Pandora's Star: Part One of the Commonwealth Saga

Proof copy. 8vo. Pp. vi, 882. Pictorial wraps with cover art by Jim Burns. List of Main Characters. Precedes the U.S. edition, which was not published by Ballantine Del Rey, until March 2004.

In AD 2329, humanity has colonised over four hundred planets, all of them interlinked by a web of transport "tunnels" known as wormholes. Then a star over a thousand light-years away vanishes, imprisoned inside a giant force field. The first in the 'Commonwealth Saga' series set in the near distant future, and followed by Judas Unchained (2005). "[Hamilton is] taking on one of SF's (and maybe all of literature's) primal jobs: the creation of a world with the scale and complexity of the real one." –Locus