These are passed down from generation to generation before being returned to her on her next visit, so she can collect data and memories from all the planets she visits.
On one of her visits, she finds out someone has left a message for her in a necklace. Gradually she uncovers a conspiracy, notices things she's ignored until now in her long years of starfaring, and has to rebel against a superhuman enemy that literally controls her ship.
Light Chaser's ideas include AIs trying to control human evolution, communication and plotting between conspirators who are separated by light years and thousands of subjective years, and a love affair that survives millennia and multiple bodies. It's SF on the hard-ish scale, and like most of Hamilton's books I found it interesting but rather flat. However, being fairly short, it was a pretty good self-contained story.
Also by Peter F. Hamilton: My reviews of Pandora's Star, Judas Unchained, and The Dreaming Void.
My complete list of book reviews.