Exodus: The Helium Sea by Peter F. Hamilton (book review)

Peter F. Hamilton is well known as a crafter of sprawling space opera. Hamilton has turned out quite a number of them. Probably his best-known works are the ‘Night’s Dawn’ trilogy (averaging about 1,100 pages per volume) and anyone who has read them knows what I am talking about.

In the previous and first volume ‘Exodus: Become The Traveller’, Hamilton introduces us to the Centauri Cluster some 16,000 light years from Earth and colonised in about 18,000AD. The earliest settlers found habitable worlds and set up the Green Worlds signal to draw the other arkships and set about creating a new civilisation. Various other arkships gradually arrive over the next 20,000 years. However, the earlier colonists use genetic engineering and advanced technology to deviate from the baseline, with some truly transcendent examples.

By 30,000AD, a particularly advanced species of humanity called the Elohim had created technology capable of moving planets and setting up numerable habitable systems, as well as building a series of interstellar gates between the systems known as the Gates of Heaven. In some of the subsequent 5,000 years, five separate powerful families of celestial humans head out to form their own advanced cultures under the guidance of five immortal queens.

In 42,350AD. the arkship Diligent arrives with its natural humans and inspirational leader Josias Matthew Aponi, the man who has walked on Old Earth. By the end of ‘Become The Traveller’, the humans have been conned into taking the blame for the nefarious bad guys’ plot. Now one queen, Thyra-Helena, has taken over from the others to rule the whole Centauri Cluster.

At the start of the second book, ‘Exodus: The Helium Sea’, we have to pick up several strands from the first book, notably Finbar Jalgori-Tobu, owner of the arkship Diligent, who is reeling from having been mentally compelled by one of the evil queen’s generals. That general, named Gyvoy, compelled Finbarr to use an Archimedes engine to destroy the inhabited world of Kelowan. We also have to pick up the tale of Terence Wilson-Fisher, a human detective who has the implanted personality of a major celestial in the back of his mind, giving him an astonishing level of knowledge and competency.

However, the book actually opens with a flashback to the downfall of the fantastically cruel Queen Zuberi-Dulcina on Kelowan some 7,000 years prior to the ‘present’. It seems that Zuberi has decided to subjugate all the other queens with compulsion technology so she can ‘evolve’ humanity to the point where they can take over the Elohim’s supremacy. We meet Countess Liliana, Zuberi’s daughter and head scientist for their mad genetic enhancements, and Dagon, Zubari’s son, Liliana’s brother and their rather blood-thirsty general. This flashback shows that contrary to belief, not all; of Zuberi’s family perished when the other queens wiped this line out, so naturally we can expect them to pop up again later in the volume.

So will the baseline humans be able to reveal the truth cleansing their own reputation and foiling the bad guys’ plan? Well, although this book certainly has its labyrinthine plots, it is generally more simply plotted than the first volume. Mostly the humans are on the run, trying to avoid battlefleets and technological spies long enough to actually find out the truth. Along the way, they tend to figure out the villain’s motivations and plans, often beating them to the punch.

After a while, the efforts of Thyra-Helena to take over the entire cluster becomes fairly obvious to the remaining queens. These remaining queens in turn starts to suspect that the baseline humans have been used as a covering scapegoat for the villains and, at this point, the plot opens out a bit. Josias Aponi has a plan to negotiate with Thyra, having stolen the various weapons the villains were trying to secure. Meanwhile, Terence Fisher starts to gain influence with the other queens. At this point, the resolution starts to become somewhat more murky.

This reviewer has never actually read a Hamilton volume he did not enjoy. However, this does not mean that some are not better than others. Indeed, I know of no authors who will not admit that some of their books are inferior to the rest. A such I do have a criticism of this book and a slightly unusual one at that. Hamilton has done a great job of making the villains truly detestably evil. Without trying to give too much of a spoiler, the good guys will eventually triumph but not after a fair bit of anguish and hardship at the villains’ hands. So, when the villains do finally go, why is it always off-camera? The good guys use quite a bit of ingenuity in engineering the villains downfall but we don’t get to see the look of disbelief on the villains’ faces or the realisation they have lost after all this time at the hands of mere humans. I therefore found the climax of the book slightly, well, anti-climactic.

At the end of the day, do I recommend this book? The answer is a qualified yes. However, it will make a lot more sense if you start with the first volume. This is a direct sequel to ‘Become The Traveller’ and both are quite complex with lots of characters. It is also possible that a reader might not find such an enormous book to be a sensible undertaking. I guess if you are that kind of person then you will know to avoid this simply looking at the physical dimensions. Taking both volumes together as one I am happy to report that Hamilton has delivered another solid and fun space opera. This is seriously good stuff. Great characters, a terrific story, a future that seems ‘right’ and a talent for making tech seem easy to understand even when fantastic but essential to the plot. Hamilton is a mighty colossus who stands astride literary SF.

Dave Corby

August 2026

(pub: TOR-UK, 2026. 752 page hardback. Price: £25.00 (UK). ISBN: 978-1-52907-378-2)

check out website: www.panmacmillan.com/authors/peter-f-hamilton/exodus-the-helium-sea/9781529073782