Light Chaser

Peter F. Hamilton, Gareth L. Powell

Light Chaser

ed.rybicki
2/2/2022

I must preface this review with the fact that I like both these authors. Mostly. They both write really well, and I have nearly all of Hamilton's books, and am starting to collect Powell's, too. So why a negative review?

While I like Hamilton, this is tempered by a dislike of his invoking the supernatural unnecessarily. The whole Night's Dawn trilogy was tainted by having resurrected folk popping up all over, so that even though the technology and the writing were superb, the premise was so flawed, in my opinion, that it just sat badly with me.

So too here: WHY does there have to be a supernatural element invoked, on top of what is an ingenious premise - Light Chasers circulating around known or settled space on thousand-year cycles, collecting memories and trading trinkets, with all of the technology described and undescribed, to make it happen? Like Night's Dawn, I think it would have been SO much better without?!

Oh, you can see Powell's influence too, with musings on what it is to be human, to be free - but there's another problem here, and that's that the book is too SHORT: novelette rather than novel, so that I killed it in a couple of hours. Also meaning that important plot elements get thrust at you complete and ready-wrapped, with no slow development and gradual revelation.

You'll see what I mean. Great idea, badly developed. A pity!!