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Peter Hamilton? Anyone know anything about him?
- Thread starter Olive
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Dakkareth
First Post
Assuming you're talking about Peter F. Hamilton 
I can't quite decide, whether Peter F. Hamilton's Night's Dawn trilogy (I think that was the english title) are the best or just the second best science fiction books I've ever read. Big recommendation from me.
I'm bad at speaking about styles
. There's a good bit of technology featuring, especially when it comes to fights, but it's not the focus, it's the tools the characters have at their disposal. Much of it is also quite feasable, though not exactly hard science (for example there are habitats, that are living entities created by highly advanced genetic engineering - thinkable, maybe possible, based on extrapolations from current science).
I've heard the books being described as Space Opera and I guess it's true, although my understanding of the term is limited. The story mostly revolves around a few groups of characters (including 'bad guys', although the term doesn't really apply), who are conflicted with the major events in different ways, and is told through their eyes.
Bottom line: Check out the first of the books and read it, it's definitely worth it. If you don't like it, it'll make another sci-fi friend happy
I can't quite decide, whether Peter F. Hamilton's Night's Dawn trilogy (I think that was the english title) are the best or just the second best science fiction books I've ever read. Big recommendation from me.
I'm bad at speaking about styles
. There's a good bit of technology featuring, especially when it comes to fights, but it's not the focus, it's the tools the characters have at their disposal. Much of it is also quite feasable, though not exactly hard science (for example there are habitats, that are living entities created by highly advanced genetic engineering - thinkable, maybe possible, based on extrapolations from current science).I've heard the books being described as Space Opera and I guess it's true, although my understanding of the term is limited. The story mostly revolves around a few groups of characters (including 'bad guys', although the term doesn't really apply), who are conflicted with the major events in different ways, and is told through their eyes.
Bottom line: Check out the first of the books and read it, it's definitely worth it. If you don't like it, it'll make another sci-fi friend happy
He does make some serious attempts to look at how some potential scientific breakthroughs could affect societies and people's response to them. For example, a major technological breakthrough postuated is something called affinity. This is a sort of technological telepathy. In addition to the empathetic and communicative ramifications, this means that one's personality can be uploaded into one of the sentient biological habitats. Effective immortality is the result of that, with the sort of reactions one might expect from non-affinity humans, especially those of a religious bent that tends to focus on an afterlife. So the affinity/non-affinity split is one of the divisions between societies in his universe.
Nanotechnology is also rampant in his universe and most people with money have nano-enhanced bodies yielding all sorts of physical benefits and mental enhancements. Most people use them to control equipment, communicate, obtain data. It's as omnipresent as cell phones are today.
His books are never an uninteresting read, they do if nothing else make you think. So I'd say they are definitely worth a try and he is one of the few new authors I've come across who have grabed my interest in recent years.
Nanotechnology is also rampant in his universe and most people with money have nano-enhanced bodies yielding all sorts of physical benefits and mental enhancements. Most people use them to control equipment, communicate, obtain data. It's as omnipresent as cell phones are today.
His books are never an uninteresting read, they do if nothing else make you think. So I'd say they are definitely worth a try and he is one of the few new authors I've come across who have grabed my interest in recent years.
Wow - I had the opposite experience. I find his books immeasurably dull and a turgid read! I somehow struggled through the first of the Night's Dawn books, hoping it would get better (I hate giving up on a book I've started), but the second book defeated me. I made it about a third of the way through.
Tastes vary, I guess!
Tastes vary, I guess!
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