Light Chaser by Peter F. Hamilton and Gareth L. Powell

Published by tor.com on August 24, 2021

Humanity has spread itself among the stars, but it has fallen short of its full potential. The message that Peter F. Hamilton and Gareth L. Powell send in Light Chaser will be familiar to science fiction fans: humans need to be challenged or the human race becomes stagnant. Of course, stagnant humans can live pretty good lives — asking a replicator to make me a cheeseburger would be nicer than working all day so I can afford cheeseburgers — but the virtues of endeavor and competition (and even war) have always been preached like religious dogma by the giants of science fiction.

Hamilton and Powell marry the theme of stagnation to another popular theme: fear that Artificial Intelligence will do a disservice to the humans who depend upon it by making our lives too easy, perhaps enslaving us in the process. To sf writers, Alexa is a very naughty girl. In the far future of Light Chaser, AI controls worlds, assuring their stability but denying humans the resources they need to grow and achieve better lives.

The novel begins with Amahle and another person traveling to the home world of the Exalted. They are flying a strangelet into a star that will destroy all the worlds in the star’s system. The novel then backtracks to tell us why this is happening. Unfortunately, it doesn’t tell us enough.

Amahle is a Light Chaser. She is essentially immortal. She is under contract to fly a circuit at near light speed every thousand years. She makes port at various planets, where she trades goods with selected families. In exchange for those goods, family members have agreed to wear memory collars, passing them from generation to generation over the next thousand years. When Amahle returns, she collects the collars and issues new ones. The memory collars store the memories of everyone who wears them. Amahle spends her flight time reviewing the memories on the collars, which I suppose is like watching a steady diet of particularly boring soap operas.

Amahle’s human brain has limited storage capacity, so she can’t remember much of her early years. As she reviews the memory collars, she encounters humans who have messages for her — although the messages all originate from one human who seems to have taken various guises over the years, apart from his identifying tattoo. Piecing together those messages helps Amahle remember that she was once married. Her husband has something important to tell her about the AI that runs her ship. Eventually the messages cause her to distrust all the AIs that are running the systems on every human world. Why that information must be provided in pieces over multiple collars is never entirely clear.

Light Chaser is relatively short, probably short enough to qualify as a novella. Perhaps its length accounts for its failure to develop its themes in full. The AI that controls humanity could be giving humans more resources and better lives. We’re told that it doesn’t do so because its purpose is to assure stability, but we aren’t told why better lives would create instability. Some of the worlds Amahle visits are modern but others are medieval. What’s the point of not allowing (or helping) medieval societies to advance? How does the AI manage to keep humans in a medieval state for millennia? The ultimate purpose of the AI is to deliver memory collars and their stories to the Exalted, but it isn’t clear why the Exalted want stories of stable societies. Wouldn’t stories of unstable societies be more interesting? Nor is it clear why thriving societies would necessarily be unstable. Some of the worlds have attained a future version of modernity without losing their stability. Why won’t the AI allow that on every world?

Hamilton and Powell leave too many questions unanswered, all for the sake of illustrating a well-worn sf mantra: competition is good, managing human life is bad, unstable societies lead to progress unless everyone dies. The Exalted are a plot device rather than an actual race. We know almost nothing about them, apart from their residence “in the null-folds of the Cosmos,” a term that has the vagueness of gibberish, and their desire to “increase the experience which enriched them, by feeding on human experience like vampires of the mind.” What, I wonder, is so interesting about mundane human lives that the Exalted are enriched by experiencing them? Why would they be less enriched if they did not manipulate the human perception of reality, so that humans live in a reality apart from the “original reality we encountered when our souls first emerged into it from our holm beyond.” More gibberish, at least from my admittedly limited perception of reality.  

Amanda’s experiences on the worlds she visits and the experiences of people whose memories she reviews demonstrate that the authors are capable of writing with warmth and feeling. Light Chaser is intriguing, but both authors are capable of telling better stories than this one. The clichés about trading stability for progress are too easy and the unanswered questions are too important to ignore. Light Chaser feels like a good idea that never evolved into the complex story that the idea merited.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS

The Saints of Salvation by Peter F. Hamilton

Published by Del Rey on November 17, 2020

The Saints of Salvation is like Avengers Endgame without the superheroes and with a lot more science. A large group of heroes, mostly but not entirely human, fight to save humanity from evil. In the process, lots of things explode, a good bit of humanity seems to be wiped out, and time goes a bit wonky.

When I read the first novel in the Salvation sequence and noted that the story would unfold over thousands of years, I expected that the heroes in the first novel would be dead long before the story ended. And I thought that would be unfortunate, as I felt a greater attachment to those characters than to the characters who carry the story in the future. When the key near future characters turned up again in the second novel, I was happy. Here they are again in The Saints of Salvation. They are, in fact, the saints to which the title refers. Humanity appreciates the inspiration they provided in the dark past. Now it’s the far future and, thanks to the miracle of science fiction, they aren’t done fighting. In that fight, they are joined by varied characters old and new, including a bunch of humans (more or less) who were seeded by a far-future character in an effort to kickstart the final battle.

The fight is against the Olyx, an alien race of religious extremists who are on a mission from the God at the End of Time. The first novel tells us that the Olyx captured billions of humans but that some humans who escaped, as well as generations of their descendants, dedicated themselves to fighting back. The second novel sets up that fight while recounting, in vivid detail, the human struggle to delay the inevitable destruction of the Earth. The last novel recounts the last days of that near future struggle on Earth and follows various humans at various points in future history as they carry out a plan to locate and destroy the Olyx home world.

But is this the last novel? The story arc is certainly complete, but questions remain about the mysterious God at the End of Time who, at some point in the future, apparently commanded the Olyx to gather all the civilizations of the universe, bundle up their brains and other essential organs in cocoons, and bring them to the god for some unrevealed but presumably divine purpose. The novel suggests that those questions might be answered in a later book. Perhaps that’s why the books are marketed as the Salvation Sequence rather than the Salvation trilogy.

The Saints of Salvation is long book, but the word count is necessary to tell a story that spans tens of thousands of years and encompasses a multitude of smaller, character-centered stories. It combines creative warfare with touching moments of sacrifice. It follows core characters who evolve without losing the kernel of goodness that makes them heroic. It pits good against evil and love against hate in an epic tale that never loses sight of its purpose. The story is alternately thrilling and chilling, sweet and sad. In its plausible construction of a high-tech future, the novel offers a rich display of imagination. It never fails to fascinate.

I could (and did) say the same about the first two books. Everything about the Salvation sequence, from strong characterization and complex storytelling to dazzling suggestions about the future to which science might take us, is impressive. Fans of space opera will heartily enjoy all three books in the sequence.

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Salvation Lost by Peter F. Hamilton

Published by Del Rey on October 29, 2019

Salvation Lost is the second novel of the Salvation trilogy. Readers who have not read the first novel (Salvation) are cautioned that this review makes references to that novel that might be regarded as spoilers.

At the end of Salvation, I expected the direction of the trilogy to change. The novel’s “present” is set about 200 years in the future. Things are looking bleak for Earth as humans come to realize that aliens known as the Olyix are not the benevolent benefactors they seem to be, but are intent on capturing the entire human race, reducing individuals to a bodiless essence and storing them in cocoons (“a bulbous barrel of flesh with a distended head protruding at the top”) to further what seems to be (from the Olyix perspective) a divine mission. This is what happens when people (or aliens) think they are doing the work of God. Another Salvation storyline is set in the far future, focusing on the descendants of humans who fled Earth and its colonies. These future humans are plotting and training to battle the Olyix, as have generations before them. I expected the second novel to focus on the characters in the far future, but quite a bit of the novel engages the reader with familiar characters from the present, who are fighting in Earth’s end days to give the human race a chance to survive. I was happy about that because I felt a stronger attachment to the characters in the present than to those in the future.

Much of the future story deals with the crew of a starship, including characters who will be familiar to readers of Salvation. They have created what they believe will be a trap for the Olyix, with a goal of capturing one of their ships and pinpointing the location of their home base. Their larger plan is to take the war to the Olyix. The problem is that the Olyix have been around a long time and this is all “been there, done that” to them.

Much of the present story deals with efforts to thwart the Olyix as they try to snatch every human. The humans hope to slow the Olyix enough to allow substantial numbers of humans to flee — and to prepare them to keep fleeing, generation after generation, until humans ae in a position to take it to the Olyix. Peter Hamilton provides greater depth of characterization in the second novel than he did in Salvation, as we take a close look at conflicted members of a powerful family who face the prospect of losing all the wealth they’ve created.

To the story in the present, Salvation Lost adds some lowlifes who find themselves well paid to commit acts of vandalism for reasons they don’t fully understand. An entity that calls itself that watcher joins the story of the future. Hamilton eventually reveals the reason the lowlifes are being exploited and the nature of the watcher. Both revelations impart interesting twists to the plot.

The best part of Salvation, I thought, was the detailed future-building: the economic and social structures that evolve around unlimited energy, instantaneous transportation, and food printing. Salvation Lost takes that all as a given and delivers a meatier plot than the first novel. Both the past and future elements of the plot are exciting and fast-moving. Both contain surprises that spin the story in new directions.

Some of the novel’s themes are drawn from decades of science fiction, including human ingenuity and the value of self-sacrifice. While the themes are familiar, Hamilton’s imaginative use of future technology makes them seem fresh. Hamilton advances a story that rises above a typical “humans versus aliens” space opera, simply because the detailed universes in which the plots unfold are so convincing. Salvation Lost is a much stronger novel that the space-filling middle installment that so often bridges the first and last novels of a sf trilogy.

RECOMMENDED

Salvation by Peter F. Hamilton

Published by Del Rey on September 4, 2018

There are so many moving parts in Salvation it is difficult to hold them all in memory, and this is only the first book in a trilogy. Part of the story takes place on Juloss in the distant future, a planet that humans have inhabited and mostly abandoned. Dellian and Yirella are training for combat against an enemy that destroys all life in its path. They are members of the first generation of binary humans to be born on the planet. Most humans have fled the galaxy on generation ships, making Juloss the last known planetary home to free humans. The plan is to biomodify the humans who stay behind so they can be sent off on a battleship to fight the enemy.

Juloss has benefitted from technology supplied by a Neána insertion ship, including pet-like biologics called muncs that help them fight. The humans on Juloss believe themselves to be protected by five saints. The five names will eventually become familiar to the reader from parts of the story that are set in the past (although still in the future from the reader’s perspective).

And who are the Neána? They help emerging sentients resist the aforementioned alien threat. As the book begins, they insert four artificially created humans on Earth.

Most of the story takes place about 200 years in the future. Humans have figured out how to take advantage of quantum entanglement, allowing instant travel to any place that has a portal, including other planets. The quantumly entangled portals are built, maintained, and controlled by a ridiculously wealthy company called Connexion, which provides a handy app to help people map a walking route from portal to portal until they reach their eventual destination. Cars, airplanes, and hotels are largely obsolete, at least on developed planets. Walking is the new flying.

Aliens called the Olyix are visiting Earth, having made a refueling stop on their journey to the end of the universe, where they expect to find a reborn God. The Olyix travel on an arkship called Salvation of Life. They trade technology in exchange for electricity that helps them make antimatter. The technology they supply the Earth includes Kcells, which are something like a cheap version of stem cells, enabling longer lifespans and possibly more (the “more” includes rumors of brain transplant technology).

Most of the novel is taken up in the creation of those future histories, particularly the one that takes place in the nearer future. The one that takes place on Juloss in the distant future is likely to be the focus of later novels.

The novel is episodic, reading as if a bunch of short stories set in the same universe were stitched together to make a novel. Some of the stories deal with renditions, which have replaced trials, at least for serious crimes and political dissidents. Renditions are rather arbitrarily imposed by Yuri Alster, the Connexion officer who runs security. Yuri gives an impassioned speech about the need for rendition that could have been penned by Dick Cheney.

Other episodes investigate a nonhuman starship that appears to have crashed on a planet that Connexion might want to terraform. Inside the starship are hibernation chambers holding humans who might have been kidnapping victims. Leading an ultra-secret team of the Earth’s wealthiest interests to investigate the starship is Feriton Kayne, deputy director of the security division of Connexion. Alster and Callum Hepburn are also part of the team.

There’s a lot going on here. Maybe too much is going on for the story to cohere. Some of the episodes, including a series that features a mercenary known as Cancer, might have worked better as short stories set in the same universe. The episodes come across as filler in a novel that has more than ample content without adding subplots that do little to advance the plot. Still, Peter Hamilton can’t be faulted for a lack of ambition.

Salvation is driven more by action and ideas than by characters, none of whom are developed in great depth. While the novel reads like a group of stories that are intended to set up future volumes in the trilogy, the detailed future that Hamilton imagines is intriguing. Readers will need to commit to reading all the books, as Salvation is not a self-contained story. Given the imaginative background that Hamilton created, that’s a commitment I will gladly make. The second book was recently released and I plan to review it soon.

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