I Read Books: Eternal Light
MacAuley’s sequel to 400 Billion Stars finds Dorthy Yoshida still in the custody of the navy after ten years and wanting to tell her story (which includes the secret history of the galaxy). Fortunately with the war over some of the Golden, the immortal wealthy, and the Witnesses, a religious sect who worship prior alien races (or rather... well it’s complicated) are unhappy with the status quo. Several missions to a star that is approaching human space at a significant percentage of the speed of light are occurring, and one of these takes Dorthy and a motley assortment of others.
There they find a wormhole to the centre of the galaxy where the Marauders are (mis-)using ancient technology. Eventually their continual creation of habitats to live on will cause a phase change in the universe, destroying everything.
Oh, the ancient aliens can’t return from where they’ve transcended, but while in the wormhole they made some changes to the ships and the people. Also Dorthy still has some alien presence in her head.
It’s complicated, and then, after the climax, they find themselves back on a transformed Earth.
This is less focussed and sparse than 400 Billion Stars, the action and setting somewhat hiding the bleak, terrible (in)significance at the heart of the earlier book. But it pulls it off, especially with the final chapters where despite everything they’ve done and been through, the human race has got on with things and screwed them up in their own unexpected way.
Read This: For some good, excellently written space opera
Don’t Read This: If you want answers that aren’t depressing.
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