A Night Without Stars

August 22, 2016
Hamilton delivers on all the expectations set by The Abyss Beyond Dreams in this continued exploration of his far-future Commonwealth setting. The planet of Bienvenido and its lost colonists remains stranded far from the Commonwealth. Continuing the efforts to save it will be difficult, because it has been cast out of the Void and devoured by Uracus, a kind of holding cell for defiant civilizations. Without hope of rescue, Bienvenido’s culture descends into oppression and endless war against the invading Fallers. From within, Peter Chaing combats the Fallers and the perceived threat of a group of humans. From the outside, a set of space castaways are still trying to find Bienvenido and help the colony as only the Commonwealth can. Hamilton packs his interstellar adventure with espionage, old-style space exploration, and the story of a fugitive who carries the hope of salvation for all of Bienvenido. The action overwhelms character development, but pacing and exciting concepts keep the momentum fast and tensions high until a satisfying resolution. Agent: Anthony Gardner, Gardner Literary (U.K.).

Starred review from July 15, 2016
Hamilton's latest (a relatively slender 704 pages) brings to a furious boil the two-book saga (The Abyss Beyond Dreams, 2014) describing human colony planet Bienvenido's unremitting battle against the hostile alien Fallers.Set in Hamilton's far-future Commonwealth, fans and newbies alike can jump pretty much right into any book in the series (which come complete with an always-helpful timeline). Bienvenido, hurled into intergalactic space and millions of light-years from contact with the Commonwealth, suffers a constant rain of Faller eggs which absorb people and produce perfect Faller copies, all programmed to commit genocide on humanity. (This existential threat scenario does require the aliens to be utterly single-minded. Imagine all the inhabitants of Connecticut totally intent on invading Massachusetts and nobody wants to stop for ice cream.) As a result, Bienvenido's government is heavily militarized and fearful of its own minority population, known as Elite, who've retained the superior brains and enhancements of their Commonwealth forebears. A few individuals like the Warrior Angel survive independently and possess advanced Commonwealth technology. Then astronaut Ry Evine--his mission is to explode the orbiting "trees" that are the source of Faller eggs--unwittingly frees a trapped Commonwealth vessel that crash-lands on Bienvenido carrying, of all things, a baby. Reclusive Elite forest warden Florian stumbles upon the capsule and the baby and takes responsibility for the child--who feeds and grows at an astonishing rate and soon exhibits highly advanced knowledge and abilities. Security officer Chaing, secretly an Elite, believes the Faller threat to be far greater than the government will admit and wants to contact the Warrior Angel for help; instead, while fearing betrayal at the hands of Jenifa, his fanatical assistant, he's charged with capturing the child. All this roars relentlessly along in utterly mesmerizing style, with edge-of-the-seat plotting, thrilling action, and knife-edge tension that will leave readers gasping. An atomic blast of a yarn. Hamilton in peak form and absolutely not to be missed.

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September 1, 2016
In this sequel to The Abyss beyond Dreams (2014), Hamilton delivers his usual reliable storytelling; the people of Bienvenido, having been expelled from the Void into the vastness of space, still struggle for survival against the Fallers, now without the advantage of telepathy. Laura Brandt, in her efforts to save them, discovers the remnants of the Primea terrible, destructive species long thought eradicatedand sacrifices herself to destroy that imminent threat. Centuries later, we join the real action: a Treefall releases something else, which lands in a remote location and drags forest warden Florian, unsuspecting, into the heart of a struggle for liberty from the reactionary government and, ultimately, freedom from the Faller threat. The final showdown between the government, the Eliters, and the Fallers promises to be unpleasant and dramatic. As usual, human ingenuity, helped along by the wisdom of Hamilton's ancient, often reborn characters, saves the dayfor now. It's a satisfying tale of adventure and politics, with the potential for yet more development of the Commonwealth, which is Hamilton's major strength.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)