Hope's End

Vel Chronicles

by Stephen Chambers

On a planet decimated by plague and political upheaval, young Vel has survived by living on his wits. A seasoned con man who has learned to think only of himself, Vel is forced to choose sides in a civil war. But the choice is made more complicated when Vel learns the truth about a mysterious alien race that predated the settlers of Hera.

It turns out that Vel may not be who he thinks he is.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Fiction

320 pages, Hardcover

First published August 11, 2001

Reviews

[Cheryl · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is awful. It's too long and too stupid. There are a lot of filler pages. And women are seen as the lowest entity, below rocks.

[Molly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hope's End was a pleasant surprise to read. It had engaging characters, an exciting plot, and great anti-fascist politics spread through its narrative. One could complain that it's too on the nose, but I find that being explicit about things like these is vital so the far-right doesn't twist it in their image. I do wonder how deliberate the anti-capitalistic statements about hereditary wealth was, but it's appreciated regardless.

That's not to say that the book is flawless. It's painfully obvious that Vel's parents will die because they don't have names, the female characters seem to exist only to serve male character instead of having their own ambitions, and I think it's a shame that Vel's abilities as a con-artist were dropped instead of implemented into the story.

Despite those flaws, which does sour a large part of the story for me, I still had a great time reading Hope's End, mostly for its thematic ideas, which I enjoyed immensely.

[Beth (Bepi) · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well written sci-fi fantasy that comes across as a full fantasy until the big reveal happens. Good characters and a fast moving story!

[Stacey Moffitt · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not a bad story but the characters weren't very likeable - none of them.

[Diane · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book did not exactly leave me with warm, fluffy feelings of happily ever after. But I cannot deny that it was gripping and well thought out.

I thought that it was an alternate dimension where humans live on another planet; not very connected to our world and our time. A different civilization, social structure and government. It's interesting, and it keeps me reading. As the novel progresses, I find out that there is a connection with our world, our present, our past. There are all sort of "oh!" moments when you recognize something or you get certain references.

The characters weren't as developed as I would've liked them (which is probably a good thing for this book); I felt that they were a little wooden. Nevertheless, I was fond of some of them including (of course) the protagonist, Vel. The story is, after all, about him. He discovers a lot of things about himself in this book, like who he really is but not everything is resolved just yet, I have to pick up the sequel to find out more. I'm not rushing to find book 2, but I am very curious what happens to him.

Slightly enraged fangirlish post scriptum:

Dear Mr. Chambers,
I can't believe you killed off Lydia. It was gruesome too. Why oh why?

I know it was foreshadowed and all, but I really liked her and I shipped Vel/Lydia.

My heart is broken.

[Wealhtheow · Rating 1 out of 5]

The surviving human colony on Hope is barely clinging to survival: a fearsome plague kills hundreds, the harvest is too small, and the leaders are increasingly crazy and/or fascist. Vel, an annoying, whiny, privileged little idiot who thinks he's very clever indeed, gets caught up in dangerous machinations because he's secretly related to the royal family. The author clearly hadn't thought very hard about how the colony worked, and his laziness showed. Hope is a dreadfully inconsistant place. This, coupled with my dislike of Vel, led me to give up on this book about halfway through.

[Dee · Rating 1 out of 5]

Gave up circa page 90. To then, it was half bog-standard traditional fantasy, half extreme exercise in style, never both at the same time. The fantasy lacked shine (absence of details, info-dumped worldbuilding, ho-hum orphan-of-prophecy) and the parts where the writing became vivid and visceral lacked coherence. The protagonist was selfish, lazy and obnoxious, without the charisma (or internal conflict) to make it work anyway, and his hooks into the plot were tenuous and happenstance. The links to "our earth" were not intriguing enough to pull me through all the rest of it.

[S.A. Parham · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although the book suffered from a jumbled and sometimes erratic plot, the characters and the overall storyline were worth finishing the book. I'd read the rest of the series if I could find them at the library or used, but I wouldn't pay new book price for it.