Article contributed by Jena Brown
Peter F. Hamilton and Gareth L. Powell team up in this explosive, action-packed novella about a love that transcends lifetimes and is powerful enough to destroy an empire.
Amahle is a traveller who sails through the universe with nothing for company but the ship’s AI. Known throughout the universe as a Light Chaser, her route takes her to worlds throughout The Domain, where she collects memories in exchange for various goods.
But when she discovers memories from different lives and different worlds that are meant for her, and seem to be from the same person, she begins to question her entire existence. Each memory unlocks Amahle’s own memories and slowly reveals an elusive enemy with a horrifying plan. Amahle realises she’s the only one who can do anything to stop it, but it will cost her everything.
For a shorter book, this story packs an incredible punch. Light Chaser comes in at 173 pages, yet it is epic and expansive, taking us through worlds and lifetimes in rapid succession. Rather than feeling rushed or lacking, the prose is razor sharp, carving out exactly what we need to understand the world and the technology while propelling us forward.
We are thrown into the story with a beginning that serves to disorient us as much as inform. Which makes sense as Amahle herself is unsure of who she is, or rather, who she was. Thanks to genetic modification she lives longer than most humans, and since she travels incredible distances across galaxies, time dilation means she’s as close to immortal as anyone can get. More than that, she collects memories, living other people’s lives to preserve the continuity of reality and keep the universe stable. And there’s only so many memories a person can keep. With each life she experiences through these memory necklaces, she loses pieces of herself. Until one of the memories asks her to remember.
Light Chaser is an epic space opera, spanning entire galaxies within the covers. And yet, it’s an intimate story of how a person can lose themselves in the mundanity of existence. Amahle is a distant character. She spends most of her time with her AI. Humanity is something she watches from a distance. Even when she interacts with them, it’s a moment, something she plays with rather than immerses herself in. It’s difficult to know her, to really connect with her, because how well can we know a character that doesn’t know herself. Amahle sees hundreds of civilisations, meets thousands of people, and yet, she prefers her time alone, living in the memories rather than the reality.
Over time, Amahle loses herself, something she acquiesces to, believing there’s nothing worth holding onto from her own life. She’s helpless and it’s only in the process of remembering who she is that she becomes powerful once again. This is a journey we undergo with her, discovering and solving the mysteries as she discovers them while getting to know her as she reconciles who she was with who she wants to be. It’s impossible to not draw parallels between Amahle and how easy it is to get lost in our own technological worlds, to lose our connection through too much connectivity. How much do we lose? And who would bring us back?
This is a story that could easily have been expanded. We could have spent more time in the various worlds. Lived with Amahle and gone through a deeper journey of discovery. But there’s a sort of poetic irony that while Amahle’s travels span thousands of years, the book is condensed into only the essentials, giving us what we need, letting us experience only what’s essential. It doesn’t diminish from the story, instead the focused prose gives us a sense of what Amahle herself experiences. Glimpses of civilisations in time, the feeling when days blur together making them both endless and fleeting, the longing for something, anything to change. This isn’t a story meant to linger. We meet Amahle at a point when she longs for change, creating a subtle urgency driving her forward. She doesn’t want to focus on the past, no longer wants to live in memories, or rely on superficial forays into unchanging worlds.
The distilled storytelling helps the reader focus on the core essence of the story. Like all hard science fiction stories, Light Chaser asks us to examine the role technology plays in our lives. When does convenience halt progress? When does stability hurt us more than it helps us? When does easy connection lead to isolation and loneliness? Each world deals with technology in their own way. Some reject it, some covet it, and some use it as a method of control. But what if none of that is accidental? Technology can advance us, but as Hamilton and Powell make clear, a tool can easily be turned into a weapon. It all depends on who wields it.
Fans of hard science fiction will love the no-nonsense approach to not just the story but the technology itself. This may be a story about the power of love and the importance of finding our humanity in a futuristic universe, but the technology isn’t glossed over or neglected. We get a lot of straight-forward details as to how everything from elements of the ship operates, how these worlds were created and continue to exist, along with how some civilisations have chosen to use technology or outright ignore it. It’s matter of fact, which makes sense given Amahle would no longer be enamoured by anything anymore, but it’s also vivid and wonderous, allowing our imaginations to run wild with the endless possibility such advancements would allow.
This juxtaposition of technology versus humanity is the heart of this story. We rely on it; but we shouldn’t lose ourselves to it. While this book is very much a plot-driven narrative, the philosophical questions raised through the characters and worlds last long after we turn the final page. Light Chaser is a fictional thought experiment, asking us to imagine the meaning of connection, humanity, evolution, advancement, and love in an extreme microcosm. It presents specific questions regarding memory and human connection, and how to move forward technologically without losing our humanity. But these questions apply to broader circumstance and are relevant to our current lives in so many ways. While the story itself plays out one particular resolution, the future of these characters is open and infinite––just like ours is.
Light Chaser is for science fiction fans who love stories that let them turn their eyes to the stars and imagine an infinite future. It’s meant to spark conversation and get us to ask questions. This is a book fans will come back to again and again, as each reading offers more details of things we missed or misunderstood. It may be a short story, but there’s no denying that it’s a powerful one.
Light Chaser is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore.
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Synopsis | Goodreads
In Peter F. Hamilton and Gareth L. Powell’s action-packed sci-fi adventure Light Chaser, a love powerful enough to transcend death can bring down an entire empire.
Amahle is a Light Chaser – one of a number of explorers, who travel the universe alone (except for their onboard AI), trading trinkets for life stories.
But when she listens to the stories sent down through the ages she hears the same voice talking directly to her from different times and on different worlds. She comes to understand that something terrible is happening, and only she is in a position to do anything about it.
And it will cost everything to put it right.
