After my glowing comments on Pandora's Star, it's almost embarrassing to write about how much I hated the follow-up, Judas Unchained. What makes it particularly galling is that many of things that I praised in the first novel turned out to be particularly irritating in the second.
Hamilton continues to provide a full sense of place, and his characters continue to give us a panoramic sense of the universe. The problem here is that the tempo of the plot in Judas Unchained has sped up considerably -- the full extent of the alien threat becomes clear in the first 100 pages -- but the writing continues at the same snail's pace. One of the climactic scenes of the novel is pages of stuff about a guy trying to control a hang-glider. Ironically, it's more or less a repeat of a scene that happens early in Pandora's Star, where there's almost nothing riding on the outcome; the second time around should have been much punchier and to the point; unfortunately, that was symptomatic of the whole book -- scenes that should've been quick and exciting just dragged.
Relic, on the other hand, is quick and exciting, if ultimately completely shallow. But once in a while it's nice to read something mindless but competently written, to see the workmanship that goes into a good thriller.
On the heavy side, I also finished listening to Fowles's The French Lieutenant's Woman, which is an odd mash-up of Victorian and post-modern sensibilities. Aside from the story itself, which is set in Victorian England, Fowles gives us digressions on the sexual mores, the status of servants, the falling of the upper class, and so on. But he also does things like inserting himself into the story, giving us two endings, and so on. I found it to be very tastefully done, and the writing was gorgeous. I hope to write a bit more about this fascinating novel in my next post.
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