'Judas Unchained' by Peter F. Hamilton
'Judas Unchained' by Peter F. Hamilton

The good

  • Takes all the world building from the first book and ramps it up a notch. You get a whole lot more cool sci fi tech, alien races, politics, war, spy games, mystery, and so on.

  • All the various storylines from the first book combine in a mostly satisfying way. All the loose ends get resolved.

  • An interesting mix that includes a good amount of action, some tense moments, a bit of witty humor, and a little bit of good detective work too.

  • An interesting cast of characters, where each person feels unique and reasonably well thought out.

The not so good

  • The first book was ridiculously long at something like 1,100 pages. This second book is even longer, clocking in at over 1,200 pages. All told, this two book series added up to more than 2,300 pages. The reality is (a) these books needed an editor to cut down on some of the interesting-but-not-strictly-necessary side plots and (b) even after cutting a bunch of stuff, this would’ve worked better as a 4-6 book series. There is something psychologically difficult about being 500 pages into a book and realizing you’re not even close to the half way point; and holding such a giant tome for long periods of time gets physically uncomfortable. If this was a series of several smaller books, each of which could’ve resolved some small set of plot points, I think it would’ve been more pleasant to read.

  • The ending ties up all the loose ends, and for most of this second book, everything is exciting, thrilling, and brings all the plot lines together nicely. However, the very final ~5%, in my opinion, ended up mostly anticlimactic. I won’t put any spoilers here, but I’ll just say that in that very final bit, the book presents it as if it’s suspenseful and everything is at stake, but by then, it’s quite obvious how it’ll end, and it feels like everything is already resolved, and you’re just going through the motions. It’s a shame, as with a tiny bit of restructuring, the book could’ve kept you on the edge of your seat until the very end.

Rating: 4 stars