Pandora's Star

The Commonwealth Saga is a vast, sprawling space opera that is spread over several novels and short stories. In a precursor to the main series, Misspent Youth, a rejuvenation procedure and memory crystals allow the people of the Commonwealth to live virtually forever. But the series really gets going with Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained, which are set some 300 years later when humans have discovered wormhole technology which has allowed them to colonise scores of planets across hundreds of light years. Then astronomers discover that two distant stars have been enclosed within Dyson Spheres virtually simultaneously.When a ship is sent to investigate, they unleash an alien race that believes the only way to secure its own future is to wipe out every other sentient creature in the universe. What follows is a desperate, devastating war in which the humans are finally able to lock the aliens within their Dyson Spheres once more, but only at tremendous cost.Set 1200 years after these events, the Void Trilogy, The Dreaming Void, The Temporal Void and The Evolutionary Void take the story further with an object called the Void at the heart of the galaxy. Although the Void resembles a black hole, it is not a natural object, and the Raiel believe it threatens all life in the galaxy. So when an expedition from the Commonwealth wants to enter the Void, it sets in motion all sorts of conflicts.Most recently, The Abyss Beyond Dreams is the first of two books set between the original Commonwealth series and the Void Trilogy. It concerns an attempt to infiltrate the Void and rescue humans trapped there, only to discover that the laws of physics are different and the key to escape is held by a race of merciless killers. Why It Made the List"Space Opera doesn't get much more epic," one reviewer said at the end of the Void Trilogy. A cast of thousands, a vast span of time and space, spectacular storytelling, science fiction really doesn't get much meatier than this.