Point of View

Hamilton writes in the third person omniscient voice. He experiments with different levels of intimacy with his character point of view. A few times, when writing from the point of view of an unknown alien force, he abandons omniscience and writes of the Confederation and its many different people as though every aspect of them, down to their physical construction is foreign.

The point of view switches often, and Hamilton is not afraid to jump into the minds of multiple characters in the same scene. He plays some favorites of course, returning to the minds of principle characters like Joshua Calvert, Ione Saldana, Ralph Hiltch, Al Capone, and Erick Thakrar regularly.

Psychological exploration of the internal emotional states of the many characters is kept to a minimum, as Hamilton focuses on action to tell the story. Characters are, in general, reduced to clichés, and fall...