The Dreaming Void

The first in Peter F. Hamilton's new trilogy The Dreaming Void is a great return to the Commonwealth Universe. Set 1500 years after his previous two books I expected it would feel like a whole new universe after that amount of time has passed. However that's not a the case here, you quickly get a sense of the history and how things have naturally changed and progressed after the Starflyer war. Also thanks to rejuvenation technology there are a few characters still alive from that time as well.

The style is much the same as Hamilton's previous major works. You begin with a bunch of different characters living their lives in various locations throughout the universe. Then slowly over time their stories begin to intersect and overlap becoming a grand and complicated tale. In this book there are five main story lines along with a few smaller ones and various sub plots. The weirdest one would have to be the dreams from the Void. On it's own that storyline probably wouldn't even be called science fiction. More likely it would be considered fantasy/medieval albeit with a psychic twist. The other odd one would be the adventures of a young interior decorator. I found her story unexpectedly interesting but it took me a while figure out where she fit into the big picture. Looking back I probably should have guessed more easily.

While I will usually read something everyday, it's typically only for a fairly short amount of time. I generally just read a little before bed. However some books do have the power to suck me in and make me choose reading over games or TV. Hamilton's stories are a good example of that. I know I read The Naked God and Judas Unchained extremely quickly considering their length because I simply had to know how they ended. The same was true for The Dreaming Void. I'm glad I waited for all three parts of the story to be out before I started. To have started in 2007 and then having to wait until last month for the final part would have been quite annoying I expect. Of course there would have been The Temporal Void in 2008 to keep you going a little but it's still a bit stretched out. Now I can read all three in one go as a single story.