Judas Unchained by Peter F Hamilton

Judas Unchained is the second part of a story that began with Pandora’s Star. You should read both this review and that book first. Obviously, I loved it or I would not have launched straight into the sequel. And I really did read book one and then immediately start on book two. The first one ends on a cliff-hanger and there are so many characters and sub plots that I thought it was the most sensible option. These are thousand page novels, so it is best to set aside some time.

I always find it a bit strange trying to review a sequel but there are some maniacs out there who might read Pandora’s Star and be on the fence about Judas Unchained. I get your point, the first book has some long sections where not much happens interspersed with bursts of insane action. (Although I loved the first one and didn’t find it slow at all.) Plus there are a lot of characters and a lot of things going on that all seem kind of random and unrelated.

Well, I can assure you that Judas Unchained is definitely worth it. The second book is better than the first. All the random characters and threads established in Pandora’s Star are wrapped up nicely in the second. Sometimes a little too neatly which as criticisms go, isn’t too bad. I would like to learn more about some of the aliens – his aliens are great – but that wasn’t really the point of this story.

I am struggling a bit here as someone may stumble on this and there’d be spoilers for the first book. And this book. So I will just conclude with saying Judas Unchained is a superb, epic space opera, with great characters, colossal imagination and is a nice conclusion to Pandora’s Star. It is part of the Commonwealth series, but these two stand alone. The next books – the Void trilogy -continue the Commonwealth something like 300 years later and also seem to be completely standalone (but apparently some characters continue, so read these first). I will read and review the Void trilogy one day and let you know. Until then, this is highly recommended.