Este libro construye en muy pocas paginas un universo y una historia de amor que ya le gustaría a novelas mucho más largas. Creo que no le falta ni le sobra nada, como si al escribirlo lo hubiesen medido todo al milímetro.

Quizá, por sacarle la puntilla, me falta algo de representación queer y mas con los temas que trata el libro. ( )

The details of the plot and main character were interesting, but the high-level plot just didn’t work for me. ( )

Light Chaser, a Peter Hamilton and Gareth Powell novella, has strong AI, life extension, near-lightspeed travel, and an epic romance. Amahle leaves a lover behind to travel the galaxy trading trinkets for candidly recorded life stories. She becomes a mythic figure on planets she visits once a millennium. Neither the lover nor the AI that runs the starship Mnemosyne is what they seem. The story packs a pleasing blend of far-future science and exotic characters, reminiscent of Cordwainer Smith. 4 stars. ( )

This is a novella set in a far-flung space empire that growth on the various plants is fairly static with a range of preindustrial to space faring and yet they all know about space travel and are fine with it. The Light Bringer stops by once every 1000 years on each planet to trade goods and gather memory collars that record every moment in someone’s life. These collars are passed down in families and when it is time to collect them those families are rewarded handsomely. If it is lost, then they go down in status. Other people watch them on the higher tech worlds. The Ai ships move in set patterns between these worlds gathering and distributing the collars. Amahle has been doing this for thousands of years and she watches the memories to alleviate the boredom of the years between worlds while traveling at near light speeds. And then she starts getting messages directed to her from various worlds. Slowly she realizes that in all the memory editing she has done over the centuries she used to have a family before her modified DNA allowed her to leave Earth and travel the stars after the death of her family.
The messages are convincing her to help someone she knew in the past to overthrow the aliens that are working with the AI ships to keep humans stagnate on each of their worlds. The story is told ending first and then how it all started so the first chapter is a bit jarring. I really enjoyed the book and wonder if there will be more in this setting.


Digital review copy provided by the publisher through Edelweiss
( )

Amahle travels the galaxy in an endless circuit, visiting the same works over and over again. Until she meets a boy who shares a puzzling and disturbing bit of news.

The first chapter was tough going. It was just a walk off inscrutable text: looooooooong sentences and longer paragraphs. I nearly put the book down — but I’m really glad I didn’t.

I’ve not read any Peter Hamilton, but I know that what Gareth Powell excels at is creating compelling characters. And that’s on display here. ( )