Hidden Empire is another one of those books that I remember enjoying as a teenager, but hadn't re-read for years. Returning to it was an interesting experience, as it one of those odd books that has some really good aspects, while also containing much that is terrible; a bit like a photo that someone has edited to turn the contrast up to 11, so there's nothing left but pure black and white.
Hidden Empire's strengths and its weaknesses are, in some ways, two sides of the same coin. It has an enormous cast of characters and a very detailed world that Anderson clearly spent much thought and effort in developing. While not as strongly grounded in biology or sociology as novels I have read since, the alien cultures are a step beyond Star Trek's humans with strange head adornments (I love Star Trek, but wish more effort was put into developing other species) and have genuinely interesting cultures and biologies. There's also a good sense of history to the setting and some nice mysteries that are slowly unravelled as the story progresses. Despite the sheer volume of them, Anderson's characters also manage to feel like real (albeit slightly stereotyped) people, with genuine goals and differing experiences of the world. In short, there's enough to provide interest and characters that are relatable enough to care about.
Unfortunately, where Hidden Empire falls flat is in the way that this detail and complexity is presented to the reader: the book is about 90% info-dumps, with very little else going on. Even in the action scenes, more words are dedicated to describing how all the military technology works than to what is actually happening. It is a complicated book and setting, and I would be inclined to forgive some of the exposition, were it not for the even greater sin committed: many of the long info-dumps are repeated over, and over again, with very little change in wording. The first time that I read about why the Roamer Clans (space gypsies) are wary of losing their independence, or how the Ildirans (the main alien species) are divided into a biological cast system, it was interesting, but by the end of the book almost identical descriptions had been given at least six or seven times. It really felt as if each chapter had been written as a short story, with no presumed prior context from previous chapters. If each fact had been given only once, and then the assumption made that the reader would remember, the book could have been cut down to about half of its length, and been all the better for it.
In the end, I did enjoy the story of Hidden Empire again, even if the actual process of reading it was more painful than it should have been. While nice to return to something I enjoyed as a youth, however, I don't think I'll be reading the next 6 books in the series again any time soon; a shame, as they do have many good aspects.
