How to reboot the galaxy in 10 (or so) not so easy lessons. Because that first lesson includes the really heavy lifting of getting you to believe that the cushy, if a bit lonely, life you’ve been leading for millennia NEEDS to be rebooted in the worst way.

And that you’re the only one who can possibly do the job. If you can be convinced to deal with the heartbreak of both a completely epic betrayal on a galactic scale AND the heartbreak of un-forgetting the loss of the love of your artificially long life. Over and over again.

Amahle is the Light Chaser of the title. She, and all of her ilk, travel in endless repeating circuits of their little corner of the galaxy, distributing trinkets, treasures and carefully curated technology to dozens – or perhaps hundreds – of stagnant little planets in return for recordings of memories and experiences faithfully preserved in high-tech collars in the centuries since their previous visits.

There’s nothing sinister about the recordings themselves. In fact, the reverse. The Light Chasers are treated pretty much like deities, and the tech and the treasure that they bring is a boon to both the individual economies and the local planetary government. The collars keep records only, they don’t take anything from their wearers.

But the conditions of the planets. That’s where things get sinister. Because each planet is locked in whatever era of development it was created – whether their situation is bloody, medieval horror or post-scarcity techno-pampered ennui.

There’s no growth. There’s no change. There’s no evolution. Golden ages last forever – but so do Dark ones. To the point where Amahle, no matter how many times her memory has been wiped, is starting to notice.

Which is where Carloman comes in. Over and over again. Seemingly reborn on multiple planets in multiple eras, seeking out one of her collar-wearers so that he can deliver a message. Knowing that she will inevitably see that message in the long (at least relatively) journeys between the stars.

If he doesn’t manage to get the whole message across in one circuit, he’ll simply have to try again. Until he gets it right. Or she does.

Escape Rating B: As much as I LOVED yesterday’s Red Team Blues, I did go into it thinking I was going to get something SFnal – so I had still had a taste for that in my mind. (And I had another book just fail.) So I went looking for something short and SFnal that I already had – which is where Light Chaser comes in.

There are two threads to this story. The first one is hidden – at first. Because from one perspective, Light Chaser is the ultimate star-crossed, crosstime, long-distance romance. It’s so long distance and so far across time that initially Amahle doesn’t even remember that once upon a time, it happened. (And yes, there are hints of This is How You Lose the Time War if you squint a bit.)

Amahle’s been made to forget, repeatedly and often over the very long years, but her once and future love, Carloman, loves her so damn much that he’s managed to get around a veritable empire of AIs that are keeping them apart.

We never do find out how he does that, we only know that he has. And does. And possibly will again if it doesn’t work this time around.

The truly SFnal part of the story is the story of Amahle’s life in her here and now, as Carloman’s intrusions into the collars she has collected and viewed slowly but surely strips away her somewhat bored complaisance and wakes her up to a truth that seemingly only he can see. But once she’s seen it, she can’t unsee it, to the point where she tears her whole world apart to get it back.

It starts at the end and ends at the beginning, but along the way it portrays a far future world that isn’t what it ought to be – and tells the story of the painful stripping away of both illusion and self needed to get it back on track.

I finished Light Chaser wanting just a bit more of pretty much everything, as there is a LOT of handwavium involved in making the whole thing work. But within the constraints of a novella, it does a terrific job of making the reader think right along with Amahle. Digging this one out of the depths of the virtually towering TBR pile was absolutely the right thing to do!

Stars: 4 out of 5.

This is a dystopian novel, even if it takes the reader a while to recognize that. After all, we have a modern spaceship piloted by an AI and a crew member who is tasked with visiting a umber of worlds populated by humans. She trades trinkets and harmless technologies or medicines in exchange for memory bracelets that certain inhabitants of these worlds wear throughout generations. Since her ship travels at speeds as close to light as possible, Her trip between planets might take 5 years, but for those planets, over a thousand years pass between visits.

That's where the dystopia comes into play. Because even though Amahle visits these planets every thousand years or so, nothing changes on them. The medieval planet is forever stuck in those dark middle ages. The industrial and steam revolution planet doesn't advance past those innovations. Even the most evolved planet at the end of her loop, where she unloads her stock of memory bracelets, hasn't made any significant breakthroughs in millions of years. Everything stays forever the same. More than that, there is no interstellar travel in this human-populated space, apart from those Light Chaser ships.

When Amahle finally discovers the reason why, at first she refuses to believe it, then she is terrified, then she decides to do something about it.

I thought this was an interesting take on slavery. Because make no mistake, the entire human race is enslaved by an unknown alien race. Just because humans have no idea that it is happening doesn't make the fact any less appalling.  It was also an interesting study on the nature of our memories - what is real, can our memories be manipulated, can erased memories be recovered? And of course, it's also a study of trust, love, and the feeling of safety. And also about hope and ingenuity.

It's a quick read and I thoroughly enjoyed it, even though I questioned the author's decision to start the book with the ending, then rewind the story to show us how the characters got to that point, I think it took away from the suspense of the story - we already know that the characters will succeed and survive until that final confrontation, so there is no tension when they are put in danger in the rest of the book. 

I think telling the events in the normal chronological way would have added a lot more tension to the story, since we would have had to discover everything along with Amahle, without knowing where the story was going. We would have been a lot more invested in the discovery and the struggle itself, and the ending would have been a lot more satisfying. 

Anyway, if you want a fun book about space travel, love, and reincarnation, I would highly recommend this one. Plus it's only 172 pages long, so it's a fast read for a rainy afternoon.

PS: I received an advanced copy of this book via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I love Peter F Hamilton! I love the Commonwealth books so much, as well as the Void trilogy, and I adore Great North Road. I thought the Salvation Sequence was hit and miss, but when I finished reviewing it, I said that I looking forward to trying his next series. And I was so right! I got an audio advanced reader copy of A Hole in the Sky and it was fantastic! So when I found out he had a novella coming out. Few months later I was excited to try Light Chaser, which Mr. Hamilton co-wrote with Gareth L. Powell.


While the Light Chaser wasn’t bad, it did not live up to my expectations. Sometimes, when two authors collaborate, it works seamlessly and one would never know it was a joint effort by two different minds. (I’m looking at you, James S. A. Corey.). Sometimes, it feels less seamless. Sadly, Light Chaser fell into this camp. While the book had some interesting concepts, the execution felt flawed. I found the change in writing styles in different segments to be a bit jarring.

I am very much looking forward to everything else Mr. Hamilton chooses to write, but I don’t think Mr. Powell is to my taste. But I appreciate and thank Tor and NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

A full cycle of Peter Hamilton compressed into a single story, without compromise. He has form for standalones with the Quantum Murder. This book written as a collaboration shows no cracks between Peter and Gareth's inputs, so looking forward to more fromthe pair.

Sadly, I did not particularly enjoy this book. I was imagining the sweet story of a futuristic travelling tinker and story-teller. This is not that. I'm not really sure what it is, other than a bit of a mind-f*ck.

----'See you in a thousand years...'----

Amahle is 26,355 years old. She's been a Light Chaser for most of that, travelling alone on the circuit between the stars, dropping off and collecting memory collars for her employer, EverLife. The worlds she visits are hell holes of medieval reenactment or dingy mining, but she entertains herself between stops living their lives through the memory collars. Except, again and again, on different worlds and years apart, a voice keeps calling to her, telling her to remember, telling her she needs to act. And, slowly, she does.

----'Kings died and castles fell, but the Light Chaser always endured, ageless and unending, in the dusk between the stars.'----

The book starts well and I loved the first chapter, not to mention a number of the concepts and ideas raised. Unfortunately, it quickly goes downhill. The plot was confusing and, even now, I'm not 100% sure what happened. It involves time-travel (on top of the time relativity already inherent in space travel), reincarnation, other dimensions, and creatures called holm that may or may not be aliens. To say it was overcomplicated would be an understatement.

----"Let's just remember who's the immortal space goddess around here, shall we."----

Two things could have made up for this: the characters and the chance to explore. Well, I didn't like Amahle and she's the only character of any significance, so there went that. My biggest issue with her was that, for all she's (almost) immortal, she behaves just like any-old human today (with an emphasis on 'today'). Likewise, the worlds described are surprisingly uncreative for a science fiction novella. They're analogs of either medieval, early industrial, or early modern Earth, with a lot of cultural references to the current day. Odd, considering that we're talking 26,000 years in the future. And yes, to some extent, this is part of the plot, but the authors could have tried just a bit harder.

All in all, I wouldn't recommend this. The writing feels lazy, the plot confusing, and there's very little for the reader to get behind. It's not awful, and I'm sure some will like it, but I've read far better.

----"What a headfuck," she declared.----
And all the readers of this book agreed.

Published by tor.com on August 24, 2021

Humanity has spread itself among the stars, but it has fallen short of its full potential. The message that Peter F. Hamilton and Gareth L. Powell send in Light Chaser will be familiar to science fiction fans: humans need to be challenged or the human race becomes stagnant. Of course, stagnant humans can live pretty good lives — asking a replicator to make me a cheeseburger would be nicer than working all day so I can afford cheeseburgers — but the virtues of endeavor and competition (and even war) have always been preached like religious dogma by the giants of science fiction.

Hamilton and Powell marry the theme of stagnation to another popular theme: fear that Artificial Intelligence will do a disservice to the humans who depend upon it by making our lives too easy, perhaps enslaving us in the process. To sf writers, Alexa is a very naughty girl. In the far future of Light Chaser, AI controls worlds, assuring their stability but denying humans the resources they need to grow and achieve better lives.

The novel begins with Amahle and another person traveling to the home world of the Exalted. They are flying a strangelet into a star that will destroy all the worlds in the star’s system. The novel then backtracks to tell us why this is happening. Unfortunately, it doesn’t tell us enough.

Amahle is a Light Chaser. She is essentially immortal. She is under contract to fly a circuit at near light speed every thousand years. She makes port at various planets, where she trades goods with selected families. In exchange for those goods, family members have agreed to wear memory collars, passing them from generation to generation over the next thousand years. When Amahle returns, she collects the collars and issues new ones. The memory collars store the memories of everyone who wears them. Amahle spends her flight time reviewing the memories on the collars, which I suppose is like watching a steady diet of particularly boring soap operas.

Amahle’s human brain has limited storage capacity, so she can’t remember much of her early years. As she reviews the memory collars, she encounters humans who have messages for her — although the messages all originate from one human who seems to have taken various guises over the years, apart from his identifying tattoo. Piecing together those messages helps Amahle remember that she was once married. Her husband has something important to tell her about the AI that runs her ship. Eventually the messages cause her to distrust all the AIs that are running the systems on every human world. Why that information must be provided in pieces over multiple collars is never entirely clear.

Light Chaser is relatively short, probably short enough to qualify as a novella. Perhaps its length accounts for its failure to develop its themes in full. The AI that controls humanity could be giving humans more resources and better lives. We’re told that it doesn’t do so because its purpose is to assure stability, but we aren’t told why better lives would create instability. Some of the worlds Amahle visits are modern but others are medieval. What’s the point of not allowing (or helping) medieval societies to advance? How does the AI manage to keep humans in a medieval state for millennia? The ultimate purpose of the AI is to deliver memory collars and their stories to the Exalted, but it isn’t clear why the Exalted want stories of stable societies. Wouldn’t stories of unstable societies be more interesting? Nor is it clear why thriving societies would necessarily be unstable. Some of the worlds have attained a future version of modernity without losing their stability. Why won’t the AI allow that on every world?

Hamilton and Powell leave too many questions unanswered, all for the sake of illustrating a well-worn sf mantra: competition is good, managing human life is bad, unstable societies lead to progress unless everyone dies. The Exalted are a plot device rather than an actual race. We know almost nothing about them, apart from their residence “in the null-folds of the Cosmos,” a term that has the vagueness of gibberish, and their desire to “increase the experience which enriched them, by feeding on human experience like vampires of the mind.” What, I wonder, is so interesting about mundane human lives that the Exalted are enriched by experiencing them? Why would they be less enriched if they did not manipulate the human perception of reality, so that humans live in a reality apart from the “original reality we encountered when our souls first emerged into it from our holm beyond.” More gibberish, at least from my admittedly limited perception of reality.

Amanda’s experiences on the worlds she visits and the experiences of people whose memories she reviews demonstrate that the authors are capable of writing with warmth and feeling. Light Chaser is intriguing, but both authors are capable of telling better stories than this one. The clichés about trading stability for progress are too easy and the unanswered questions are too important to ignore. Light Chaser feels like a good idea that never evolved into the complex story that the idea merited.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS

Despite a rough experience with the Night’s Dawn trilogy, I once again find myself enjoying Peter F. Hamilton’s ability to create worlds. I found myself lured by two of Light Chaser’s promises. One, Light Chaser is a novella instead of a 2000 page epic; and two, he has a co-author, Gareth Powell. I figured why not give it a shot?

Light Chaser is the story of Amahle, a near immortal being (through the wonders of science and relativity) who travels the galaxy. Her mission is to trade trinkets and status for the memories of specific inhabitants on the various planets that populate her route. Her ship travels near the speed of light, creating vast separations of time between her visits to the same planets, allowing almost millenia to occur, making her a near mythical figure. However, in some of the memories she reviews, the same voice begins to reach out to her from different planets and different times. It warns her of a terrible secret, giving her the clues to solve the mystery and put an end to a nefarious scheme once and for all. Unfortunately for Amahle, it will take everything from her and destroy everything she knows.

Right off the bat I’ll tell you, Light Chaser was more enjoyable than I expected. Given my history with Hamilton’s stories, I was more or less reading this to get a quick taste of what he’s been up to, expecting to see the typical strengths and weaknesses of his other works. However, this book does something weird. It starts at the end of the story. For readers of Hamilton this is definitely out of place, but it came as a welcome change to the typical formula. I’ve never read one of Powell’s books, so I can’t tell if this is his influence, or a new direction from Hamilton, but this piqued my interest to say the least.

If you’re hoping for a playlist of Hamilton’s greatest hits, in some sense, you get what you pay for. His classic gigantic worldbuilding based around a pairing of technological innovations is all over this book. I wish there was a little more variety, and a little more meat on the bone in some of these scenarios, but Hamilton’s contributions are on shining display and serve the story well. Powell, on the other hand, seems to be in the driver seat for character and story, of which there is plenty. There is a frenetic and deliberate pace to the story that is focused around Amahle’s development of and complicity within the system she participates in. It is a more character focused story, the worldbuilding serves as impetus instead of it being the main focus. The plot and the worldbuilding enhance each other, creating a pleasant if sometimes bombastic mixture of the authors’ strengths.

The duo also goes through great pains to try and keep the time-based aspects of the story in check. It may not hold up under tight scrutiny, but they don’t just wave their hands and say “it’s our version of time,” while misdirecting you with witticisms. Instead, it plays both a functional and thematic role within the story and the life of Amahle.

However, I have a couple of complaints. The story does sometimes drag, especially towards the center of the low page count. The lack of variety, mixed with Amahle’s general apathy and dearth of curiosity, while poignant and thematically purposeful, sometimes made me want to scream “I get it!” It’s not bad, and it may work for most people. But for me it just feels like a little more could have been done to round out the more nefarious aspects of the society Amahle is a member of.

After my frustrations with some of Hamilton’s solo work, I feel collaborative projects might be to his benefit as it rounds out the strengths and weaknesses of his writing. He has a real talent detailing how societies would and do coalesce around specific technologies and use them to amplify existing power structures. It’s just the stories around that skill rarely interact with it, and Powell knew how to interact with it. He makes Amahle feel like a real person trapped by the overwhelming benefits of the system, who has to learn to make good. With their powers combined, Hamilton and Powell have written a neat novella that explores light speed in a fun, intense, and interesting way.

Review: Light Chaser 8.0/10
-Alex

Amahle is a Light Chaster, an explorer who travels the universe alone (except for their onboard AI), trading trinkets for life stories. When she listens to the stories, she hears the same voice talking directly to her from different times and on different worlds. She realizes something terrible is happening, and she is the only one who can do anything about it. And it will cost everything to put it right.

I did find the first chapter to be somewhat confusing. It seemed somewhat vague to me, and I didn’t know what was going on. I’m not sure why the authors went with that choice; I think it might’ve made more sense to put it near the end.

But the 2nd chapter made sense again, and from that point on it was a very enjoyable story. The mystery part of it was fun. I kept wondering who the voice actually was, what dangerous thing was happening, and if Amahle should trust the voice or not.

The worldbuilding was definitely interesting. We get to see different types of planets with a variety of civilizations. I also liked the idea of the memory collars and the nudge it gave to reality tv. Amahle basically binge-watches people’s lives, only to give the collars to people who will do the same thing. Almost like we’re keeping up with the Kardashians, eh?

The scope of worldbuilding that was put in is especially impressive if you consider that it’s a novella.

There were also some other compelling themes in the book, such as memory as identity, the potential dangers of technological advancements (but also of stagnation), and the concept of soulmates and reincarnation.

The story does make you think and reflect on your life and its meaning. What would people think if they saw my life through that memory collar? Am I living the best life possible?

That’s some deep stuff.

The ending was nice, although I’m still not entirely sure what or how that happened or how in the hell that was possible. And again, I feel they really shouldn’t have done that first chapter—that really was way too confusing and almost made me not read further—but just explained that bit at the appropriate time where they actually did it.

I also didn’t really feel that connected to Amahle. On the one hand, she was a nice character, who did her job and tried to do the right thing, but I felt that a lot of her growth was stuffed into a few paragraphs. So, some of the stuff she did, later on, didn’t always quite make sense to me.

Either way, if you’re looking for a fun afternoon read where you’ll visit multiple planets along with a bit of mystery: Light Chaser is the book for you.

I would like to thank the author and publisher for kindly providing an electronic review copy of this book.

"Light Chaser" by Peter F. Hamilton and Gareth L. Powell is an exciting page-turning space opera that spans both time and space. The reader is teased by possibilities in the very first chapter as we find the main characters in a futuristic ultra capable space craft on a mysterious and temporarily deadly but vital mission of some kind. The rest of the novel essentially explains the setting and conclusion. This is absolutely a hard core space opera in which the main character is a time traveler of a sorts. Through ultra-technology she is appears nearly immortal (which has more downsides than one might think), and by traveling at relativistic speeds through a number of stops on her "circuit" through the galaxy, she gets to visit each of her "stops" every thousand years or so. To add even more to the fluidity of time, she can relive the memories of certain people at her stops over the past thousands of years. Add to this messages given to these people at random planets at random times from a person purporting to be very dear to her, and the space opera takes on the ambiance of a chaotic love story. However, since no love story space/time opera is complete without an inscrutable shadowy but nearly omniscient and omnipowerful enemy and the story quickly turns into a struggle over the freedom and future of the entire human race.

This book has nearly everything I love about science fiction. I heartily recommend it for those who also like space opera, high-tech, space travel, AI that are not necessarily our buddies, and good story telling. I will keep my eyes open for more books by Peter F. Hamilton.

3.5 Stars

In this sci-fi novella by Peter F. Hamilton and Gareth L. Powell, we follow the Light Chaser Amahle. She, like other Light Chasers, travel through space alone with an AI, trading memories for trinkets. In these memories, a message from different voices and different times appears, seemingly from the same person. Something terrible is about to happen, and Amahle is the one to stop it.

At 176 pages, Light Chaser is a quick read for fans of the genre who are looking for something while in between books, or perhaps to finish in a day. While I enjoyed the plot, and the core message of the story, some of the jargon was hard to follow at times, and I ended up feeling a little confused about what was happening. Especially in the first chapter, where the amount of different ship parts, numbers and codes started to jumble together and left me a little lost. When the story begins to move along, it became easier to keep up with the story and the mystery that Amahle must solve.

I did appreciate that the physics of space travel between worlds was measured in the lightyears it would take to reach the different planets, which is rooted in actual science. So often space travel is sped along by some form of “warp speed”, so it was nice to see a change of pace in that regard. There is also a sweet love story at the core of this intergalactic tale, that plays an important role in Amahle’s mission to uncover the puzzle laid before her.

I found this title enjoyable, but wasn’t blown away by it. Overall the action scenes were confusing and hard to keep up, and Amahle was hard to connect to and sympathise with, however that could be by design, given the type of being she is and the job she does. I almost wish the book was longer, so I could really connect with the characters and how the world functions.

Overall, hardcore fans of sci-fi will enjoy this quick read with plenty of action, space travel, futuristic societies, and a conspiracy to unravel with an endearing love story. I only in recent years began to dive into the world of literary sci-fi, and perhaps some elements were lost on me. Again, a good story to read when you’re looking for something epic, but can be read in a day or two.

“You must not trust your AI.”

With these words from a boy with a mysterious tattoo, Amahle’s world begins to crumble. Her world is a stable one. She spends her life traveling from planet to planet collecting memories from collars that the Chosen wear. Her purpose never strays. Her AI plots the path. Takes care of her. Keeps her safe. That is, until she plays one particular memory.

Don’t trust the artificial intelligence that has run her ship for untold millennia? And who is this Carloman who seems to know her? How does he always know how to find her? How far is she willing to go to find answers?

Light Chaser, by Peter F. Hamilton and Gareth L. Powell, is a story of two long-lost lovers, separated by time and space. I was immediately drawn into the mystery of Carloman, and the story that unfolds. I was pleasantly surprised that with as fast of a read this novella was, it packed an emotional punch. My only regret for this book was that it wasn’t longer!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read Light Chaser as an advanced copy, in exchange for an honest review.

This was one of those books where there were a lot of cool and interesting details but absolutely nothing of substance. Our MC is boilerplate whose entire personality is pretending to be a God to spy on people from myriad worlds that all repeat the same life cycle over and over again ad infinitum. There's some nebulous alien power from the future that is passively forcing humanity to stagnate for what is essentially... Get this... REALITY TELEVISION.

The passage of time in the book made zero sense. Yes, space travel took a reasonable amount of time, but our plot depends on our MC consuming thousands of years of memories in maybe a decade to find secret clues. Can she fast forward? Like, there's not even an attempt to explain how she does it.

It was also super binary / heteronormative. Like, homegirl goes on a circuit of hundreds of planets in thousand-year cycles - literally sleeping her way around the occupied system - but there's no mention of her or anyone else being queer and the only pronouns we get are he and she (and it for the AIs).

I guess it was entertaining? But there were assumptions made with no explanation and no real fight, she's the only one who can save humanity (from being repetitive??) but suddenly there's an army of the initiated to cheer her on at the end? Not to mention the scattered flashbacks that aren't demarcated in any way, just dropped in the middle of things and then dropped right back out again so it would take a while to orient yourself in the timeline.

TL;DR: I read it so you don't have to.

Amahle is a Light Chaser: genetically enhanced for near-immortality, spending her life travelling between the stars and collecting life stories from the inhabitants of the planets on her route. Alone for decades, more, with only a ship’s AI for company, she often watches these collected recordings, seen through the subjects’ own eyes. Until, that is, the day that someone in a recording – now hundreds of years old – addresses not the person he’s talking to, but to Amahle directly. Across centuries and light years, she uncovers more and more impossible messages – and starts to question everything about her reality.

I’m a huge fan of Peter Hamilton’s space operas, and Gareth Powell’s work is on my TBR (soon) list, so this novella seemed like an excellent choice for me. My only real complaint is that it’s a bit on the short side – and I mean that as both ‘I would have loved to read more’, and also that the sheer scope of the ideas crammed in really needed a little more room to develop. Thus I found it rather jarring when Amahle suddenly has a flood of memories, changes the behaviour of centuries, and oooh boy, does she commit to the change!

I’d also like to have seen more of the worlds that she visits, understood more of the differences and the relationship these societies form with a being that visits at intervals of centuries. That all seemed a little glib, too – can you imagine someone turning up now and saying they’d had a deal with Isaac Newton, or Henry VIII, that we were expected to honour?

I felt that, because of the brevity, the novella came across a little more as social commentary dressed up in a little sci-fi – but, I didn’t quite catch on to that message immediately, only in afterthought. Still, I enjoyed the read: these are two fantastic authors, and it’s always fascinating to wonder how co-writing actually works – certainly, you can’t see any ‘seams’. There are some fantastic ideas crammed into this short space, so while yes, I think it could have been finessed a little in longer form, I’m very glad I got to read it.

Light Chaser is a new speculative science fiction novella written by Peter F. Hamilton and Gareth L. Powell. It's perfect for readers that love expansive space operas.

Amahle is what is known as a Light Chaser. She's an explorer, traveling across the universe all by herself. Okay, she isn't entirely alone. She has an AI to run the ship, and she comes across hundreds of humans each year, learning their stories as she goes.

Every place Amahle stops, she leaves behind devices that will capture the voices and stories of those she leaves behind. Later, she'll come back to collect and listen to those stories. Only, she's starting to notice a pattern as she does so. The same voice keeps reaching out through the eons.

"I think I'm finally scared."

It doesn't matter what your definition is, Light Chaser is by and far one of the most out there science fiction novels available. Both literally and figuratively. The writers strive to push the human mind and imagery to a whole new level.

This was a fascinating science fiction novella, one that had an interesting story to tell. I admit that I struggled to get into the narrative at first, mostly because the first chapter is so jarring, especially in comparison to the rest of the story.

My one complaint with this novel is that I felt a lack of attachment to Amahle. Maybe that's simply because of the way the novella started? But honestly, I think it was more than that. Her character was designed to be set away from humanity, and she reads as such for good or for ill.

4.5 stars

Amahle is a Light Chaser--someone who has given up their life to travel the stars. She visits planets on rotations, every thousand years, and bestows gifts upon the population. In return, she receives memory collars, which show her the thousand years of memories worn by a certain family. One day, while watching one of the memories, someone speaks directly to her. Do not trust your AI.

She digs deeper, and finds more messages. Who is this strange person, and how do they know her? What do they know about her AI that she doesn't? She's worked with her AI for thousands of years. Why stop trusting it now?

I want more. I absolutely loved this book, even if the beginning threw me off, and I want more. I want more from this world, from this galaxy, from Amahle. The idea of being a Light Chaser is so interesting to me, I honestly hope there will be a sequel or spin-off, or even, *fingers crossed* a full length novel in this world!

Tordotcom always scratches my itch when it comes to Space Operas. This is my first read by both Hamilton and Powell, and I definitely plan on adding more of their stuff to my TBR.

Thank you to NetGalley, Tordotcom, and Peter F. Hamilton & Gareth Powell for this advanced review copy! Light Chaser releases on August 24th.

Light Chaser is a novella length work from Gareth L. powell and Peter F. Hamilton. Those two have written some of my favourite science fiction of the last decade, so seeing them together was enough to make this mandatory reading. I’m happy to say that I went in with high expectations, and they were surpassed. This is some top notch science fiction, combining a universe sprinkled with fascinating environments and different societies, with characterisation that lets you feel the pain, the struggle, the hope and the love of our protagonist, makes them feel real, and with an overarching story which keeps you wanting to turn pages until it’s far too late at night.

Light Chasers circle the worlds of a galactic civilisation. Some of those worlds are high-tech utopia, others are more medieval hellscapes. But each is linked together on the route of a LightChaser. These pilots have ships moving at significant amounts of lightspeed - centuries for the rest of us pass as moments for them. The Lightchasers drop in on each world on their route, observe society, and collect information about it before removing on to the next world in their loop. They’re people out of time, chasing an ouroboros. And we’re following one of these wanderers across space and time, as they dip in and out of everyone else’s lives. In part, this is a story that’s a meditation on loneliness and connection. In the way different people and places speak to each other, and in the way that those tying the web together sometimes spend their time alone, outside of the societies which rely on them. Because a Lightchaser isn’t really from anywhere, not any more - and as they live on for centuries, enhanced beyond their natural span, they slowly forget more and more of themselves, losing who they were in the eternal now of who they are.


Powell and Hamilton are past-masters at creating living, breathing, believable worlds, and they do that again here. Each place we see is different, and special, and vividly drawn, and feels real.


This is matched by the Lightchaser herself, a woman who lives in the silent spaces between the stars, content in the endless round of circling her route between the stars. Cynical and world weary and craving experiences that are more than her boundaries allow. But also an explorer, and alone, and looking for something genuine, a sense of connection in the individual which is mirrored in the connections she enables in the worlds. The Lightchaser is smart and funny and wounded and sometimes painful to read, and still very, very human. As someone living in an eternal now, we're looking over their shoulder into both the new and old, trying to figure it out as she does.


And figure it out she must. Because there is something rotten in the state of Denmark. Or in the state of the universe, at any rate. Everything is not as it seems, and although I won’t spoil it, I’ll say this: the story is tightly plotted, letting out a slow burn of revelation which will keep you coming back to the story, and which certainly kept me reading until well past my bedtime.


Light Chaser is a smart, high-concept piece of sci-fi, with a great, well realised protagonist, a universe filled with different human societies which feel new, alien and real at the same time, and with a story that doesn’t let up, and won’t let go. In short, it’s great fun, and a great read. Give it a try.

I don't read many dual-authored novellas, and was incredibly curious about this one. I'd never read anything by Peter F. Hamilton, but really enjoy Gareth Powell's writing. While I enjoyed the majority of this books, I think that the story it was trying to tell felt a little larger than the novella format could contain.

I loved the concept of this book and really liked Amahle as a character, but something about this book felt just a little off. There are some spoilers ahead because I simply can't explain without revealing a little!

Amahle is told that The Bad Thing is happening, and she blindly trusts her information without any real reason. On a superficial level I understand, however if one is going to take the huge steps she does in order to stop This Thing from happening I feel like there would need to be a lot more than blind trust on her part. This is the point that makes me feel like this story was too big for a novella -- Amahle simply doesn't think about what she's told in any critical way. The entire story hinges on this intense trust and it just didn't feel wise -- to the point of actually making some events of the book uncomfortable.

Again, I really enjoyed bits of this book, but with a large part of the story feeling unbelievable, it was a good read for me that could have been a brilliant one!

Upon starting this novella I was concerned with the length. How could such a short story due justice to such a grand concept? Though I wish this was a full length novel, or even the start of a series, I'm happy to say that it very much worked. This is a very moving, philosophical work of hard sci fi written by two masters of their craft.

A novella that could be interpreted as a direct rebuttal to Francis Fukuyama, Light Chaser is a deftly written space opera whose slender size belies the big ideas its authors are tackling.

Collaborations are tricky businesses, but Gareth Powell and Peter F. Hamilton’s work here shows that the results can produce a unique and engaging chemistry. Both of these authors are best known for tackling space opera, but Powell has usually provided more action-heavy fare while Hamilton has gone for vast sweeping epics. Light Chaser is an interesting balance of both of their strengths.

Set in a distant future where a human diaspora has populated millions of planets across the universe, the novella follows a near immortal traveller Amahle whose task is to document, collate, and share the memories and experiences of those living in these worlds. After working on this task for millennia, Amahle’s memory of her own experiences has faded, providing an interesting point of reflection on the role of the cultural archivist.

The worlds she visits are disparate but stable. Some could be described as high-tech civilizations, while others are immiserated medieval monarchies. What all these societies have in common, however, is that they are stable and unchanging. Humanity has hit a steady state; this is the ‘End of History.’

One of the nicely used tools for worldbuilding employed by the authors is Amahle’s collection of work experiences. By allowing her to vicariously live the memories of a few inhabitants of civilizations she visits, the reader is provided an ethnographic glimpse of the civilization instead of a summative infodump.

As her travels progress, Amahle starts to receive coded messages from a mysterious sender in her past… and starts piecing together the fact that her AI companion on these voyages may have ulterior motives. At moments, this may remind readers of the 2010 Hugo-winning movie Moon.

Be forewarned: the ending that may be undermined by the narrative structure of the novella. For example, the book starts at the end of the plot and even five pages in, the reader already knows that the protagonist will sacrifice herself and her partner in order to kill an ancient and evil force. So it doesn’t come as much surprise when the reader learns that this ancient evil force is behind the stagnation of the human race, nor does it surprise when they start preparing to sacrifice themselves.

That being said, the novel is very welcome for its implicit criticism of complacent feel-good neoliberal end-of-history ideology that leaves major portions of the human race trapped as part of low-wage low-rights pools of exploitable labour. The metaphor was both incisive and perfectly woven into the story.

Light Chaser is an absolutely essential text for fans of either author, offering the punchy dialogue and sprightly pacing of Powell’s best work and the quirky-big-space-idea think pieces of Hamilton’s. It will likely find a place on several of our nominating ballots next year.

This is, by far, my best scifi read of 2021. This hard-scifi with a lot of focus in character development really got me in the guts. It's a pageturner full, and I mean FULL of ideas, well-writing scenes and an amazing core that unfolds like a rose. I am going to re-read it again.