Review
Peter Hamilton's willingness to shake up an already fascinating creation with this new trilogy is admirable, and the 1500-year gap offers up both new mysteries for him to reveal, and an opportunity for familiar characters to have grown up and changed. --Starburst
This is a book that arguably nobody else in Brit SF could even have attempted. Epic, multi-stranded, full of wonders. --Sfx
Product Description
Book Description
From the Inside Flap
galaxy to over a thousand star systems. It is a culture of rich diversity
with a place for everyone. A powerful navy protects it from any hostile
species that may lurk among the stars. For Commonwealth citizens, even
death has been overcome.
At the centre of the galaxy is the Void, a strange artificial universe
created by aliens billions of years ago, shrouded by an event horizon more
deadly than any natural black hole. In order to function, it is gradually
consuming the mass of the galaxy. Watched over by its ancient enemies, the
Raiel, the Void's expansion is barely contained.
Inigo dreams of the sweet life within the Void, and shares these visions
with billions of avid believers. When he mysteriously disappears, Inigo's
followers decide to embark on a pilgrimage into the Void to live the life
of their messiah's dreams - a pilgrimage which the Raiel claim will trigger
a catastrophic expansion of the Void.
Aaron is a man whose only memory is his own name. He doesn't know who he
used to be, or what he is. All he does know is that his job is to find the
missing messiah and stop the pilgrimage. He's not sure how to do that, but
whoever he works for has provided some pretty formidable weaponry that
ought to help.
Meanwhile inside The Void, a youth called Edeard is coming to terms with
his unusually strong telepathic powers. A junior constable in Makkathran,
he starts to challenge the corruption and decay that have poisoned the
city. He is determined that his fellow citizens should know hope again.
What Edeard doesn't realize is just how far his message of hope is
reaching.
From the Back Cover
`If Pandora's Star represented a return to form, Judas Unchained is even
better' Guardian
`Fast-paced action, widescreen canvas and a huge cast' Locus
`Even better than its predecessor. The plotting is tight, the characters
interesting and the story positively howls along' SFX
`Wonderfully exciting stuff . . . The pages turn effortlessly' Vector
`King-sized space opera . . .[an] awesome SF vision' Dreamwatch
About the Author
Excerpted from The Dreaming Void (Void Trilogy 1) by Peter F. Hamilton. Copyright © 2007. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Aaron spent the whole day mingling with the faithful of the Living Dream
movement in Golden Park's vast plaza, eavesdropping on their restless talk
about the succession, drinking water from the mobile catering stalls,
trying to find some shade from the searing sun as the heat and costal
humidity rose relentlessly. He thought he remembered arriving at daybreak;
certainly the expanse of marble cobbles had been virtually empty as he
walked across it. The tips of the splendid white metal pillars surrounding
the area had all been crowned with rose-gold light as the local star rose
above the horizon. He'd smiled round appreciatively at the outline of the
replica city, matching up the topography surrounding Golden Park with the
dreams he'd gathered from the gaiafield over the last... well, for quite
some time. Golden Park had started to fill up rapidly after that, with the
faithful arriving from the other districts of Makkathran2 across the canal
bridges and ferried in by a fleet of gondolas. By midday there must have
been close to a hundred thousand of them. They all faced the Orchard Palace
which sprawled possessively over the Anemone district on the other side of
the Outer Circle canal like a huddle of high dunes. And there they waited
and waited with badly disguised impatience for the Cleric Council to come
to a decision. Any sort of decision. The Council had been in conclave for
three days now, how long could they possibly take to elect a new
Conservator?
At one point in the morning he'd edged his way right up beside the Outer
Circle canal, close to the central wire and wood bridge that arched over to
Anemone. It was closed, of course, as were the other two bridges on that
section; while in ordinary times anyone from ultra-devout to curious
tourist could cross over and wander round the vast Orchard Palace, today it
had been sealed off by fit-looking junior Clerics who had undergone a lot
of muscle enrichment. Camped out to one side of the temporarily forbidden
bridge were hundreds of journalists from all over the Greater Commonwealth,
most of them outraged by the stubborn refusal of Living Dream to leak
information their way. They were easily identifiable by their chic modern
clothes, and faces which were obviously maintained at peak gloss by a
membrane of cosmetic scales; not even Advancer DNA produced complexions
that good.
Behind them the bulk of the crowd buzzed about discussing their favourite
candidate. If Aaron was judging the mood correctly, then just about
ninety-five percent of them were rooting for Ethan. They wanted him because
they were done with waiting, with patience, with the status quo preached by
all the other lacklustre caretakers since the Dreamer himself, Inigo, had
slipped away from public life. They wanted someone who would bring their
whole movement to that blissful moment of fulfilment they'd been promised
from the moment they'd tasted Inigo's first dream.
Some time in the afternoon Aaron realized the woman was watching him.
Nothing obvious, she wasn't staring or following him about. Instinct
smoothly clicked his awareness to her location without any doubt as to what
she was doing -which was an interesting trait to know he had. From then on
he was conscious of where she would casually wander in order to keep a easy
distance between them, how she would never have her eyes in his direction
when he glanced at her. She wore a simple short-sleeved rusty-orange top
and knee-length blue trousers of some modern fabric. A little different to
the faithful who tended to wear the more primitive rustic clothes of wool,
cotton, and leather which were favoured by Makkathran's citizens, but not
contemporary enough to be obvious. Nor did her looks make her stand out,
she had a flattish face and a cute-ish button nose; some of the time her
slim copper shades would be across her eyes, while often she had them
perched up in her short dark hair. Her age was unknowable, like everyone in
the Greater Commonwealth her appearance was locked into biological mid
twenties. He was certain she was well past her first couple of centuries.
Again no tangible proof. After they'd played the orbiting satellites game
for forty minutes he walked over, keeping his smile pleasant. There were no
pings coming off her that his macrocellular clusters could detect, no
active links to the unisphere, nor any active sensor activity.
Electronically, she was as stone age as the city. Not that he'd gone
active.
"Hello," he said.
She pushed her shades up with the tip of a finger and gave him a playful
grin.
"Hello yourself. So what brings you here?"
"This is a historic event."
"Quite."
"Do I know you?"
His instinct had been right, he saw; she was nothing like the placid
faithful shuffling round them, her body language was all wrong; she could
keep tight control of herself, enough to fool anyone without his training
-training?- but he could sense the attitude coiled up inside.
"Should you know me?"
He hesitated. There was something familiar about her face, something he
should know about her. He couldn't think what, for the simple reason that
he didn't have any memories to pull up and examine. Not of anything, now he
thought about it, certainly he didn't seem to have had a life prior to
today. He knew that was all wrong, yet that didn't bother him either.
