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Amazon.co.uk Review
It is the late 26th century and humanity's thriving culture spans 200 planets. The usual squabbles and disagreements continue, but generally everyone gets along and lives well as humanity's outward expansion continues apace. On newly colonized Lalonde, though, a strange force emerges from the jungle, lobotomizing people and turning them into super-powered soldiers. At the same time, the story of Joshua Calvert emerges. He's the young captain of a trading ship, who innocently travels to Lalonde and becomes embroiled in the mysteries there. Both threads have plenty of action and exotic scenery. Peter Hamilton's descriptive prose, particularly in action sequences, is breathtaking (and scientifically accurate), creating a dramatic backdrop for a story where the stakes keep getting higher, the villains keep growing more evil and the heroes keep surviving--but only just. Space-opera fans will enjoy this deftly written and engaging novel. Those who feel they don't like the genre might give this example a try to see just how unhacky, ungrinding, sweet-smelling, and robust it can be. --Brooks Peck
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of the best Sci-Fi books around,
By
This review is from: The Reality Dysfunction (Kindle Edition)
No spoilers here, but the plot itself is excellent, and has Hamilton's trademark 'big finish' - I've actually read this trilogy (Nights Dawn, of which this is the first book) a couple of times with a few years gap between and I still find it a great read.
This was actually my first Hamilton book (I've since read almost everything he's written). As other reviewers have said, I almost gave up at the start, the first few pages are a space battle and in my opinion (as someone who reds a LOT of sci-fi)it's very hard to read. BUT STICK WITH IT! The story that unfolds puts those first few pages into context and really every chapter kicks the plot up a notch. There's some great concepts at play here, Hamilton explores two divergent attitudes of human development and portrays them both believably. He builds a good solid reality for his characters to exist in, and after that difficult first few pages I found it easy to get lost in the story (always the sign of a good book for me). There are some excellent characters, though overall I think his later novels (Pandora's Star/Judas Unchained/Void Trilogy) represent the best character work Hamilton has done, these characters are no less engaging for being a tiny bit less developed. I still think the Nights Dawn trilogy has some of his best Villains (and semi-villains) Hamilton has ever written, and that's where this novel really shines in my opinion, his construction of believable 'bad guys', that aren't just evil for no reason or sadistic for no reason, they all have motivation and purpose and personalities. The overall plot encompasses elements of faith, spirituality, science, religion, belief, technology and of course Hamilton's (seemingly) favourite topic of politics. It's also got really interesting "What If?" qualities that go a bit beyond any single sci-fi story I've otherwise encountered, which those who know the story will understand, but I don't want to go into without spoiling it for others. There are actually a few plotlines going on here, which is why that first space battle is so difficult, it's actually the very, very, end of a plotline that's only ever vaguely mentioned in the rest of the book, but in Hamilton's way it gets folded back into the main plot at various points in quite a 'butterfly effect'. In strict terms it has nothing to do with the main plot at all, neither does most of the first half of the book, except that it all does and it all weaves back into everything else later on - Have Faith! If you have read any Hamilton before, you will love this book. If you've not, then think of it like Baxter (but less bleak) mixed with Clarke, (but with better characters) and Niven, (for the scope of ideas and 'human' characters), and Banks (for his scope of political/human social structures and development). I have to say of all the authors I've read over the years, Hamilton is one of the very few that I would unquestioningly buy anything else he publishes, and that was largely built on the strength of this, the first of his books I read.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An original twist on some old ideas;,
By
This review is from: The Reality Dysfunction (Night's Dawn Trilogy) (Paperback)
I must admit I could hardly put this down. It may start slowly, but when it gets going, boy does it take off! The first three hundred pages are simply setting the scene, creating the intricate cosmos of the late 25th and early 26th centuries in painstaking detail.Much of this is far from original, and Hamilton's influences are clear in places. The Edenist/Adamist schism is reminiscent of Sterling's Shaper/Mechanist conflict, the egalitarian Edenist society has strong parallels to Banks' Culture, and the sudden shift of pace to horror has a touch of King and Herbert. What is striking though is way he welds these together to create a credible future society, with its schisms, conflicts, and cultures all intricately mapped out against a detailed historical backdrop. In particular, he manages to look at the economic realities of space travel and future colonisation of other worlds in a detailed, believable manner. The worlds of the Confederation have a real depth and a detail. Some of the characters too have this depth, but most are far more superficial. The other two novels are worse in terms of a failure to develop character, but this novel's weak point is definitely in that department. Another weakness (I feel, personally) was a failure to capitalise on an ideal opportunity to explore the issue of the storage of human personality after death in an artificial environment, versus that identity's continued existence in some kind of afterlife. Exploring the nature of what constitutes a "real" person, and the nature of self and identify is probably not really what this trilogy is all about though, so I may be being a bit harsh there. Definitely the best book of the trilogy, The Realty Dysfunction builds suspense and sense of an inexplicable, implacable horror with real power and skill. It is, especially once it gets going virtually unputdownable!
16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
4/5,
This review is from: The Reality Dysfunction (Night's Dawn Trilogy) (Paperback)
...So anyhow, 4/5. This is thrilling stuff, once you manage to get into it, which will take a while. The central horrific concept (which unlike some reviewers I won't spoil just now) is fantastically daring, the Adamist/Edenist conflict well thought out and realised, and the characters, while not perhaps as complex as those of Banks etc, are more than believable and suitably alluring/terrifying/comic even. The one complaint I feel is fairly valid is the ending- while the book as a nice conclusion for certain elements of the plot, it does feel (as does LOTR) more like the first part of a book rather than a distinct part of a trilogy. So, once I've finished the whole trilogy, I've no doubt that Night's Dawn as a whole will be worth 5, but I feel 4/5 for the first third of a book is still pretty special.And for the prudes complaining about the (for me, both realistic and imaginative) sex scenes, don't be such an Adamist.
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