Fellow sci-fi fans…I recently checked out a book from the library by Peter F Hamilton called The Dreaming Void and I have to say that I really am enjoying it. Has anyone else read his stuff?
Also, can anyone recommend his other books like *Pandora’s Box * or Judas Unchained?
Thanks in advance!
I really liked his Night’s Dawn trilogy. It’s published as six paperbacks in the US, starting with The Reality Dysfunction: Emergence.
It was a great series up to the last book, where he fumbled the ending so badly I’ve never read another word he’s written.
I have little experience with him but from what I’ve read so far in The Dreaming Void, I’m pretty awe-struck. It’s incredibly detailed, a fascinating take on future societies and well-written, and from looking up his bio, follows along with his space opera style of multiple main character convergences.
What did he flub so badly about the ending in the last book?
Deus ex machina.
Pandora’s Star BTW. I liked it well enough (a bit long-winded) but I heart that Judas Unchained was horrible so I never bothered.
What DrFidelus said. Literally.
The protagonists find a machine that turns one of them into a god. He then waves his hand, and makes the army of space-faring undead that had been driving the plot of the entire trilogy simply disappear.
Well, that does appear to be quite a cop-out.
I read the damn thing and had blocked out the ending… now I remember why I threw the book out the window.
Such a shame, too. Excellent world-building. His characters acted like people, he had a marvelous eye for the telling details, and his cultures and conflicts did not feel forced.
And he actually made “All Hell breaking loose” work as a plot device.
It just seemed that he had no good idea how to resolve the issues.
I quite liked his early cyberpunk-noir novels (<I>Mindstar Rising</i>, <I>A Quantum Murder</i>, <I>The Nano Flower</i>).
They’re also easier to lift than the “Night’s Dawn” trilogy. (Which is three very fat volumes here in the UK … )
In case you’re unaware of this, The Dreaming Void is sort of a sequel to Pandora’s Box and Judas Unchained, although it’s set over a thousand years after the time of those books. They’re all part of the Commonwealth series.
Misspent Youth (2003) a novel set around 2040
Blessed by an Angel (2007) a short story
Pandora’s Star (2004) and Judas Unchained (2005) a two-art novel set around 2380
The Dreaming Void (2008), The Temporal Void (not yet published), Evolution’s Dream (not yet published) trilogy set around 3590
I didn’t mind the deus ex machina ending THAT much. It made the finale weaker than the other books, but it didn’t ruin them for me.
I also really enjoyed his Pandora’s Star/Judas Unchained books too.
Yeah, I saw that when I Wiki’d his bio. I am very impressed with his Dreaming Void novel (obviously) and I haven’t read any of his other stuff before. It was a whim choice at the library.
What’s funny is I haven’t dipped my mental toe into the sci-fi genre much in the last several years, I’ve been reading a lot of other stuff.
I just read a book called *Blackman’s Coffin * that I liked, and more distantly, Ken Follet’s *Pillars Of The Earth * duo, which I also enjoyed a lot.
I have also been reading a lot of historical bios on Abaraham Lincoln, John Adams, etc recently. I find that stuff fascinating as well.
Very reluctantly, I must agree. He had a tremendously detailed, interesting, inventive, multilayered universe that he developed across six big books, with interesting characters and some genuinely engaging issues… and then he just pissed it all away in the last 20 pages. And the hero
not only defeated the legions of the undead practically with a wave of his hand, he then pulled the galaxy closer together - actually moving every star and planet, IIRC - so that every human world and colony was cheek-by-jowl with every other! 'Cause he’s, y’know, omnipotent and all, and deuterium costs had been going up so sharply.
Bleagh.
Based on the first volume (which I picked up at a used book sale), it would have been 3 slim volumes if he’d managed to leave out the gratuitous sex. Yeah, I get it, your hero gets lucky in all sorts of ways.
Well, now, I for one liked the gratuitous sex! 
I can seriously, without any scruples needing to be suppressed, opressed or needing to be dragged into a back alley and beat bloody with a cudgel, recommend Pandora’s Star and Judas Unchained. He creates a gorgeous, consequent universe (for a given amount of consequent - this is science fantasy, after all) with likeable characters, a permeating dry wit, a good storyline and an epic sense of scale.
I asked for a recommendation at my nearby Outland and the girl helping me asked if I’d ever read George Martin. Yes, of course, I said and she asked – but have you ever read George Martin write sci-fi? And she thoughtfully pushed both books into my hands and wrote them up, knowing that as soon as I was done with one the waiting to get the other would physically hurt. And she was bang on the money, as well - Hamilton does feel like George R.R. Martin. In space.
I’m done slobbering now. Move on. Nothing to see here.
But George R. R. Martin wrote loads of SF … 
Hell yeah! Start with Martin’s Tuf Voyaging. One of my all-time favorite SF books (a collection of interrelated short stories).