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Great North Road
 
 

Great North Road [Kindle Edition]

Peter F. Hamilton
4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (235 customer reviews)

Print List Price: £9.99
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Product Description

Review

Praise for Peter F. Hamilton's

"The Evolutionary Void"

"Satisfying and powerful . . . Space Opera doesn't get much more epic."--SFFWorld

"Spiced with plenty of action and intrigue."--"San Jose Mercury News"

"The Temporal Void"

"Fusing elements of hard SF with adventure fantasy tropes, Hamilton has singlehandedly raised the bar for grand-scale speculative storytelling."--"Publishers Weekly"
" "
"A great, sprawling, ripping yarn reminiscent of Golden Age Science Fiction."--SFCrowsnest

"The Dreaming Void"

"A real spellbinder from a master storyteller . . . dozens of scenarios, a surprisingly well-delineated cast of thousands, plotting enough to delight the most Machiavellian of readers."--"Kirkus Reviews "(starred review)

"Peter F. Hamilton [is the] owner of the most powerful imagination in science fiction, author of immense, complex far-future sagas."--Ken Follett, author of "World Without End"

Product Description

In Newcastle-upon-Tyne, AD 2142, Detective Sidney Hurst attends a brutal murder scene. The victim is one of the wealthy North family clones – but none have been reported missing. And the crime’s most disturbing aspect is how the victim was killed. Twenty years ago, a North clone billionaire and his household were horrifically murdered in exactly the same manner, on the tropical planet of St Libra. But if the murderer is still at large, was Angela Tramelo wrongly convicted? Tough and confident, she never waivered under interrogation – claiming she alone survived an alien attack. But there is no animal life on St Libra. Investigating this alien threat becomes the Human Defence Agency’s top priority. The bio-fuel flowing from St Libra is the lifeblood of Earth’s economy and must be secured. So a vast expedition is mounted via the Newcastle gateway, and teams of engineers, support personnel and xenobiologists are dispatched to the planet. Along with their technical advisor, grudgingly released from prison, Angela Tramelo. But the expedition is cut off, deep within St Libra’s rainforests. Then the murders begin. Someone or something is picking off the team one by one. Angela insists it’s the alien, but her new colleagues aren’t so sure. Maybe she did see an alien, or maybe she has other reasons for being on St Libra ... This is a stunning standalone adventure, by a writer at the height of his powers.

Product details

  • Format: Kindle Edition
  • File Size: 1525 KB
  • Print Length: 1100 pages
  • Publisher: Tor (27 Sep 2012)
  • Sold by: Amazon Media EU S.à r.l.
  • Language: English
  • ASIN: B00844Y4UQ
  • Text-to-Speech: Enabled
  • X-Ray: Enabled
  • Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (235 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #2,122 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
20 of 22 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Superb sci-fi 6 Oct 2012
By Me
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
If "Game of Thrones" can be turned into a TV series then I think Peter Hamilton's latest novel should be turned into a show too. The Great Road North is an excellent story: imaginative, clever, and well paced; it blends sci-fi with crime, horror, doomed romance, and a bit of political/action thriller. I had been looking forward to this book since reading the plot summary several months ago and I was not disappointed. To me, a long-time fan, it seemed like he had gone through all his previous novels, cherry picked the best elements and weaved them all together.

Talking of weaving, one of the most enjoyable and challenging things about Hamilton is tying his story threads back together using the limited (but very deliberate) clues he writes in before the plot is revealed. I got a fair few, but some of them eluded me until about page 930... It's always fun trying to guess, but I don't think I'll ever be able to call him predictable.

Another thing I really enjoyed was the way he wrote against a believable background, speculating on where modern science and technology might take us and describing how people will live in the near future; think Michio Kaku but with verve, humour, and a lot of very British style. Of course with sci-fi it has to go a little bit further and we have seemingly implacable aliens, spaceships and strange planets. However, unlike the Void trilogy, it doesn't stray into fantasy; believability makes this story more accessible.

Of course Hamilton already has a great reputation for his story-telling skills, but I think that with Great North Road he has improved his writing style. Recent novels have had a large cast of characters, which often led to uneven coverage. In this novel he has concentrated on the key characters and they all come across strongly: Angela the tough girl with a mysterious background; Vance the zealous Human Defence Agency colonel; and Sid the cunning detective. The secondary characters like Ian, Saul and Rebka are also much more fleshed out than their counterparts in his other novels.

Some readers might find the length off-putting here, but if as an author you're going to conjure up an epic story then you might as write it out in full. Which takes me back to my first point: it's about time some of our best writers got their stories on screen, not just to dispel the myth that British sci-fi is all about histrionic blokes in police boxes and supermarionation puppets, but also to show that it can compete with the best of the stuff beaming across the Atlantic. It would be great if TV producers took notice of novels like this.

However, having praised it so thoroughly, there was one small problem with this book:- I don't see how he can top it. ;)
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14 of 16 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars Sadly dissapointed (maybe some spoilers) 28 Nov 2012
Format:Hardcover
Firstly, I'll state I'm a big fan of Peter's work, his previous SF really is top of the game British SF in a style that is currently without equal.

So I eagerly started this book with high expectations of more of the same...

Sadly, I felt a little let down with this one Peter.

The detective part started well but seemed to tail off as the story went on. The alien world "bug hunt" was pretty dull and tedious, lacking pace and bite. Finally, at the end, the grand reveal was just a bit...meh.

I don't mind a long book but this definitely seemed to drag by, with each session I spent reading it not seeming to have advanced the story much and in the end I felt like it was more of an endurance challenge than reading a rewarding story. Its not a "hard read", its easy to digest but just too tedious.

I'm sure Peter will be back with something new soon(ish) though and once again I know I will be pouncing on it eagerly but please, two strikes and you're out with me...
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars Tedious 1 April 2013
Format:Hardcover
I really struggled with this book, it should have been a third of the length, whole chapters were completely redundant.

Mr Hamilton is not the best writer in the world, but his books are usually action packed and full and grand ideas which make them very enjoyable. Unfortunately The Great North Road plods along at a pedestrian rate lingering upon characters back stories and dragging out the plot points long past their due date.

*SPOILERS*

The end while more interesting than the rest of the book it left me unsatisfied. I cannot reconcile the actions of the "bad guy" with the revelations from the final chapters.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars A Very Good Read
I have found some of his books less than clear but this was a tour de force right up to the ending. I didn't like the end it didn't stand up to the quality of the book, but overall... Read more
Published 6 days ago by A Johnson
4.0 out of 5 stars Book with a surprise ending
Good science fiction crime thriller with an unexpected twist at the end. Topical as it addresses environmental issues that we all face.
Published 9 days ago by Kwetsani
2.0 out of 5 stars Disapointing
This book has taken me longer than I expected to read through. I found the story disappointing compared to the authors other books. Read more
Published 11 days ago by Mr. P. S. Coady
5.0 out of 5 stars Peter has produced another excellent read
I am a fan anyway. so boiught this as soon as the price came down to a reasonable amount. Great story and a fantastic read. I would recommend it.
Published 13 days ago by Rov
2.0 out of 5 stars Bitterly Disappointed
I've read all Mr Hamilton's book and enjoyed them all, except this one.

I don't like saying it but I found this book boring, really boring and found it a struggle to... Read more
Published 18 days ago by Steve
4.0 out of 5 stars well written
Great North Road by Peter F. Hamilton.
A good read. Even though I am a fan of Peter's books I can not say this is
his best. There is a distinct lack of good S.F. Read more
Published 24 days ago by James 42
5.0 out of 5 stars Another Great Read.
If you're already a fan of Peter F Hamilton, you'll be halfway into this book before you know it. For anyone who has lived in Newcastle, this book has a little extra to keep you... Read more
Published 27 days ago by Aircool
5.0 out of 5 stars Magnificent in every sense of the word
So how could I resist an SF novel with large chunks of it set in Newcastle 130 years from now, especially with a title like that? Read more
Published 1 month ago by Ian Williams
3.0 out of 5 stars Nice ideas, but overstretched
Combination of sci-fi epic and police crime story, Great North Road is set in 22nd century, with story starting in 2143 in Newcastle (!). Read more
Published 1 month ago by Nikola
5.0 out of 5 stars Great
As always a beautifully complex story that weaves itself around as the story progresses and domes together wonderfully in the last few chapters
Published 1 month ago by DonaldMacE
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