“Listen: I’ve got an appreciation for girth. Giggle if you must, but what I’m referring to are thick, dense novels where I can lose myself for days or even weeks – novels rich in story, characters, locations and all sense of mood and atmosphere.”
Ronald Malfi, from his Introduction to Devil’s Creek by Todd Keisling
Although the above quote is nothing to do directly with Peter Hamilton’s latest novel, a review Rob recently wrote for a horror novel gave me that quote.
The link? Well, one thing Peter Hamilton is known for is his lengthy science fiction novels. If Ronald Malfi read science fiction (I have no idea if he does!) I think he would love Hamilton’s latest, EXODUS: The Archimedes Engine.
Unusually for Peter (I think), this novel has been written connected to something that may not be entirely his – a role-playing-game is due in 2025, I understand. It has been stressed to me, though, that this is not a novelisation of the game, but a story set in the same universe, with the game happening after the events of the book. You do not need to know the game to read the book – and I presume vice versa.
From the start of the book though, we’re into typical Hamilton material – I actually found it rather satisfying to find a long timeline at the front of the book, which put the whole book in perspective. We’re on a long timeline here. which shows us that forty thousand years ago before this book begins, humanity fled a dying Earth. Traveling in massive arkships, these pioneers spread out across the galaxy to find a new home. After traveling thousands of light-years, one fleet of arkships arrived at Centauri, a dense cluster of stars with a vast array of potentially habitable planets. The survivors of Earth signalled to the remaining arkships that humanity had finally found its new home among the stars.
Thousands of years later, the Centauri Cluster has flourished. The original settlers have evolved into advanced beings, known as Celestials, and divided themselves into powerful Dominions. One of the most influential is that of the Crown Celestials, an alliance of five great houses that controls vast areas of Centauri. Each of the Dominions has its Queen take turns in running the Cluster.
The issue is that the slower arkships are still arriving – expecting habitable planets, not planets colonised by the Celestials. As a result, we have people who have lived for thousands of years, thanks to time dilation and new longevity techniques, mixing with humans from 40 000 years ago. This creates tension and a threat to the stability of the Cluster.
Among those yearning for a better life is Finbar (Finn) Jalgori-Tubu, a young man for whom Earth is not a memory but merely a footnote from humanity’s ancient history. Born on one of the Crown Dominion worlds, Finn has known nothing but the repressive rule of the Celestials, though he dreams of the possibility of boundless space beyond his home.
So, when the Diligent, another ark ship arrives, previously thought lost, Finn seizes the chance to become a Traveler. These heroes explore the vast unknowns of distant space, dedicated to humanity’s survival. And they hope – one day – to find freedom.
With a book of such length there’s a lot to unpack here. In essence though, the narrative involves three basic story lines. The first begins with what I would call a James Bond moment which introduces us to Finn Jalgori-Tubu and Ellie Aponi. Whilst Finn is the son of a Marchioness on the planet of Gondiar, Ellie and her three-generations removed grandfather Josias Aponi are from the Diligent, the latest arkship arrival. They wish to settle into this new environment, whereas a bored Finn wishes to escape from it. The second is a police procedural that reminded me of Peter’s Great North Road, where a murder in the city of Santa Rosa on the celestial planet Gondiar becomes more complicated than human police officer Terence Wilson-Fletcher first thinks. Thirdly we have a plot line dealing with the political world of the Celestials – the post-humans in this future time who rule with an iron fist. We see both the political manoeuvrings of this society as the five Queens currently bound by an Accord jockey for position as well as the complicated process that the ruling Queen uses to appoint her successor.
Covering such broad and disparate elements, Peter throws all sorts into the mix – dangerous planets, unusual aliens, stranger trans-humans, living rock, space battles, corporate politics, Babylon 5-style jump gates, and even a Hunger Games-type trial.
Whilst the settings and situations may not be that unusual*, Peter’s writing elevates these threads into a complex, action-packed adventure. Really, all of these play to Hamilton’s strengths, and I do think that fans are going to love what happens here. It encapsulates all that fans of his work like.
At this point, it might be worth pointing out the obvious point – that with a book of around 900 pages, Exodus takes its time to develop. Things don’t really start happening in the first 300 pages or so as we map out this epic-sized universe. Much of the first part of the book is involved in creating this universe, introducing us to the characters and worlds before getting to the main point of the plot. This involves a series of set pieces – generally well done, if a little convenient at times. I did think that parts of the plot as we moved from point A to B did feel a little computer-game-like, especially in the first half of the book. The titular main element of the story – the Archimedes Engine – does not really become important to the plot until about 400 pages in, although the last 200 pages are a barnstormer of a narrative.
There are so many ideas involved in this novel that some of them worked less for me than others. There was almost a scattergun approach at times, where lots of ideas were thrown out there, leading to some of them ‘sticking’, whilst other were less attractive. Personally, I did find the idea of ‘livestone’ – a rock transformed by the power of thought, which oddly reminded me of that sand you can sculpt in water – was a little too much, and calling two Silicate soldiers ‘Dave’ felt like a misjudged attempt at humour, To be honest though, there are so many new ideas here that such peculiarities became minor niggles in the bigger picture.
Talking of the bigger picture, it cannot be said that Peter skimps on the idea that this is a space opera with scale, both in terms of the length of time covered – relativity and time dilation plays a part in this – and in the number of places and the creatures that inhabit them. There are events across multiple star systems, dozens of planets and thousands of years, which build to make the point that this is a story beyond our solar system.
The sense of long time and deep space, where the Celestials think not in terms of years but thousands of years, over many star systems is impressive. The use of time dilation as part of daily life means that characters can disappear for years whilst others are left at home continue to age chronologically. This creates some interesting situations.
In fact, Exodus was so epic that I did wonder whether the book might be daunting for readers new to Peter’s work. The range and variety of characters could feel a little overwhelming at first, but I think over the length of the book becomes easier to absorb.
In summary, Exodus delivers what readers will want – big ideas, multiple plots, vast scale of time and distance, generally well told – that plays to Peter’s strengths. It is Hamilton ramped up to 11. With its immersive environment, exciting action scenes and epic range, as my Malfi quote said at the beginning of this review, Exodus is a book to get lost in, to immerse yourself in, a dense, thick novel that pretty much delivers what Hamilton’s readers expect.
I will admit that even though I consider myself a fast reader, this book took me over two weeks of solid reading to complete. Most other things came to a halt!
Obviously as the first part of a duology there’s a cliff-hanger ending. But it’s a good sign for me that I can’t wait to read the next part, The Helium Sea.
* The actual plot furniture itself may sound a little familiar – arkships go way back as generational spaceships (I’m thinking Heinlein but probably before that) and the differences in travel speed I’m reminded of C J Cherryh’s Merchanter series (Cyteen & Downbelow Station, for example) not to mention Allen Steele’s Coyote series from the early 2000’s. Peter himself has written a trilogy of audiobooks using this idea.
EXODUS by Peter F. Hamilton
Published September 2024, by Tor
ISBN: 978152 9073 706
928 pages
Review by Mark Yon