Book Review of Judas Unchained (Ass End of The Commonwealth Saga, by Peter F. Hamilton)In a spirit of full disclosure, I think of myself as a rather lazy person. So it should come as a bit of a surprise to me (and you, if you know me) that I am inspired, nay, compelled to submit a review of Judas Unchained (and the Commonwealth Saga of which it is the ass-end). But it does not surprise me. In fact, I’ve been saying for weeks how much I looked forward to finishing this series just so I could get some things off my chest. But even then, saying the words, I didn’t really believe I’d take the time. So, I give Peter F. Hamilton kudos for one thing (well in fairness, other things too, but I haven’t written those yet) - his jostling me from my torpor was a groundbreaking achievement. Unlike Judas Unchained.But first, let me set the mood. It was about 3 years ago that I picked up the first volume of Night’s Dawn, in my quest to find truly entertaining space opera. Anyone who has read the series knows of the commitment required to complete it. But I was blown away by the first three chapters – truly excellent sci-fi. Definitely a cut above the typical tripe. Had I finally found space opera worthy of the effort? It seemed possible. So I consumed the first book with some relish. Not that relish; the other relish. Anyway, Hamilton volumes come in at well over 1,000 pages each, and while I knew I had two more to go, I already had some metaphorical intestinal rumblings of, how you say, trepidation, regarding the trajectory Hamilton had set. But I figured, “what the hell, maybe it’s not him, it’s me.” Plus, I had already purchased the other two volumes. And since I am far cheaper than I am discerning, I continued on.I will spare the details, but as you may have inferred from my tone, I was less than pleased. The reasons were many, but I’ll just list my top three: (1) ghosts; (2) famous syphilitic gangster ghosts; and the coup-de-grace, (3) a deus ex machina. It was a stupid plot full of stupid characters in a universe I would have much preferred see swallowed whole by a different universe wherein books, stupid or otherwise, did not exist. At least I was too old to start cutting myself, thank God (or in this case, thank the mysterious alien race with profoundly superior, utterly inexplicable technology, foresight and timing)! Now there are an infinite number of sins more off-putting than a deus ex machina in general, but few as bad as a deus ex machina after three-fucking-thousand-plus pages. And given the poignant promise of the first three chapters, so many pages prior, it felt less like bad writing and more like a literary exercise in assault by disparity.Anyhoo, I decided to burn the books. We like to camp, so I thought I would just put the books in the car on the next drive up the mountain and burn them. Preferably while cooking bacon over them. But I never did. My car is small, and space is a precious commodity when going camping. Unlike a Hamilton tome, some people actually have to make choices to leave some things behind. So they remained home unburned. But I resolved to never, EVER, read anything by Hamilton again.As some say, “that which does not kill us has the capacity to horribly disfigure.” Time passed, and there really is a dearth of good space opera. A friend with typically excellent taste in sci-fi happened to mention Pandora’s Star and Judas Unchained. Amid prolific spittle, wild gesticulation, and much gnashing of teeth, I recounted my Night’s Dawn experience, up to and including the planned yet aborted conflagration. He encouraged me to give it a shot. I took his word for it. He’s currently rolled up in a carpet in the trunk of my car.I finished Judas Unchained in the wee hours of the morning. My experience with the Commonwealth Saga, as with Night’s Dawn, is the epitome of unequivocal and insurmountable ambivalence. It’s not so much that I have a love/hate relationship with Peter (may I call you Peter, Peter?). It’s that I am as intrigued as I am repulsed by the chasm between how good are some aspects and how lame are others. Examples of the good: intricate plot (an improvement on Night’s Dawn), frenetic pace of most action sequences, brilliant description and deployment of technology. Examples of meh: paucity of character development, infuriating and homogenous dialogue, puerile intrapersonal relationships and dynamics. Regarding the good stuff, the plot was particularly entertaining and I really appreciated the lack of a deus ex machina (although, for the record, he did include an aloof, vastly superior alien race with technological prowess defying comprehension, but at least he introduced them early, so whatever). The action sequences were well crafted and vivid. The tech was cool, if not at times merely convenient to further the storyline. But there simply wasn’t enough of the good to overshadow the bad. And I’d feel differently if Hamilton stood alone on the “good,” but he doesn’t. Iain M. Banks comes to mind. Vernor Vinge is another. And by “bad,” I mean, “wait, what?” bad. Singularly, no one flaw rises to the level of “the primary antagonist is the ghost of Al Capone” bad. But collectively...it’s more like death by a thousand cuts.About the characters. Given the staggering number of characters introduced, they were fundamentally the same character. Correction: the men were all the same – two-dimensionally inflexible and unmemorable. Some did have Scottish accents, purportedly. The women were varied, if by “variety” one means they each embodied different stereotypes: the ambitious ball-buster politician with a weakness for hot young terrorists; the slut straight out of pre-pubescent wet dream central casting (you know, for the boy who dreams of one day becoming a sci-fi author so he can meet, and touch, women); the bawdy, military badass whose communication options are limited to “snark”, “skank,” and “snarky skank.” The women who weren’t stereotyped were less interesting and memorable, if not less annoying. None of the characters came across as believable, which is remarkable given the number of characters and the number of pages with which Hamilton had to work. I certainly didn’t care about any of them, individually or collectively, and I like to think of myself as a fairly nice guy. Seriously, for an extinction-level threat to humanity to work for the reader, it might be helpful to create a society, culture and characters one would actually mind seeing wiped out for the rest of the galaxy’s sake. I would have actually routed for the aliens, except I make of point of never throwing my hat in the ring with giant, insectoid, telepathic butternut squash. About the “Project Runway” Effect. I must say that Hamilton does have an eye for detail and description. This is both good and bad. At times he draws a vivid tableau onto which the action unfolds in a compelling way. At other times, he becomes a bit preoccupied with women’s fashion, which comes off as rather creepy and uncomfortable, as if we have a perspective into a blind spot we were not meant to see. About the dialogue. First, an author without a sense of humor is incapable of writing funny dialogue. I think that’s a law of physics. Banter can become freakish. Not that every author needs a sense of humor. It’s just that, if you want to write a character with a sense of humor, your own is indispensable. Second, if every character says the same things in the same ways, it’s an act of courtesy to begin or end each line of dialogue with, “Joe said,” “Jane exclaimed,” or some variant thereof. It became so difficult at times to follow who was saying what, especially in the midst of the ubiquitous “witty” repartee, until I remembered that the dialogue didn’t matter anyway and I scanned ahead to the next volley of micro-missiles.And finally, about the sex. Stop. Just stop. I understand that some teenage boys may read these books. I’d prefer if they didn’t read like a teenage boy wrote them. This becomes particularly abrasive in the context of humans with the ability to live for hundreds of years. I mean, I like a romp in the sack as much as the next guy, but I’m thinking that my expectations might be just a bit different in 300 years, “rejuvenation” or no. Think it through a bit more. Or just stop. We have the internet, we don’t actually need to read porn.So there you have it. If you are into space opera, have exhausted all other options, don’t mind reading books that are too long full of characters who suck but who have cool toys and blow things up this might be worth your while. But might I suggest a quick scan of Wikipedia, or perhaps take another stab at Iain M. Banks? There, I said it. I feel better. And as every voracious reader knows, "it's all about me."As a sage elder statesman once said, “fool me once, shame on….err….me. Fool me twice….you can’t get fooled again!” I’ve been fooled twice...for a net close to 6,000 pages worth. I guess I just can’t get fooled again. I think I’ll lick my wounds in some non-fiction for a while.
Longer review appearing much later than I anticipated... ah well.This book picks up immediately after the end of Pandora's Star, and it distinctly benefits from not having to establish as much worldbuilding as its predecessor. Here, instead of introducing the reader to the numerous worlds and characters of the Commonwealth, Hamilton can simply jump right into their stories. With one major exception, the plot feels a lot tighter and less of it seems extraneous to the point. That said, the pacing is still uneven and too slow for the seriousness of what's at stake, and all of the problems with the (lack of) soft SF worldbuilding are still present.Starting with the soft SF stuff, because I covered that more in depth in my review of the first book: women remain absent from most positions of power or chances to act with authority, though whether this is an oversight is unclear, as Hamilton at one point highlights the fact that there's only one female Dynasty Head; Mellanie Rescorai briefly moves away from being a character centered around sex, with some serious reflection on what it means for her career, and then goes right back; we see more of Nigel Sheldon's harem and it's exactly as shallow as I expected (and his sexual stamina clearly wish-fulfillment for someone); WE CONTINUE TO NOT TALK ABOUT THE EXPLOITATIVE NATURE OF RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN 20-SOMETHINGS AND PEOPLE OVER A HUNDRED YEARS OLD; there are no queer characters really to speak of, etc, etc. At this point I find Commonwealth society actively repulsive, to be honest. The constant modern brand namedrops (especially of cars) don't help with that, as it's just a reminder that in Hamilton's 'ideal' future the rich have continued to get rich and successful, and the poor underclass lives and dies a dozen times in the lifespan of one oligarch.I want to talk about Mellanie a bit more, because this bothers me on a deep level. Spoilers follow. (view spoiler)[So, just as she starts to move out of navigating the world entirely through sex - something which read, in the first book, a lot like a coping mechanism after abuse/exploitation, which Morton's relationship with her pretty clearly was - she gets dragged into another scheme and pimped out, quite literally, to Ozzie's teenaged compannion, Orion. Orion is a quintessential horny teenage boy, has no idea how to interact with girls, and idealizes her a frankly disturbing amount when they first meet, describing her as an 'angel'. This is not the first time we've seen this description; it also showed up in Kazimir's first encounter with Justine, which went so well and in no way ended up sidelining her because ~emotions. (that was sarcasm. It absolutely did.) Then other shit goes down - Mellanie sleeps with Nigel Sheldon, who proposes marriage to her and who really needs to shut the hell up, and then gets ripped in half by his security staff. Boom. No more Mellanie in the resolution of the book. (worth noting that she already missed her own personal objective - seeing her former boss arrested - to be pimped out to Orion. Mellanie is not allowed to achieve goals, apparently.) She shows up again to get married to pimply teenage horndog, and we get a lot of information on how much they're fucking. Lovely. Bonus, because she insists she's not good enough for him! HE HAS DONE NOTHING TO DESERVE THIS! It's got more to do with her own low self-esteem than it does with anything about Orion, which casts their entire relationship's health in doubt. Anyway, they ride off into the sunset together and there's no way this will collapse later or be ultimately terrible for either of them, nope. (hide spoiler)]
What do You think about Judas Unchained (2006)?
After I finished Pandora's Star, I ordered this sequel online and began it soon after it arrived at my doorstep. This is significant, because while I do not adhere religiously to the general order of my to-read list, I try to follow it in good faith. I couldn't wait over a year to read Judas Unchained, so despite my general moratorium on buying books, I made an exception. And I'm glad I did. Judas Unchained is off the frelling chain!As with my review for Pandora's Star, I'll try to keep this one essentially spoiler free. Both books are quite long, so I hope my reviews will help you decide whether they are worth the considerable investment of time. And that's all I'm going to say about the length.Judas Unchained picks up where Pandora's Star left off, but the stakes are higher and the story much more intense. In the last book, MorningLightMountain successfully forced the evacuation of twenty-three Commonwealth worlds, now known as the Lost23. Now it's bootstrapping further into the Commonwealth and attacks forty-eight more planets. Though the Commonwealth just barely fends off a full defeat by the Prime forces, all but one of the worlds have to be evacuated as a result (so they're nicknamed the Second47). Ozzie's still searching along the Silfen paths for their "adult form," which he hopes will have Answers. And Paula Myo, who has spent 130 years pursuing the Guardians of Self-hood, is confronting the fact that their sworn enemy, the Starflyer, seems to be a real threat to the Commonwealth.As I said in my review, I loved the revelation that the Starflyer is a real entity and not just a wacko conspiracy theory. Now the problem has become one of establishing a web of trust, since there is no way to know who works for the Starflyer. I was totally convinced one person (not saying who) would turn out to be a Starflyer agent, but I was wrong. That's what I like about these books. There are plenty of predictable elements (such as the identity of the Starflyer agent within Paula's old team), but just when you think you have everything figured out, Hamilton works in a little twist.The Starflyer subplot, which actually kind of becomes the main plot in the second part of the book, is the most interesting part of the story, for me. We know MorningLightMountain is thinking nothing but bad thoughts about humanity, and we know it has to be stopped. Until much later in the book, we don't know anything about the Starflyer's motives, except that they are malicious, or its origins and nature. So I am disappointed with how Paula and Justine are so totally sidelined in this book. The former remains involved for the entire story, but we don't spend much time hovering over her shoulder, as it were, and for the last part of the book she is literally incapacitated by her sense of justice. Justine, on the other hand, while the target of an assassination attempt, seems to drop out of the book entirely by the time the climax comes round. That's a shame, because I loved Justine.Of the remaining characters whose viewpoints the narrator follows, Mellanie would have to be my favourite. I love how Hamilton manages to portray these conflicting sides to her personality. All at once she's both a spoiled first-lifer brat who craves attention and notoriety, a keen reporter who wants to climb to the top (and isn't afraid of using her body to do it), a scared young woman who feels out of her depth, and a compassionate person trying to do the right thing. Her actions aren't always consistent, because sometimes one or another side seems to win out, and she'll be trying to save herself or do something heroic. For the most part, however, I think we see a solid trajectory from her role as insecure eye-candy in the beginning of Pandora's Star to the self-assured way she handles herself as she helps Ozzie commandeer the Charybdis. The romance between her and Orion is rather predictable, and honestly, it didn't do anything for me. But I guess it is a sensible way for Hamilton to tie up two loose ends at once.Ozzie was also an interesting character, but he gets very self-righteous, especially toward the end. Hamilton touches on a moral dilemma that's actually more complicated than it seems: whether humanity should wipe out the Primes altogether. Everyone seems to agree that this is a last resort, but because they don't have the capability to re-establish the barrier around Dyson Alpha, Nigel eventually persuades the Commonwealth's War Cabinet to authorize genocide. Ozzie disagrees and, coincidentally, develops a cockamamie scheme to re-establish the barrier! So he steals a starship, initiating what might be the most boring hyperspace chase sequence in all of science fiction.Before I explain that, let me first talk about the moral dilemma of committing genocide. Unfortunately, the villains in this book are entirely one-dimensional. I don't see how it could be otherwise with the way Hamilton has created the conflict between humanity and aliens who are just so alien that they don't regard any other life as having the right to exist. Nevertheless, it means that there is no room for negotiation or compromise, and there's really no way to sympathize with or pity MorningLightMountain. So on one level, genocide makes sense. Indeed, another reviewer makes a convincing case that containment is just a longer, slower death. I happen to disagree, for I do not share his pessimistic outlook on the Bose motile's mission to change MorningLightMountain from within. And ultimately, there may not be a practical difference between killing MorningLightMountain outright and imprisoning it for the next millions of years, but there is a moral difference. It's about demonstrating a respect for the diversity of life and maintaining that diversity, even if it means keeping that diversity contained. Besides, every species has an expiration date, even if it's measured in the billions of years. The only possible escape from corporeal stagnation that Hamilton offers is the vague notion of "transcendence," and who knows—maybe MorningLightMountain can achieve that inside the barrier!And now back to my boredom. When I said that Judas Unchained is more intense than Pandora's Star, I meant it in two sense: the stakes are higher, and the action is more condensed. The previous book spent a lot of time developing side plots, and it was not clear until closer to the end how the Primes and the Starflyer would manifest as antagonists. In contrast, we know from the beginning of Judas Unchained that the Primes are going to kick humanity's ass, and the Starflyer is both real and incredibly difficult to fight. As a result, the narrative is a lot more focused on these two plots—though I did enjoy the occasional shout-out to minor events from the previous book, such as the inclusion of Lionwalker Eyre.Unfortunately, both of the plots seem to slow down and drag during the climax. It's odd. There's an interstellar wormhole train pursuit, with an intense race to get to Far Away and prevent the Starflyer from escaping. But it seems to last forever. This is not a consequence of the book's length but of the way Hamilton structures the action sequences—I'm not sure if I would go as far as calling them padded, because the sequences themselves are short and sweet. However, the events that elapse between the Guardians and Sheldon's group deciding to work together and the climactic moment on Far Away are … convoluted.Don't get me wrong, I quite enjoyed Judas Unchained—albeit not as much as I enjoyed Pandora's Star. There were several moments throughout the book where I giggled or otherwise reflected upon how awesome it felt to be reading something like this. Hamilton has the ability to make me excited about reading a story in the way that few books or authors do. And she does what good science-fiction authors should do, which is use science fiction to tell an interesting story (sometimes the authors tend to get hung-up on the "science fiction" thing and forget they're telling stories). With Hamilton, there's no worldbuilding, just his world, which we learn about as we experience it. So I'm looking forward to returning to the Commonwealth with his Void series, and to reading more of his books in general.I'll be honest (or shall we say, realistic?) and admit that these books aren't going to enchant every reader of science-fiction. Without falling into the trap of the fallacies of "hard" and "soft" science fiction, Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained definitely embrace the "technobabble" aspects and tropes of the genre, and not everyone enjoys that. More importantly, there are a lot of characters, and even for an author as skilled as Hamilton, it's difficult to round them out sufficiently. Despite my focus of them in the reviews, I'd definitely characterize these books as more plot-driven than character-driven. So Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained aren't for everyone, but if you do like action-packed science-fiction stories about interstellar conflicts, weird alien mentalities, and wormhole-hopping, then you've got a winner here.
—Ben Babcock
6.0 stars. On my list of "All Time Favorite" Novels. As has been mentioned before, this book is really the second half of a much larger book began in Pandora's Star. When counting the first book, this story comes in at almost 2000 pages. As daunting as that may seem, I was amazed by how easy it was to stay focused on the story. All of the different plot lines were so interesting and well done that I was never waiting for the pace to quicken. No doubt, Hamilton spends considerable time on details and minor plot points, but he does it so well and adds so many interesting bits about the universe that it never seems to drag. In addition to Hamilton's superb writing, the two greatest attributes on the novel are (1) the incredibly detailed, complex plot, the gradual but steady advancement of which is the common thread throughout the story and (2) the universe of the "Commonwealth" that is as good as any I have ever seen in science fiction (yes including giants like Dune and The Foundation Trilogy). This series raises the bar considerably on what grand scale space opera should be. HIGHEST POSSIBLE RECOMMENDATION!!!
—Stephen
After loving Pandora's Star, despite its problems (over-long, gets sidetracked in less important plot and less important characters, slows the action down too much at times) I was very much looking forward to Judas Unchained. With the way things had been left in Pandora's Star, I could only see Judas Unchained ramping up the pace as it sped towards a conclusion.Unfortunately, Judas Unchained meanders around irritatingly, avoiding the most interesting plot threads and focusing on things which seem to be more trivial in the scheme of the grander plot. It does this for the first 50% of the book, which is about 600 pages! It takes sheer determination to stick this out. The second half of the book is better, but not that much. Things begin moving more obviously towards a conclusion, and for a while the pace picks up. It doesn't last too long however, and the second half of the book could probably still be cut down by around 200 pages, as well as at least 300 pages that could be cut from the first half. In the end, the ending is rushed with hardly any detail given to the event that defines the future of the galaxy. All this was quite unsatisfactory, and ruins a book which has some great characters, some great ideas and some great visions.
—Robert
