![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The Dreaming Void - Peter F Hamilton
Aug. 16th, 2007 11:20 am24 (*)- The Dreaming Void - Peter F Hamilton
Ok, so you know this is a Hamilton from the moment you try and lift it. Yes, another bloody great soap opera so heavy you need a truss to lift it and not written in conjunction with anybody else. My first impressions were not great. Generally I like Peter's style. It's not mind taxing and he does chrome like no other - excellent world building, good aliens, nice stuff.
The problem with this one is that he's set it in a familar universe - this is set 1500 years after the events in Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained. These didn't make for a bad story, just that there is nothing in the 600,000 odd words that really couldn't have been told in 200,000. A problem he encountered with The Night's Dawn also.
After ploughing through the first 150 or so pages, the plot started making an appearance. It was a coy thing, a hint ankle here and there, a wrist, an indication of interest and greatness in there, but frankly you still couldn't easily see passed the brocade and other stuff in there. He hit his stride around page 200 when the cast had finally assembled and you knew where he was going. This is only a third into the book, and this book is the first of a triology.
So, it's bloated and flirtatious. What else?
Well, as usual, generally simple prose - nothing that will tax the mind here. Some bad POV jumps, a couple are intended, a couple more just bad editing (see above). His characters are pretty well defined, his dialogue is pretty good, the aliens are excellent. The vision for a post singualarity society is actually quite interesting, with a mix of worlds, cultures and viewpoints. The take on post-human and human interaction was nicely done too.
The problems come when the plot turns up. Soon after the first human-alien war, with the nicely designed "prime" lifeform. Humanity undertakes a detailed exploration of the universe, finding the "Void" and it's alien watchers. The Void is an expanding piece of new universe of undetermined origin. In this regard we're tredding some familar ground which other writers have done in smaller and more compact works. The challenge starts when humans find a way to interact with the "people" inside the Void itself and a movement starts to join them.
There are various diversions and alurms ahead for this "interaction" and a lot of really bad sex. My primary concern is once you realise what is happening in some of the sequences inside the Void, you are left wondering what all the fuss is about. In fact, one of the protagonists sums up my feelings about 90% of the way through book 1.
I'll certainly stick with it, but this isn't a good start - it needs editing, somebody needs to work to pair down the ideas and get to the spine of the story and stick there. There's so much cool stuff in here, much of it is wasted.
If you liked his other stuff, you'll probably like this if you can stick through the first 200 pages. If you didn't you'd probably best avoid.
(*) - I think this should count as 3 books... ;)
Ok, so you know this is a Hamilton from the moment you try and lift it. Yes, another bloody great soap opera so heavy you need a truss to lift it and not written in conjunction with anybody else. My first impressions were not great. Generally I like Peter's style. It's not mind taxing and he does chrome like no other - excellent world building, good aliens, nice stuff.
The problem with this one is that he's set it in a familar universe - this is set 1500 years after the events in Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained. These didn't make for a bad story, just that there is nothing in the 600,000 odd words that really couldn't have been told in 200,000. A problem he encountered with The Night's Dawn also.
After ploughing through the first 150 or so pages, the plot started making an appearance. It was a coy thing, a hint ankle here and there, a wrist, an indication of interest and greatness in there, but frankly you still couldn't easily see passed the brocade and other stuff in there. He hit his stride around page 200 when the cast had finally assembled and you knew where he was going. This is only a third into the book, and this book is the first of a triology.
So, it's bloated and flirtatious. What else?
Well, as usual, generally simple prose - nothing that will tax the mind here. Some bad POV jumps, a couple are intended, a couple more just bad editing (see above). His characters are pretty well defined, his dialogue is pretty good, the aliens are excellent. The vision for a post singualarity society is actually quite interesting, with a mix of worlds, cultures and viewpoints. The take on post-human and human interaction was nicely done too.
The problems come when the plot turns up. Soon after the first human-alien war, with the nicely designed "prime" lifeform. Humanity undertakes a detailed exploration of the universe, finding the "Void" and it's alien watchers. The Void is an expanding piece of new universe of undetermined origin. In this regard we're tredding some familar ground which other writers have done in smaller and more compact works. The challenge starts when humans find a way to interact with the "people" inside the Void itself and a movement starts to join them.
There are various diversions and alurms ahead for this "interaction" and a lot of really bad sex. My primary concern is once you realise what is happening in some of the sequences inside the Void, you are left wondering what all the fuss is about. In fact, one of the protagonists sums up my feelings about 90% of the way through book 1.
I'll certainly stick with it, but this isn't a good start - it needs editing, somebody needs to work to pair down the ideas and get to the spine of the story and stick there. There's so much cool stuff in here, much of it is wasted.
If you liked his other stuff, you'll probably like this if you can stick through the first 200 pages. If you didn't you'd probably best avoid.
(*) - I think this should count as 3 books... ;)
