Amazon.co.uk Review
After invasions and battles, panic and horror, after denial and the revelation of ultimate truths, after four volumes and 2,300 pages, it all comes down to this: to stem the tide of souls of the dead who have returned to possess the bodies of the living, Joshua Calvert must take his ship, the Lady Macbeth, on a mission beyond the farthest reaches of explored space. His goal is to find the artefact/entity the Tyrathcans call The Sleeping God in the hope that this legendary presence can offer some kind of help, or at least advice with the problem. Otherwise human civilization is perhaps doomed. Meanwhile on Ombey, an army of soldiers stages a counter-invasion of possessed-controlled Mortonridge--a strange battle in which neither side is completely human--but the gains are little and each victory dear. The best of Adamist "gray" technology and Edenist green biotech, now used together in willing cooperation, still offer little hope. Physics cannot overcome metaphysics.
This final instalment of Peter F Hamilton's Homeric space adventure, which began with The Reality Dysfunction, volumes I (Emergence) and II (Expansion), and continued in The Neutronium Alchemist, volumes I (Consolidation) and II (Conflict), is no simple winding up of the story. You'll be amazed to find Hamilton busily introducing new characters, new plots and new enigmas up to the very end. After all this time can he possibly surprise us? Absolutely. --J.B. Peck
