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The Reality Dysfunction (The Night's Dawn,…
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The Reality Dysfunction (The Night's Dawn, 1) (edition 2008)

by Peter F. Hamilton (Author)

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
2,736525,229 (4)92
The author does a great job of making you care deeply about characters after only a few short paragraphs, dropping you into the middle of their lives (and the universe) and letting you figure out the nitty gritty details. That being said, Josh Calvert is a huge Mary Sue (but perhaps a forgivable one). The author also does a great job at building the massive shared universe, but I didn't feel the normal sense of urgency or climax at the end of the book I normally do. Partly this could be due to my reading pace. I think this is may also be since the book is obviously part of a trilogy. However, this book was engaging and, knowing it won't be dragged out forever, I'm curious to read the next book. I have a few guesses of my own of what's been set up and will come to pass so I'd like to see if that's true. I'm especially curious to find out what happens to the myriad cast of characters. ( )
  nosborm | Oct 10, 2021 |
English (51)  French (1)  All languages (52)
Showing 1-25 of 51 (next | show all)
too long ( )
  cadarticho | Jan 3, 2024 |
I thought this was an awesome book. The big ideas and scale of the book was right up my alley. The only annoyance I had was being distracted by the extensive explaining and describing that I had to backtrack a lot to know what was going on and who's who. It just felt unnecessary for a book that is around 1200 pages long. ( )
  bramboomen | Oct 18, 2023 |
I loved this.

I think the only problem was that there were so many story lines that I occasionally lost track of who was who and who was doing what where. It took a long time to get into the action, too, though I think in retrospect I appreciate the buildup and the mystery, wondering what was going on. I will admit to having to reference a Wikipedia page when I set the book down for a day or two to remember exactly what had happened and where I was in the book.

On that note, WOW, is Hamilton good at foreshadowing. Color me impressed -- things that were happening or even just ancillary to the story in the first chapter were insanely important in the last.

Nifty. ( )
  lyrrael | Aug 3, 2023 |
I have wanted to read "The Night's Dawn" series for a long time but the size of these are most intimidating. But I finally read the first book. Overall I did enjoy it even though it crosses over a bit with what some would call fantasy. The author did this with his Void trilogy as well and i did not enjoy that trilogy a whole lot because of that. But in this case, it really wasn't fantasy in the traditional sense and the setting stayed in the science fiction realm so it was not as big a deal. Strange to be sure.
Having read other works by this author I have learned enough of his writing style to know when I can safely speed read/skim over areas to get near the end of the section an absorb the point that I need to carry on with the story. This book is no different in that regard. In fact this trilogy was his first so it set the stage for how it writes in most ways.
Anyway, I do plan on reading the sequels. I would start the next one right away but a reading group I want to be involved in is starting a different book in less than a week and there is no way I could finish the second book in time.
The story here is very interesting, well though out universe and the opening up of that universe is part of what makes the book interesting. The threat that comes into being is compelling and the twist concerning it pretty much blew my mind. Good stuff to be sure. Note - this is first time read, not sure why GoodReads says otherwise. ( )
  sgsmitty | Jun 14, 2023 |
DNF - the only other book I've ever not finished was Pride & Prejudice, but I cannot force myself to struggle through this book anymore. Guess I'll just have to say it's not for me. ( )
  calenmarwen | May 29, 2023 |
I wanted to like this SO BADLY. I'm even going to continue with this nonsense series. ( )
  Adamantium | Aug 21, 2022 |
When most people think of English sci-fi writers the one that usually comes to mind is Douglas Adams as author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. However, after reading this first in an epic space trilogy that may all change.

To say this is not easy reading would be an accurate statement, but to say it is well worth reading would also be an accurate statement; this is a novel that demands your full attention and time so that the reader will fully appreciate all the layers and undercurrents that feature within its pages of which there are over 1200.

In this book and I have read the whole trilogy more than once, the Author takes the time to start developing the characters that will feature throughout the entire series. With great attention to detail he places certain personality traits in the storyline at key points. There is the evil genius, rebellious teenager and a bad boy turned good, which unfortunately make them appear like cookie cutter characters that one might read about in any book in this genre. However, the main problem with this that I found was that it was very difficult to discover who, out of all the characters introduced was the main protagonist. Once discovered, he turns out to be the kind of character you will either instantly like or want him to be dealt a killing blow as quickly as possible. I quite liked the quirkiness I found to be part of his personality and, rather than the cookie cutter I imagined he was destined to be for the remainder of the novel, he actually turned out to be quite fun. What makes him fun may not be every reader’s ideal, but there was just something about his character that made him hard to dislike.

When it comes to the plot line some of the happenings may seem to hit a nerve, or give a feeling of déjà vu. This is not because the Author has transplanted the idea from somewhere else, but rather that something else has borrowed an idea found in this book and adapted it to their use; think Farscape, the ship and Pilot and when reading this book you will see to what I refer. As with all sci-fi fantasy novels, this one provides a landscape in which the reader can let their imagination run riot; it doesn’t matter if at first glance some of the plot lines may appear unbelievable, put them in whatever context your imagination sees fit, and you will find they become believable.

For those readers who are offended by sex scenes in their reading material, there are some included in this book, but they are of such a nature that you could easily skim over them without losing the thread of the plot at all. In fact, I felt that if these unnecessary scenes had been cut from the original book, not only would it have cut down the number of pages but also helped the flow of the storyline a little. The main reason for my 4 thumbs rating, as much as I enjoyed this book, is that rather than space out some of the more brutal parts of this beginning epic, the Author crammed in as much torture and general exploitation in to the first half of the book as they possibly could and this was rather overwhelming at times. There is so much more I want to bring to the attention of anyone who might be considering reading this book, but not only would it result in my revealing some pretty spectacular pieces of writing, but it would probably mean that this review would extend way beyond the usual space I allocate to these things.

With that said I would highly recommend this book, and the following two, to anyone who enjoys a great sci-fi epic and who may not have already read this.


Originally reviewed on: http://catesbooknuthut.com/2014/03/26/review-the-reality-dysfunction-nights-dawn...




This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
( )
  Melline | Aug 13, 2022 |
The author does a great job of making you care deeply about characters after only a few short paragraphs, dropping you into the middle of their lives (and the universe) and letting you figure out the nitty gritty details. That being said, Josh Calvert is a huge Mary Sue (but perhaps a forgivable one). The author also does a great job at building the massive shared universe, but I didn't feel the normal sense of urgency or climax at the end of the book I normally do. Partly this could be due to my reading pace. I think this is may also be since the book is obviously part of a trilogy. However, this book was engaging and, knowing it won't be dragged out forever, I'm curious to read the next book. I have a few guesses of my own of what's been set up and will come to pass so I'd like to see if that's true. I'm especially curious to find out what happens to the myriad cast of characters. ( )
  nosborm | Oct 10, 2021 |
This book took me about a month to read. It is a slow, rolling build that lays the groundwork for the subsequent novels in the series and if you're not into long worldbuilding and set-up, it might be a dull start. I do enjoy those things and found the world of Night's Dawn compelling and exciting and, since it takes a while to get going, spent most of the novel on edge waiting for the blurb to kick in. It's like the climb before the drop on the rollercoaster - make it through that and you're treated to a wild ride that jaunts back and forth across the entire galaxy. ( )
  ashelocke | Feb 20, 2021 |
I really wanted to like this novel a lot. I wanted to get invested from the sheer length of the novel and come out the other side, saying, "Wow, that was fantastic." Just because I'm not doesn't mean that the novel wasn't worthwhile, it just means that the negative qualities of it managed to outweigh what was good.

Let's face it. A novel that is almost 1500 pages is either full of characters, full of story, or full of meandering and inconsequential shit that didn't really serve the final solid tale. I can sort of see why the planet got so much face time before the crap hit the palm. I can also see why the branches of humanity needed to get so much time as well. What I can't understand is why so much time was devoted to each. I swear, this would have been a fantastic novel with some serious cutting. The action scenes were good. The young captain was thoroughly enjoyable. I didn't even mind the turn of the sci-fi into practical fantasy. It was interesting.

I would have thought it was more interesting at half the total size, too.

Maybe I'm just overcritical and grouchy, but I really got tired of reading this novel in sections and just prayed for my favourite characters to come back.

I think I got spoiled because I had read Leviathan Wakes long before I picked this novel up. I saw a lot of good similarities, but I'd always choose Leviathan over this. Perhaps one day I'll pick up the sequels to this one and pray it gets more fit, but I won't be doing it now. ( )
1 vote bradleyhorner | Jun 1, 2020 |
The old joke from Annie Hall comes to mind. Two old women complaining about a restaurant, one says "The food here is terrible." The other, "...and the portions so small!"

Well at least no one can complain about Hamilton's portion size. There go 1200 pages of some of the worst prose I've had to endure. Just a goddamned waste of my time because the significant story and action (which was interesting) took up less than half that length. The rest was filled with the kind of world building you might care about if you can quickly envision a litany of length by width measurements of various structures in meters. The characters were mostly superficial. Women functioned primarily as objects. There are many MANY sex scenes, which hey I can get into that, but they were soooo cringe inducing mainly due to an immature framework that my eyes hurt from so much rolling.

A sample: "...gloating at her wide-eyed incredulity as his semen surged into her in a long exultant consummation."

Good one.

Unfortunately, the final 100 pages or so were exciting and the stopping point of the first novel felt pretty arbitrary. The reader just has to face they've gotten themselves into a 3,800 page book. I have to face this. Oh god. I'm totally going to read the next book in the series. ( )
  Adrian_Astur_Alvarez | Dec 3, 2019 |
The old joke from Annie Hall comes to mind. Two old women complaining about a restaurant, one says "The food here is terrible." The other, "...and the portions so small!"

Well at least no one can complain about Hamilton's portion size. There go 1200 pages of some of the worst prose I've had to endure. Just a goddamned waste of my time because the significant story and action (which was interesting) took up less than half that length. The rest was filled with the kind of world building you might care about if you can quickly envision a litany of length by width measurements of various structures in meters. The characters were mostly superficial. Women functioned primarily as objects. There are many MANY sex scenes, which hey I can get into that, but they were soooo cringe inducing mainly due to an immature framework that my eyes hurt from so much rolling.

A sample: "...gloating at her wide-eyed incredulity as his semen surged into her in a long exultant consummation."

Good one.

Unfortunately, the final 100 pages or so were exciting and the stopping point of the first novel felt pretty arbitrary. The reader just has to face they've gotten themselves into a 3,800 page book. I have to face this. Oh god. I'm totally going to read the next book in the series. ( )
  Adrian_Astur_Alvarez | Dec 3, 2019 |
When most people think of English sci-fi writers the one that usually comes to mind is Douglas Adams as author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. However, after reading this first in an epic space trilogy that may all change.

To say this is not easy reading would be an accurate statement, but to say it is well worth reading would also be an accurate statement; this is a novel that demands your full attention and time so that the reader will fully appreciate all the layers and undercurrents that feature within its pages of which there are over 1200.

In this book and I have read the whole trilogy more than once, the Author takes the time to start developing the characters that will feature throughout the entire series. With great attention to detail he places certain personality traits in the storyline at key points. There is the evil genius, rebellious teenager and a bad boy turned good, which unfortunately make them appear like cookie cutter characters that one might read about in any book in this genre. However, the main problem with this that I found was that it was very difficult to discover who, out of all the characters introduced was the main protagonist. Once discovered, he turns out to be the kind of character you will either instantly like or want him to be dealt a killing blow as quickly as possible. I quite liked the quirkiness I found to be part of his personality and, rather than the cookie cutter I imagined he was destined to be for the remainder of the novel, he actually turned out to be quite fun. What makes him fun may not be every reader’s ideal, but there was just something about his character that made him hard to dislike.

When it comes to the plot line some of the happenings may seem to hit a nerve, or give a feeling of déjà vu. This is not because the Author has transplanted the idea from somewhere else, but rather that something else has borrowed an idea found in this book and adapted it to their use; think Farscape, the ship and Pilot and when reading this book you will see to what I refer. As with all sci-fi fantasy novels, this one provides a landscape in which the reader can let their imagination run riot; it doesn’t matter if at first glance some of the plot lines may appear unbelievable, put them in whatever context your imagination sees fit, and you will find they become believable.

For those readers who are offended by sex scenes in their reading material, there are some included in this book, but they are of such a nature that you could easily skim over them without losing the thread of the plot at all. In fact, I felt that if these unnecessary scenes had been cut from the original book, not only would it have cut down the number of pages but also helped the flow of the storyline a little. The main reason for my 4 thumbs rating, as much as I enjoyed this book, is that rather than space out some of the more brutal parts of this beginning epic, the Author crammed in as much torture and general exploitation in to the first half of the book as they possibly could and this was rather overwhelming at times. There is so much more I want to bring to the attention of anyone who might be considering reading this book, but not only would it result in my revealing some pretty spectacular pieces of writing, but it would probably mean that this review would extend way beyond the usual space I allocate to these things.

With that said I would highly recommend this book, and the following two, to anyone who enjoys a great sci-fi epic and who may not have already read this.


Originally reviewed on: http://catesbooknuthut.com/2014/03/26/review-the-reality-dysfunction-nights-dawn...




This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
( )
  TheAcorn | Nov 8, 2019 |
If the words “space opera” make you think of grandiose scenarios, huge casts of characters and sweeping stories encompassing vast distances, Peter Hamilton’s Night’s Dawn trilogy certainly fits the bill.

FULL REVIEW AT SPACE and SORCERY BLOG ( )
  SpaceandSorcery | Dec 25, 2018 |
Superior SF, makes you think both in what's explicit and implicit. ( )
  expatscot | Dec 20, 2018 |
I am really drawn in by Peter F. Hamilton's writing style and find myself wanting to know more about the universe he had created. The characters are very well-written and struggle and grow throughout the course of the book. The 'Reality Dysfunction' he is describing in the book is quite a fascinating and complex concept and I'm looking forward to how it and the characters are explored in the following books. This is the second book I have read by this author (A Second Chance at Eden was the first) and I'm keen to read them all now. ( )
  DeborahJade | Dec 25, 2017 |
Ok, I had this book lying around for almost 18 months. After reading the commonwealth saga, I was wary of starting this book, as Hamilton stories tend to be pretty heavy, and I was not in the mood for heavy. anyway, I had nothing else on my "to-read" pile(incredible, I know!) so I opened it, started reading and..stopped at page 22, disgusted. Ok, I get it, he likes lenthgy explanation of how ships works, how planet evolve, but... EVERYONE has described those in thousands of pages already, and it's BORING now. Space opera to me means "optimized" text that focus on the story, not on describing the frigging panel next to the door and the technology that allows to open it. One example of wasted text(well, the whole of chapter 2, describing the evolution of a planet, is wasted text but here is a smaller example) "The hull breach wrecked thirty percent of our jump nodes. We're a navy ship, we can jump with ten percent knocked out, but thirty.. looks like we're stuck out here..." This whole sentence should have been written as "That hull breach took out our jump capability." Period. Nice, short, simple, effective, doesn't bore you to death. Star Trek was popular because it said "dillithium is required for warp drive" and that's it, no boring talks around it to try to sugarcoat it. 22 pages that felt like 300. for a 1100 pages book, that's not a good thing. I like lengthy read, but no way I'm ever opening this one again. ( )
  kinwolf | Sep 23, 2017 |
...While there were quite a few things I wasn't too impressed with in this novel, I have to admit it is compulsively readable after the first four hundred pages or so. You really want to find out how the story of this or that character continues even if you have to wait a hundred pages for them to show up again. In essence, The Reality Dysfunction is a great beach read. It'll keep you reading while not being overly demanding. There is much better written space opera out there in my opinion, but I can still see why Hamilton has acquired an audience. Maybe I'll even pick up the second volume the next time I'm travelling.

Full Random Comments review ( )
  Valashain | Oct 26, 2016 |
A truly astounding first volume in the "Nights Dawn" trilogy. This is a huge work on a vast "space opera" canvas, a vividly painted, grandiose vision which creates a wonderfully complex and compelling picture of humanity in the 26th century. Whilst technology holds sway, there is an undercurrent of "science vs magic" which explodes into a horror story on an epic, galaxy spanning scale.
  cryptext | Jun 18, 2016 |
I’ve read, or attempted to, my share of stupid books over the years, but I don’t think I’ve ever picked up a book this damn stupid in my entire life! I’m astounded, because The Reality Dysfunction has a great 4.24 rating on Goodreads, one of the highest ratings I’ve ever seen. Yet, it’s unbelievably stupid. I don’t see how anyone could possibly read past the first three chapters and not laugh their asses off at the sheer idiocy of the author. Cause that’s how far I got before giving up. And I’m not going to read the sequel, which has a higher rating than this! Unreal.

The first chapter isn’t that bad with a chase and destroy scene between three presumably white “good” starships and five black “bad” starships. Nothing to write home about, in fact a little boring, but an okay start. Actually, too much sci fi jingo, like the author’s trying to impress his audience with his sci fi tech knowledge. It’s weak.

The second chapter is about a planet. An alien planet somewhere … out there. It formed out of a nova or dwarf or something and then with the right light and elements, became life bearing and after billions of years, algae evolved. And then you get a whole damn chapter on evolution on this planet, which frankly mirrors Earth’s pretty closely. Why the hell is this there? Why couldn’t this have been a two paragraph aside somewhere? Why does this boring shit merit its own chapter? Who cares about how this evolution occurs? Allegedly, according to reviewers, for this author, it occurs pretty much the same way on every planet, so what’s the big deal?

The third chapter is the bozo chapter. A ship is bringing its 108-year-old female captain and her husband back to Saturn to die. Apparently, she’s outlived it and he, cause I guess it’s a HE, tells her It’s Time. Cause they talk telepathically. Cause they have some sort of emotional love link. Cause she tells him that of her three husbands and two lovers, she loves her ship more than anyone ever. She tries to talk it out of dying, but he insists he must. They talk about her 10 children/zygotes she has finally produced after 108 years, one of them with her current husband’s sperm. As she goes by each zygote, the ship names each one. It’s agonizing to read each paragraph as it oh so romantically goes on and on about how great each one will be. Then the moment comes when they must separate. It’s horrible. She can’t take it. Her husband, who apparently can also talk to her telepathically, leads her away from the ship to a terminal, since it has magically docked without our being told, and this is a terminal for captains to mourn and see their ships die and console each other and basically hold funeral services. I’m not fucking kidding.

It gets worse. Free of the humans, the ship goes off and calls to his fellows and similar ships answer his call in droves and come to it while he goes flying off. One links to him, I guess physically, even though they’re going at about nine gees and they don’t collide and blow each other up, which is a miracle, and through their link, they have a ship orgasm. Yep. Not kidding. Then it’s time to birth the babies. I didn’t see this coming. One by one, ten ships come up to this flying ship and take a baby … ship and look after it, telling it where it is and herding it into the safety of Saturn’s rings, where they’ll be growing for the next 18 years when they’ll finally be adult ships and will have captains of their own. So this female human captain who had 10 babies, one of whom was from her husband’s own sperm, gave birth to 10 spaceships. Excuse me, but what the motherfuck is that??? And then, to top it off, a “bad” black ship invades and connects with the soon-to-die ship and they produce a baby ship which the original ship predicts will be the greatest of them all. Then this dying ship goes flying every which way and pretty much blows itself up, oh so romantically while everyone sheds a tear, yet is happy for it. To end the chapter, the black clad stranger/pilot walks into the mourning terminal and no one wants anything to do with him, so the captain goes to him and starts talking to him and starts joking about how she’s got some granddaughters she needs to marry off. To him. Oh.My.God. The most stupid chapter ever written in the history of the universe. Reading it was both priceless and sheer torture. I’ve never read anything like it and hope to never do so again.

Apparently, other characters appear and other worlds come into play and apparently there are a ton of Satanists, although why, possibly billions of years in the future, there would be Satanists, is beyond me. This author has written quite a few sci fi novels, but what I don’t know what his personal background is. Most of the sci fi writers I read are actual scientists or come from a military background, or both. I get the idea this guy is neither. He probably owns a comic book store. Maybe he’s a middle school dropout. Whatever the case, this book is rubbish, the author is a ninny, and I’m glad I bought this used cause I could never forgive myself if I had paid full price for this piece of shit. Grudgingly one star, because I can’t give zero stars. Most definitely not recommended at all. ( )
1 vote scottcholstad | Apr 13, 2016 |
"TL,DR. There are very few SF stories that justify more than 120,000 words."
- Jo Walton's blog on Hugo Nominees: 1998
Jo Walton is the best sf books reviewer extant (IMO), as an author she is no slouch either. Unfortunately for her The Reality Dysfunction is the exception that proves the rule, this is one of the "very few SF stories" that she is talking about. Certainly a book this magnitude, clocking on at over 1,200 pages, is dissuasive for many people. If you are interested in reading this book but feel intimidated by the high page count I suggest you treat this one volume book as you would an entire trilogy. Read one third, go read another book, come back read the second third, go read yet another book etc. Don't worry that there are two more gargantuan volumes in the Night Dawn Trilogy, you may not even want to read them! Sandwiching shorter books between long ones work wonders for me. Of course nowadays long novels are in vogue, especially for fantasy novels, clearly books this size is exactly what a lot of readers want.

The Reality Dysfunction is Peter F. Hamilton's breakout book, it established him as the leading exponent of huge sprawling epic space operas. Still, I have to admire the author's gumption in writing a novel of such an uncompromising length, which is certainly not the norm for science fiction. He clearly did not do it for the money, he could have written shorter faster paced books and they probably wold have been easier to get published. He has this huge story to tell and he wants to tell and he will tell it in as many pages as necessary. The success of this book and the series as a whole totally vindicated him. His shorter books are far less popular than his whale size space operas.

The Night Dawn Trilogy is essentially about humanity's fight for survival against invaders from another dimension. The twist is that the invaders are not aliens. To say any more would be venturing into spoiler territory, though if you have read other reviews you probably know what I'm being coy about already. Actually before I read this book somebody told me it is about space zombies, I thought may be it would be something like Dawn of The Dead in space which sounded like a hoot to me though I was surprised such a story could span three elephantine books. Any way, it is not about zombies, there are no zombies in The Reality Dysfunction (I can't speak for subsequent volumes at this point but I doubt the zoms will show up), but I now understand the oversimplification.

As he is working on such a huge canvas Hamilton takes time to setup his pieces, worldbuilding, characters developing (so damn many of them), and meticulous plotting. For the first 300 or so pages I had no idea where the story is going, or who the main protagonists or antagonists are. The book is not hard to follow though, Hamilton has a clear clean prose style, not much in the way of lyricism but the more prosaic style is more practical for this kind of epic space opera I think. There are already so many worlds, species, people and cultures to introduce without further befuddling the readers with a poetic narrative. The author saves his inventiveness for his creations, living organic spaceships, cities, houses, all kinds of weird gadgets, and more alien and strange creatures than you can shake a stick at. This book is also, to some extent, a sci-fi/horror mash up, there are scenes of supernatural horror that I did not expect to find in a space opera. A lesser author would probably make the whole thing ridiculous but Hamilton is no ordinary author and he made it work. This book is also, to some extent, a sci-fi/horror mash up, there are scenes of supernatural horror that I did not expect to find in a space opera. A lesser author would probably make the whole thing ridiculous but Hamilton is no ordinary author and he made it work.

As mentioned earlier there is a huge cast of characters and sometime it is hard to remember who is who, but he does return to a few main characters more than others. Many of the characters tend to be archetypes, the evil charismatic genius sociopath, the rebellious teenager straight off a daytime soap who gets more than she bargained for, the bad boy turned good etc. Characterization is not one of the strengths of this book, though the characters are not so flat as to leave you with no one to root for or want dead. There are also a lot of sex scenes in this book which I don't find particularly sexy or relevant to the story, certainly this is not a book to read to your children.

The book is longer than it needs to be, but not by too much; cutting down on the unnecessary sex scenes would probably shear off a centimetre or so from the book's thickness. But Hamilton makes it all worthwhile by the explosive end of this first volume where a small group of characters win a minor victory for humanity. The war itself has just begun of course.

If you have never read Peter F. Hamilton before I would recommend reading [b:Pandora's Star|45252|Pandora's Star (Commonwealth Saga, #1)|Peter F. Hamilton|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1347952635s/45252.jpg|987015] first. This is the start of an entirely different series which he wrote some years later than this book, it is better written, more refined, and the characters are better developed. Still, if you insist on The Reality Dysfunction as your first Hamilton I doubt you will regret the decision. I am certainly going to read the next obese volume [b:The Neutronium Alchemist|479561|The Neutronium Alchemist (Night's Dawn, #2)|Peter F. Hamilton|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1347555003s/479561.jpg|6519560]. Damn you Mr. Hamilton, you are practically monopolizing my reading time!
__________________________________________

Update December 2013: Just read The Neutronium Alchemist (my review) it is a substantial improvement on The Reality Dysfunction. I particularly enjoy the chapters from the possessed people’s point of view. ( )
  apatt | Dec 26, 2015 |
Please read the full review on Weighing A Pig Doesn't Fatten It...

I really wanted to like this, since I like Space Opera on a grand scale and a vast canvas, like Banks & Reynolds. This however, felt bad for 2 reasons.

First, Hamilton is no stylist: the book suffers from a terrible use of language. Hard to read, wrought sentences, tons of exposition, cheapo images (“if the ship would have had lungs, it would have sighed”), tedious descriptions of things, etc. This is not a standalone novel, so there’s 3000 pages of that in the entire series?

A bad writing style would have been something I could have overcome, but then (...) ( )
  bormgans | Dec 15, 2015 |
A long-drawn-out affair.

never really became interesting, and this was the first of three... I think I'll pass on the sequels. ( )
  ColinThompson | Oct 18, 2015 |
A flawed masterpiece.

The flaws are linguistic. Word for word, Hamilton is not the best writer ever born. He sometimes runs two sentences together with a comma, this can be annoying. Also, sometimes you know what he means, but technically he hasn't said it.

On the other hand, he's a superb story teller, with amazing control over many different strands. The themes are broadly sociological, mainly religion, politics and government, and social stratification. What really struck me, and which have stayed with me in the ten years since I first read it, are the ideas. It's like Arthur C Clarke, Iain M Banks and the internet all taken to the nth degree.

Superb! ( )
  Lukerik | May 15, 2015 |
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