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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Ultimately disappointing, 22 Feb 2009
As a suggestion it's probably best to read the three novels in the series back to back, or at least with minimal intermissions. The vast numbers of underdeveloped cut-and-paste characters tended to blend together after a while, and I spent a good proportion of this final novel trying to remember events in the previous instalment (read about a year previously) and who these individuals who appear with no introduction actually were.
Even more than before, The Naked God reads like a collection of a dozen or so sensibly-sized novels thrown up in the air and the chapters shuffled into random order. On the down side, that did leave me wishing that the author wouldn't keep switching away from a plotline as I was just getting into it, but on the other hand it did create an sense of anticipation and a desire to keep reading to find out what was going to happen next.
Anyway, having enjoyed the first two books I knew what to expect, but I soon discovered that it was starting to turn into a soap opera with each return to a familiar scenario giving me my momentary fix before hauling me off somewhere else without very much having occured. I also found myself becoming increasingly alarmed as the number of pages remaining started to shrink with no sign of an impending conclusion, or indeed any indication that the plot had any intention of wrapping up. So the fact that the ending was rushed was not a surprise - the fact that it was so implausible and unsatisfying undoubtedly was. As others have suggested, the author seemed to have tied himself in knots with no way to untangle the various strands of plot without using a big pair of scissors.
Anyway, despite the lingering disappointment, and despite the impression I may have given up to now, I did enjoy the majority of this book and definitely the series as a whole - I just wish the author hadn't let it slip so far out of his control.
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21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Here ends the excellent Nights Dawn Trilogy, 9 Nov 2000
By A Customer
When I first saw the size of "The Reality Dysfunction" (part one of this trilogy (Night's Dawn)) I was a bit wary about buying such a large book by an author I didn't know. It turned out to be a great decision. I couldn't put the book down. Even with so many characters and different threads of stories, the book is easy to follow with a gripping stroyline. Enough of the minor stories came to an end to make it an excellent book but the cliff-hangers ensured I bought the next book, "The Neutronium Alchemist". Once again I was not let down. This too was a brilliant book. The plot thickened as it developed. The carefully thought out technologies of the future become intriguing parts of the book as opposed to just being extras. By the time I had finished I was desperate to read the final part of this 3600+ page trilogy. The Naked God excelled where the other books shone and it brought together all the plot elements that had been so carefully seeded during the first two books. The science-fiction I typically read normally comes either under 'hard science-fiction' (such as Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, etc.) or very easy going such as the Aliens and Predator books. The Night's Dawn trilogy (and especially the Naked God) manages to settle very comfortably in the middle. There is enough action, romance and horror to keep the easy reader attached to the book whereas at the same time Peter F. Hamilton manages to make his invented technology sound so real and so natural to the people who use it (while at the same time not so alien that we can't understand it), the typically 'hard sci-fi' reader will find themselves submerged in a believable far future of mankind. While in my own opinion, no one can come close to Isaac Asimov's ability to portray a 'History of the Future' in so many books, if anyone should try, Peter F. Hamilton should. He has the ending in this brilliant trilogy, he has some short stories in 'A Second Chance At Eden', now he needs to expand on the history of his universe which he has already outlined at the end of each book. People have compared Peter F. Hamilton's work to that of Iain M. Banks. Banks' Culture novels are superb but have such amazing technologies in them that are thrown around and introduced only when needed, can confuse the book or offer quick ways out of difficult situations (just read about the bike in the non-culture novel 'Against a Dark Background' to see what I mean). Peter F. Hamilton introduces the technology in a similar way to how he introduces people. You get to know and understand the technology/person so when it does something, while unexpected, it is believable (in a sci-fi kind of way). I have read the entire trilogy twice from beginning to end and still want to read it again. The only thing that is stopping me is I have to sleep sometime, don't I?
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great book, shame about the ending, 6 Sep 2004
The Night's Dawn Trilogy is a great read - the central premise is pretty unique amongst Sci-Fi novels, and the consequences are interesting, logically self-consistent and unusually thought provoking. The only disappointment is the ending, which rather ducks the grandiose scale of the issues raised and leaves the reader feeling a little short-changed, but does at least tie up all the ends neatly.
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