Night Without Stars

By Peter F. Hamilton

Book 2 of The Chronicle of the Fallers

Review

★★★★★

Night Without Stars is the second book in the Chronicle of the Fallers. It is action packed, with great pacing, and complex characters. It is my new favorite Hamilton book.

The plot continues 250 years after The Abyss Beyond Dreams. Planet Bienvenido escaped the Void but is now stranded in intergalactic space. The promised Commonwealth rescue never came. Slvasta’s dictatorship morphed into a totalitarian, Soviet-style regime. The Stasi-modeled People’s Security Regiment (PSR) spend more time plotting against each other than the Fallers.

The story follows PSR Captain Chaing as he oppresses his fellow humans and tries to uncover nests of Fallers. When a Commonwealth ship falls from the sky, Chaing tries to hunt down its clone passenger before she can disrupt the balance of power on Bienvenido.

Chaing has depth: though at first he is acting against the protagonists who are trying to help the Commonwealth clone, he cares deeply about saving the world and defeating the Fallers. This leads him to start aiding the clone while having to watch out for discovery by his fellow PSR members.

The Fallers are also much more interesting in this book. They are organized, and they have used the fact that the humans are only on one continent to take over the rest of the planet.

Unlike The Abyss Beyond Dreams, Night Without Stars keeps a perfect pace, never feeling too fast or too slow. It has a vast cast of interesting characters and a satisfying resolution.