Pandora's Star cover art

Pandora's Star

Commonwealth Saga, Book 1

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Pandora's Star

By: Peter F. Hamilton
Narrated by: John Lee
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About this listen

Pandora's Star is the first part of Peter F. Hamilton's epic Commonwealth Saga duology – a fantastic galaxy-spanning novel from the master of space opera. For fans of Iain M. Banks and Alastair Reynolds.

At the edge of the galaxy something awakens – and it's coming for us . . .

Earth AD 2329: Humanity has colonized over four hundred planets, all interlinked by wormholes. For the first time in mankind's history there is peace. Then a star over a thousand light years away suddenly vanishes, imprisoned inside a force field of immense size. Yet who – or what – has that sort of technology? And what could this mean for us? Only a faster-than-light starship, captained by ex-NASA astronaut Wilson Kime, can reach that distance to investigate.

For Wilson, getting inside the force field could be easy. It may be harder to stop something else from getting out.

What if there was a very good reason to seal off an entire star system?

The Commonwealth Saga duology concludes with Judas Unchained.

©2004 Peter F Hamilton (P)2008 Tantor Media Inc Adventure Genetic Engineering Military Science Fiction Space Opera Fiction Interstellar

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Critic reviews

The best book Hamilton has written in years (Guardian)
Anyone who begins this won’t be able to put it down (Publishers Weekly)
Compelling (SFX)
All stars
Most relevant  
Good story. Just needs a bit of a pause in between story breaks. A few times I was confused before I realised the story had changed to a different character. Apart from that a great listen.

A little more production needed

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This book is awesome!

However it is deep and complex, from the interpersonal relations shops of the mass of main characters, to the science under pinning the future tech in the series!

This book will need your focus, but I believe it's worth it.

Looking forward to the next book to find out what happens next!!

A book as deep as the universe it's self!

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Very good book, well narrated. Can't wait to get stuck into the second one. A good Scifi replacement now that I've finished all the Iain M Banks books.

Great Audio book well narrated!

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Just marvellous. Entirely epic in breadth and scale, as all truly timeless sci-fi should be. A great performance, as ever, that admirably brings 100 characters to life. Can't recommend this book highly enough. A bargain for a single credit that true sci-fi fans won't regret :)

My First Foray Into Commonwealth Space

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thus was a very good listen and I'm looking forward to listening to the next part.

very good

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I read this book when it first came out, loved it.
then thought what would it be like with someone telling the story.
I actually think that John Lee did an excellent job.
Fantastic story and well narrated, will be listening to it again in the future.

Sometimes its best to ignore reviews!!

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Really cool story with great drscriptions of the aliens. Technology is believable and the interpersonal interactions are realistic.

Cool story bro! Got another?

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I thoroughly enjoyed the story, or rather multiple strands of stories. After completing the significant length, I immediately ordered the sequential 40h title! My only criticism is the minimal transition time between sub-chapters, which lead to mild confusion until you realize that's what's just happened! Otherwise an excellent performance all around.

Intriguing & imaginative sci-fi

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Great story and very well described, only negative is that there seems to be a too short a gap between sections in a chapter. Feels rushed at times and a little unnatural

That said, definitely recommend the audiobook and the paperback/hardback itself.

Fantastic storu

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The narrator is very bad at making distinct voices and accents between 2 conversing characters. This makes it hard to follow the conversations a lot of the time. There are some characters where it is very easy like osha the SI or Paula. But many others sound identical.

The world building is top tier

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