Dem Bones, dem bones, dem dry bones
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Having enjoyed TRD, it was only a matter of time before I read "The Neutronium Alchemist". The holiday I started it on was not long enough - a second week on the train to and from work was needed to complete the story's 1,259 pages.
Did I enjoy it? Yes - but I am perhaps easily satisfied by this sort of nonsense. A couple of elements did begin to grate:
More than 100 years after man has begun to colonise the stars, Hamilton tells us that the early attempts break down on ethnic and religious grounds; thereafter colonies were only founded from single ethnic/cultural groups. This would be a somewhat depressing prognosis in any event, but seems anomalous in a world where voluntary genetic engineering has allowed people to modfy their very appearance to transcend race - ebony skin and blond hair seems to be one of Hamilton's obsessions. 400 years later the same divisions still exist!
In a story that brings the dead back into the world of the living, Hamilton has some fun with some well known (English speaking) historical characters, both of whom speak with, at the least, the dialect of the time. None of the possessors, however, seem to have any language difficulties, so while a certain late C18 Englishman speaks in a somewhat laboured neo-Austen, another with the gangland patois of Chicago's Italian district, they and the revived denizens of C26 Earth's teeming "archologies" (population: 85 Billion) seem to have no difficulty in communicating with everyone else from history.
These are, though, minor quibbles if you like space-opera science fictions. Hamilton's whole concept of how mankind might explode into the galaxy - and of how technology might evolve - is breathtaking.
Hamilton would have achieved more, though, if he had pared this down. I will read the third volume, but with Amazon reviews ringing in my ears (or is that eyes), I do so with a fear of disappointment. Will "The Naked God" be like watching the final episode of "The Prisoner"?
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Awesome
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Lets keep it short - If you like sci fi and you like to read, really like to read - a lot (it is particularly long) then crack on. This trilogy is one of the finest space sci fi sets I have ever read by a long way.
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Too much padding
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I've come to the conclusion that Peter Hamilton should heed the saying 'more is less'. I enjoyed the first part but would have enjoyed it even more if it had been half the length. But I persevered with the stories despite the inevitable frustrations you encounter with the middle part of a trilogy. The only saving grace is that this was still better than the deeply disappointing third part. In future I'll stick to the classics of sci fi - a couple of hundred pages or so of tight story telling.
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Simply Stunning
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I've read loads and loads of Sci-Fi and it took me a while to get round to reading Peter F. Hamiltons Night's Dawn Trilogy. When I finally took the plunge I was truly stunned by how amazing it was. The Neutronium Alchemist is breathtaking.
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Fiction and not so much science
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After reading TRD i was looking forward to the Neutronium Alchemist but it was to long winded and some of the plot has nothing in common with hard Si/Fi Any way i bought the trlogy in one go and will read the naked god only for the fact that it's been paid for, but i'm thinking it may be the first Si/Fi book that i'll have binned
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