Here we go for September: Khadaji’s Whatcha Reading Thread - Sept. 2020 edition
FWIW, I’m a huge fan of those two Peter F Hamilton novels - probably my second favorite sci-if story ever - with the winner being Hamilton’s Void Trilogy. Which is my favorite book ( I take the liberty of counting double headers and trilogies as one book when I’m making my lists) ever, of any genre.
Pandora’s Star/Judas Unchained would probably come in somewhere between 3 and 6, depending on my mood on the day I made the list.
He doesn’t get too caught up in the science, he handwaves most of the details away. Which would probably be a detriment if I was a hardcore sci-fi person but I like it that the story doesn’t get bogged down with technical details. The fact that interplanetary travel is so easy in that Universe certainly helps the pacing and I think that’s the reason he used that tech in those novels.
I mostly like him because his characters are well-developed and …different, especially the females. It’s hard to find space operas with female main characters that aren’t starship captains or politicians.
I find all his characters interesting and I love the details that flesh out the secondary and tertiary characters. Which is probably one of the reasons the books are so long, but I always hated to see them end.
I’m actually not a huge sci-if fan, I tend more towards suspense novels. For me sci-fi is one of those “when it’s good it’s very very good and when it’s bad it’s horrid” things. I probably only like about 10% of the sci-fi novels I pick up and it comprises a small portion of my reading - but over half of my top 10 favorite books are sci-fi - even when I count the trilogies as one.
I really enjoyed Hamilton’s Night’s Dawn trilogy - interesting premise, well-rounded characters and terrific worldbuilding - but thought he stumbled badly with the plot at the end. Almost ruined it for me.
Oh, I agree 100%. I loved most of the Nights Dawn trilogy but I’m not even sure I made it through to the end - I think I stopped 30 pages or so short, telling myself I’d pick it up later and I never did. It’s been a long time.
The other issue I had with it - and one I’ve had with other Hamilton novels - was the graphic horror, which intensified as the book progressed. I imagine a lot of people were OK with it but it’s not my thing - plus gory massacres are all a lot alike and it got tedious.
His characters and world-building were really strong, as strong as the Confederation novels. I’ve been sort of lukewarm on everything he’s written since the last Void novel (Evolutionary Void, I think). But that one was a hard act to follow.
Yes, it was a remarkably violent trilogy in parts. Not too over the top, I thought, but it certainly wasn’t Fifties sf.