(courtesy Penguin Books)
SNAPSHOT
Explore EXODUS, a new sci-fi action-adventure RPG coming soon from Archetype Entertainment featured in this epic novel from legendary author Peter F. Hamilton.Forty thousand years ago, humanity fled a dying Earth. Traveling in massive arkships, these brave pioneers spread out across the galaxy to find a new home. After traveling thousands of light-years, one fleet of arkships arrived at Centauri, a dense cluster of stars with a vast array of potentially habitable planets. The survivors of Earth signaled to the remaining arkships that humanity had finally found its new home among the stars.
Thousands of years later, the Centauri Cluster has flourished. The original settlers have evolved into advanced beings known as Celestials and divided themselves into powerful Dominions. One of the most influential is that of the Crown Celestials, an alliance of five great houses that controls vast areas of Centauri. As arkships continue to arrive, the remaining humans and their descendants must fight for survival against overwhelming odds or be forced into serving the Crown Dominion.
Among those yearning for a better life is Finn, for whom Earth is not a memory but merely a footnote from humanity’s ancient history. Born on one of the Crown Dominion worlds, Finn has known nothing but the repressive rule of the Celestials, though he dreams of the possibility of boundless space beyond his home.
When another arkship from Earth, previously thought lost, unexpectedly arrives, Finn sees his chance to embrace a greater destiny and become a Traveler—one of a group of brave heroes dedicated to ensuring humanity’s future by journeying into the vast unknown of distant space. (courtesy Penguin Books)
(courtesy Penguin Random House)
One of the greatest reading moments of this blogger’s life was when he was in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for six weeks way back in 2004 for work, and had nights to fill in, either watching TV in his hotel room or wandering through through a huge bookshop called Kinokuniya which was like a wonderland of reading possibilities.
In amongst buying some 80 novels – thankfully, I worked for an international courier company so getting them home wasn’t prohibitively expensive – I came across books by British sci-fi writer Peter F. Hamilton which to my delight were brilliantly dense, imaginatively rich and narratively expansive and which quickly became my go-to to fill in the weekends which otherwise would’ve been spent watching in-house TV.
His world-building, humanism and intricately clever but wholly accessible ideas made the immersively original plots absolutely compelling and he has remained well and truly my favourite sci-fi writer ever since, with his, at one-time, annual book releases the highlight of my birthday or Christmas, which are a month apart (November-December).
It’s been a little quiet of late on the Hamilton release front but now he’s back, with the first of a two-book series which adds what will undoubtedly be even more storytelling depth to an upcoming RPG (role-playing game) release.
Are we excited? Yes, we are and the boyfriend has already been handed Exodus: The Archimedes Engine as a gift “suggestion” – not so much a hint as a inked-in certainty – and you can bet that the first book read on summer holidays post-Christmas will be this one.
Exodus: The Archimedes Engine releases 17 September 2024.