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Title: The Reality Dysfunction Part 2: Expansion by Peter F. Hamilton ISBN: 0-446-60516-6 Publisher: Warner Books Pub. Date: 01 August, 1997 Format: Mass Market Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.42 (62 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Riverworld meets Space Opera
Comment: Have you ever read a story and experienced a moment where you stopped seeing the words and started seeing the world through the eyes of the characters? That is what happened to me while reading "The Reality Dysfunction: Expansion." There is a wonderful space battle in this book that is worth the price of admission. And happily there are other reasons to recommend this book - lively characters, gripping battles, and loads of action make for major amounts of space opera fun.
Unfortunately, this is not a perfect book. The story can get longwinded at times. I often found myself wondering if the author was being paid by the word. But would the story be better if it was briefer? I'm not convinced. And I'm concerned that some of the better moments would be lost. And this book is sorely in need of an editor. Characters disappear for major stretches of the story, then reappear without a by your leave. It makes it difficult to follow the story at times. Weeks pass for some while hours pass for others. Very annoying.
But there are some wonderful moments and some fine concepts at work here. What would society be like if everyone could honestly share thoughts and emotions telepathically? Just how would your life be changed if you had proof of an afterlife? I think these are ideas worth exploring and expounding upon.
This is not heavy literature. It's modern, pulp science fiction. Written to be enjoyed.
Rating: 5
Summary: Excellent sequel!
Comment: When I finished reading the first Reality Dysfunction book, I was left wondering what was going to happen next since Hamilton tends to end his books as abruptly as they begin. There was no decernable main character in the first book, but, about halfway in you realize that Josh Calvert is definetly the binding factor for most of the numerious storylines that wind their way throughout the book.
Any writing issues that were in the first book were long gone in this one, leaving the writing much better and giving the story a much better scense of direction.
As usual, the story is amazing, letting you get ahead of yourself saying "oh, that's easy, they're going to do bla bla bla next" and then it turns out they do something totally different, adding another layer to the story in the process.
I'm very glad that Hamilton exended the Possesed's characters more, offering an interesting prospective of the human spirit, if you like to think that deep... =)
Either way, if you were slightly disapointed by Emergence, read this before you form any opinions about Hamilton, you'll be pleasantly surprised of what Hamilton is capable of.
Rating: 5
Summary: Amazon download/review mistakes
Comment: "In the far future...The Edenists are genetically engineered space-dwellers with telepathic affinity to their biotechnological homes and ships. Adamists are...the Luddites of the future, willing to pioneer new worlds... The two clash on a primitive world called Lalonde..." Amazon.com review
As I have a bone or two to pick, don't read on unless you've read the novel: Despite the Amazon.com summary, the Edenists and Adamists do not "clash." In fact, they have nothing to do with each other, which is one of the premises of the novel. Adamists resolutely go their own low tech way. They are, however, as Hamilton puts it, "sequestrated" because their newly colonized planet Lalonde is the vortex entry point for
the souls of the DEAD. It isn't the hard working Adamist colonists hacking a life out of the frontier who confront the Edenists, but the reincarnated Dead. And that's a whole
nuther ballgame.
The Planet Lalonde is a pretty insane place. But for the Amazon "review" of part I, "Emergence" to call an Adamist priest "an ineffectual ....shocked by the world he has
come to settle... " is essentially an unfair and misleading characterization because it's relevant only to the first half of the novel. As anyone who has read the entire novel knows, the priest is the sole adult on the entire Planet to survive in his own skin. So if that is being "ineffectual," one has to wonder what "effectual" means. Indeed, what strikes me as ineffectual is loosing one's will and identity to another personality come
from the Beyond. In point of fact, the priest heroically saves some 23 children from being consumed by metaphysical beings incarnated into the living bodies of each and every colonist. Each and every, that is, except him. And this, I assume, is because he is the only man of the cloth, the only Adamist churchman. He alone goes through the gauntlet from Hell; but he emerges as himself. HIS self; not somebody else's. He alone
remains who he is. That seems pretty effectual to me.
And finally, "Joining the large cast of characters is Graeme Nicholson, a reporter....who will regret ever learning about the biggest story to hit the galaxy in a thousand years." Amazon.com review
Graeme who? The guy at the bar in scene one who is never mentioned again? That Graeme? Either I missed something, or Graeme Nicholson does not join the cast. And regret? I don't recall him actually regretting anything since I don't recall him being part of the plot.
In any event, Peter Hamilton has, in this novel, created a space opera that helps define contemporary SF. For lack of a better term, this novel is awesome. Its big, its bulky, its a
fantabulously detailed mind-boggling melding of DH Lawrence, Buck Rogers and HP Lovecraft (or something like that): Heroes and Maidens indulge in country matters; Living Habitats for a number of species germinated by a kind of Medici royalty have the
capacity to download the "soul" of a dying person; there are the technologies of ancient civilizations of unknown origin to be studied; and, of course, the incursion of the souls from the Beyond to wage a cosmic civil war, etc, etc. What's not to like?
Finally, beware axegrinding naysayers who after a thousand pages decide they don't like what they're reading. If they wasted their time, it's not the book's fault.
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Title: The Neutronium Alchemist : Part I - Consolidation by Peter F. Hamilton ISBN: 0446605174 Publisher: Warner Books Pub. Date: 01 April, 1998 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: The Neutronium Alchemist : Conflict (Neutronium Alchemist, No 2) by Peter F. Hamilton ISBN: 0446605468 Publisher: Warner Books Pub. Date: 01 May, 1998 List Price(USD): $6.50 |
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Title: The Naked God Part 1 : Flight by Peter F. Hamilton ISBN: 0446608971 Publisher: Aspect Pub. Date: 01 November, 2000 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: The Naked God, Part 2: Faith by Peter F. Hamilton ISBN: 0446605182 Publisher: Aspect Pub. Date: 01 December, 2000 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: A Second Chance at Eden by Peter F. Hamilton ISBN: 0446606715 Publisher: Aspect Pub. Date: 01 January, 1999 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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