Download And Enjoy The Saints Of Salvation (Salvation Sequence, #3) Conceived By Peter F. Hamilton Supplied As Print

is by far my favourite scifi writer, Actually, cannot even name who would be the distant second maybe Vernon Vinge, However, I am not an unconditional fanboy: I hated Misspent Youth and much to my shame never finished Night's Dawn, gave up during the last book.


Now somewhat unexpectedly I find myself in a tough spot: I promised a honest review easily as it never occured to me there is any chance to give anything less thanstars.
However, having finished Saints of Salvation, I walked away with the impression that, while the book provides a real good closure to the main story and a few twists along the way, it falls a bit short of the masterpiece status I expected.
Simply put, PFH has raised the bar so high with his own books including the first two in this very series that cannot be always surpassed.
There is still a very strong finish, but those who have read the Void amp Fallers series, know that he can bring his amazing ideas to even more amazing conclusions.


So what do I think exactly Let's find out,

Spoilerfree summary

The present time plot picks up two years after the events of the second volume.
The humans and the the assessment team are preparing for the ultrasecret mission outlined in Salvation Lost, We get nailbiting thrills and terrific battles both on Earth and in space, superb stuff, really, We also continue following story of Horatio and Ollie: their viewpoints keep the story grounded, providing a welcome view into the life of besieged London.
I have always loved the Earth chapters, as they ground the story in a world, that has been so vividly realized in the first book.


Then, we have the farfuture storyline, where Yirella and Ainsley are the lead characters now, Dellian is relegated to the background.
They are recovering from their harsh awakening at Vayan and now trying come up with new schemes against the even more powerful Olyix.
In this storyline Yirella and Ainsley bonds together and takes matters into their own hands in an unexpected way.
I touch on this part more in the spoilery part of the book,

Later the focus shrinks down to the remaining two plotline: the Saints and Yirella amp Co, From this point forward the book is entirely focused on taking the fight the Olyix enclave's doorstep, It is a more straightforward story, grander in scope, having plenty of battles of both ships and wits, with the Olyix fighting back, of course.
Without going into specifics, there is a retaliation which displays nicely how the fate of a person may carry more emotional impact than the destruction of a planet this is just a metaphor, no planets get destroyed,.
. . or yes who knows:.

This being the last book of the trilogy, we get a closure to the Olyix storyline in a way that is sort of expected.
At the same time, several aspects remain wide open, I was surprised, as PFH have always closed his series completely so far, That's not the case here, Reading the last few chapters, it is very clear he is not done yet with Olyixverse ,

Overall, I believe this is a fantastic series, It is not a characterdriven story: we get glimpses of decent characters Callum, Gwendoline, Horatio, but there is no Edeard Void or Angela Great North Road level of characterization in there.
Plot dominates this trilogy from start to finish, That's fine. I personally loved the first book the most, with its elaborate worldbuilding, the criminal investigations and wonderfully executed 'wolf in the fold' concept, with perhaps the most shocking cliffhanger I have ever read.
However, I acknowledge others may feel differently, and for some the first book may have been too slow and they may prefer the more actionpacked volumes.
That being said, the whole trilogy is excellent, so grab it and start reading, Still:

Further thoughts with mild spoilers

At one point in the book Yirella goes rouge, and together with Ainsley, she guerrillastarts a new human civilization, hoping this new society can bootstrap itself up to a level where they have a chance against Olyix.
Sure, I get how very special circumstances they had, considering its special location the best human technology available as a starting base the presence and cooperation of Ainsley a superadvanced entity and time pressure to advance.
But, still, in earlier books it was stated several times, that humans have plateaued, And then, all of a sudden they cracked a lot of magical technology, that brought them up to be a real challenger.
Yes, PFH does his best to elaborate how the unusual circumstances made this possible, but after spending several books being afraid how superior and invincible the Olyix were, it was a very sudden change to have something that actually kicks Olyix ass fairly easily.
I understand this was necessary to be able to to close the trilogy with a win, Still, I guess your enjoyment of the final book will be down to this single plot element, how well it resonates with you.


The other aspect I have been slightly disappointed about is the role of the assessment team, Yes, they go on their mission, and it is engaging to follow them on their onceinthehistory roadtrip to the other side of the galaxy, but ultimately I was hoping that their arc factors more heavily into the endgame.
This is acknowledged even by themselves at the end of story when they discuss how the humans managed to find another way.
So they provide an interesting viewpoint, but in fact are not contributing that much to the final outcome, I have not expected this considering how well PFH weaves his threads together in a natural and satisfactory way in his other books.


Finally, as I said earlier, it is obvious that PFH will return to this universe and he is holding back stuff.
We are teased about the message from the future which has been first mentioned in Salvation Lost, We have an oldnew plot seed about seeking the Sanctuary, We still don't know much about Neana, Angelis and Katos races including how the Factory was coming together, and how it dissolved.
We are also very mildly teased that Jessica may have some additional hidden purpose after all, So, a lot of plot hooks left open on purpose, For all these reasons, it is hard to view the last book as a complete closure: it ends the Olyix conflict, but at the same time it is a new beginning for a galaxy we still barely know.
Naturally, I am looking forward to have more books in this universe, but at the same time I was expecting few more answers at the end of the series.


A really minor note is there are some editing inconsistencies: in second book the portal missiles are called "callumites", while in the last book they are "calmissiles".
In the last book there is a single occurence of Olyix "Redemption" ship, but they are never referred again, so I guess they should be "Resolution" ships.
I indicated this to publishers, hopefully gets fixed in the print edition,

I was lucky to receive an advance copy of my most anticipated release of the year in exchange for a honest review.
Thank you from here as well to Mr, Hamilton's awesome PR represenative his name is secret, identity protection and all, you see This one has aboutpages of padding and superfluous material at the start.
It starts to get in high gear during the FinalStrike mission when Virella sneaks in a superhuman "decoy" settlement at the neutron star, which takes some unexpected turns in a stretch of the thrillingly strange writing that's why I keep reading this stuff.
The rest of the book isn't all at that high level, but it turns out well, with the Olyix fanatics defeated and the start of the restoration of Earth and its humans to some semblance of normality.


So. We havepages of rejectstar writing to start, thenpp, ofstar material with some lapses, Which I reckon averages out to aroundoverall, My advice would be to skip the firstpages and start with the good stuff, Up to you A lot of people like this book and the whole series,
They praise it for "No cringe sex scenes" a point I can agree upon , a less meandering plot and less "unnecessary" details.
It's more modern with gender fluidity and time travel paradoxes,
It didn't really come together for me,
I can still remember characters from his Commonwealth Saga, I'm not only talking about Paulo Mayo or the Sentient Intelligence, I don't know if it's because it's the first big series of his that I read, because the characters are more distinctive, or because later characters feel a bit like shallower copies of these earlier characters.
He repeats his ideas with variations, space travel via portals, city shields, wealthy benefactors, criminal gangs, even a personality with multiple bodies,.
. .
It's becoming a blur for me,
Technology has become fantastical, It feels like there are no rules, You can't predict the outcome of space battles because the "laws of physics" are only partially revealed or changed in the thick of it.

An aspect of Hamilton's Commonwealth Saga I really liked, the science fiction technology felt like a logical extension of the present.

I don't like time travel, It usually leads to untidy illogical scenarios and it feels a bit tagged on here because nowadays everybody needs to include the grandfather paradox or parallel universes.
Fortunately these scenarios are only theoretically discussed in the book and not really relevant for the plot,
It's Alastair Reynolds meets Ann Leckie meets Doctor Who, The alien Olyix are besieging Earth, whose great cities stand protected by forcefields, each one powered by a quantum entanglement portal leading to distant colony worlds.
Onebyone the fields and the cities they protect are failing, the inhabitants captured and cocooned for an unknown fate.
The defenders of Earth are preparing to launch a counterattack, knowing they are only buying time for the great exodus fleets which are hurtling into deep space, intending to preserve humanity for the eventual fight back.
In the distant future that fight is now underway, with myriad different human societies and several alien species allying for a direct strike on the Olyix home system.
If they succeed, they will free trillions of lives from imprisonment if they fail, the galaxy will be subjected to a reign of religious terror.
Key to the victory are the Saints, the first human to recognise the threat of the Olyix, and whose fates remain a mystery.


Peter F. Hamilton has spent more than a quarter of a century writing a potent combination of science fiction, mixing formidable scientific and technology speculation with fiendish readability and accessibility, along with characters who remain sympathetic and human in their motivations.
Whether it's nearfuture technonoirs thriller or farfuture, posthuman cosmic epics, his ability to write pageturning novels remains undimmed,

The Salvation trilogy, here reaching a conclusion after Salvationand Salvation Lost, is Hamilton working in a new setting and milieu, and shaking up his standard space opera format with some interesting new structural techniques.
This trilogy is notable both for its relative brevity the trilogy as a whole is only slightly longer than one of his longest, shelfannihilating single novels like The Naked God or Great North Road and its clear focus with a restrained number of characters and subplots.
Some fans may miss the vast array of characters and cultures clashing across multiple storylines, but others particularly those with an aversion to books that threaten to break their wrists every time they pick them up will find his sense of purpose in this trilogy is more preferable.


The first novel in the trilogy had a great, Hyperionstyle focus on the individual "Saints," the humans who first discern the scale of the alien threat through their individual experiences, fleshed out in almost selfcontained, backstoryheavy novellas.
The second novel couldn't sustain that device but continued the structure from the first book between alternating between events in the earlyrd Century and an unclear period in the distant future, building up impressive narrative momentum between the two timelines.
Some may wonder why Hamilton adopted that structure in lieu of a more linear narrative, but The Saints of Salvation makes the reasoning clear, and it's very impressively handled.


Hamilton does have a slight weakness with endings, His classic Night's Dawn Trilogy is oftcriticised for its maybetooneat ending, whilst the Commonwealth Saga duology's second book was decidedly weaker than the first.
His later series have had stronger finales, but they were also somewhat slighter works without quite the same feeling of tense horror that he nailed in those earlier series.
The Salvation Trilogy brings back the horror in spades and also nails its ending, delivering a massive, widescreenstyle space opera finale with more explosions, hyperadvanced space battles and exotic technology than sometimes seems feasible.


There are hints that this isn't quite the end, Hamilton has expressed a preference for messier endings following The Night's Dawn, and the finale to this novel leaves several key questions open to speculation.
Whether he intends to return to this universe with more books is unknown at present Hamilton has projected possibly a different setting for his next work, but he leaves enough track laid to pursue future storylines there if possible.


Negatives are few, Perhaps the characters aren't quite as memorable as in his previous works there's no equivalent of Paula Myo here, maybe the story hinging once again on an ultrarich but fortunately benevolent supercorporation run by a quasiimmortal philanthropist is a bit of an overdone trope, maybe this last volume jettisons a few quieter character moments in favour of exposition, but it's hard to criticise a book which slams its foot to the accelerator and moves the plot to a grand crescendo without any filler.
Certainly some of Hamilton's earlier weaknesses are long gone the trilogy lacks any slightly embarrassing sex scenes you have to flick past, which bogged down some of

his early work.


As it stands, The Saints of Salvation ½ delivers an epic, fastpaced and wellcharacterised grand finale to an enjoyable trilogy.
The trilogy isn't quite up to the engrossing scale of Hamilton's best work, but it's still one of the strongest space opera series of recent years.
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