Okay, I just finished reading the Nights Dawn Trilogy, by Peter F Hamilton. Upon finishing the series
(comprised of "The Reality Dysfunction", "The Neutronium Alchemist", and "The Naked God") my thoughts were as follows:
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...
EPIC!
*gibbering in awe*
...
After I calmed down a bit, I decided to recommend the books here, so here's a quick overview:
Definitely space opera
(though there are a number of "spiritual" elements here and there), the action takes place in a "Confederation" of some 800 human owned planets, comprised of two primary factions, the Adamists and the Edenists, with a few alien races thrown in to spice things up. The Edenists represent the pinnacle of biological and genetic engineering (bitek, in the books), living in organic, sentient habitats that feed on magnetic fluxes around gas giants. All their tech is organically based, and they spliced an 'affinity gene' into themselves, giving themselves short ranged telepathy.
The Adamists long ago rejected bitek for religious reasons, and are more or less the standard extension of modern society, with neural implants and a few enhanced, cyborgish traits.
To describe the primary antagonist faction is a bit spoilery, so I've put it in the spoilers below.
The Possesed. In the world of the series, all sentient creatures have an immortal soul, which can persist after death in a realm referred to as "The Beyond." The souls residing therein crave the experience and sensation of the world they lost, and are tormented by the fact that they can still dimly perceive the real world, longing to regain the sensation they crave.
A certain event occurs that allows souls to reenter living bodies when said bodies are in a state of extreme stress (torture.) A person possesed by a dead soul gains "energistic" power, allowing them to create illusions, heal themselves, throw fire, and generally wish things into existance. They are instinctively driven to increase their numbers by possesing more people, for reasons that would be too much of a spoiler to give here.
The action takes place on a massive scale, with dozens of characters, locations and themes, in a world that is fantastically detailed, and, what really got me,
amazingly internally consistent. Each new development is often an amazing plot twist, but Hamilton manages to ensure that everything still follows logically from previously described events and details, and makes sure everything just
makes sense in the environment he's described.
Anyway, I loved it, and thought some of you here might enjoy (or already have enjoyed) reading it. Discuss!
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Topic: Nights Dawn Trilogy (Read 922 times)