Fiction Reviews
A Hole in the Sky
(2026) Peter F. Hamilton, Angry Robot, pbk, £9.99, 400pp, ISBN 978-1-836-73009-5
A new book by Peter F Hamilton is always a welcome event, though in recent years the wait times have been getting longer and longer. Fortunately, A Hole in the Sky will be followed rather swiftly (6 months) by the second book in its Arkship Trilogy and before 2026 is done the third and final instalment will land, just in time for Christmas.
Nothing in the accompanying details suggests this is Young Adult, but it is. Young protagonists, pared down the language, and the avoidance of the usual Hamilton-esque impenetrable science. He’s reined in on the gore too and given us a nice cute teeny love story. Which doesn’t mean this isn’t a good book – rather the opposite – but it does mean it is probably more accessible than most.
I’m big fan of SF that’s nominally focussed on a younger audience – Patrick Ness’s The Knife of Never Letting Go, for instance, has imagination, pace and intrigue and A Hole in the Sky is arguably as strong. It’s got quite few classic SF elements and masked them up into something new.
An arkship is hundreds of years out from Earth on its way to its second destination planet. The first turned out to have life on it that could potentially (and quickly) develop into an intelligent species, so the ship went on its way to a backup destination. But the encounter with the first planet triggered changes in the ship – a mutiny (some people wanted to turn back, apparently) triggered the destruction of advanced machines and forced social change into a more limited, agricultural society. But all is not well with the habitat, carved out of the interior of a massive asteroid, because a recent collision with something unknown has triggered a slow atmosphere leak. In a few years everyone will be dead, but the AI running the arkship, the Electric Captain, is carrying on as if nothing has changed. Young villager Hazel discovers the truth, though – and more besides – as she crosses the habitat to save the ship and her invalid brother, scheduled for death so he isn’t a burden on the society Hazel increasingly questions.
At 400 pages, this is short by Peter F Hamilton standards, but it benefits from the reduced page count. His books can be sprawling affairs but this one is tight and focused – and very effective. Recommended.
Mark Bilsborough
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