Del Rey, 2004. $7.99. ISBN: 0-345-47921-1, 988 pages, paperback

Hamilton should have called this book Pandora’s Box, because a whole lot of bad stuff came out as I turned the pages. Yet I kept reading, slogging through an encyclopedia of characters and situations in search of hope--the hope that it would get more interesting.

After some 300,000 words, I have no idea what this book is about. It starts off well with a mission to a distant planet, the removal of an alien barrier, and the unleashing of a race of robots set to destroy everything non-machine. And then, so many characters and tangents are thrown in, I bet Hamilton got paid by the word. What a mish-mash of literary bric-a-brac.

I’m sure the sequel (due January 2006) will try and weave all this into some coherency. As for me, no thanks.

By the way, I did find “hope” at page 988. The book ended.

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