r/PeterFHamilton

I loved Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained. Then I started the Night's Dawn trilogy. I made it about half way through the first book ... DNF.

I loved the vast space opera style of the first two. The metaphysics of the second one, despite still having everything I loved about ther others, was just so depressing that it ruined the whole story for me. So much so that I have not picked up another P.H. book since.

In any case, I would appreciate recommendations for more Peter Hamilton books like the first two that avoids the issues I had with the second.

In Judas Unchained, Wilson Kime sent Oscar and one of his buddies (the wormhole expedition team leader, IIRC) to the High Angel to ask it about the Dyson Pair.

Oscar asked directly about the Dyson spheres and asked whether the High Angel had encountered anything like it, to which the High Angel said it had not, and even said it was interested in what Kime and his crew would find.

Likewise, the Raiel had suspiciously little to say about the Dyson pair or the Prime, even when the human navy and authorities asked what would happen if the Prime attacked High Angel/the Icalanise system.

Later, we find out of course that the Raiel very much knew about the Prime, the DF spheres were Raiel technology, and although the Raiel did not deploy the DF spheres themselves, they willingly provided the technology to another species to deploy it to contain the Prime.

Even if we accept that the Raiel and warrior Raiel were different factions, it's impossible to believe the "regular" Raiel didn't know about the DF spheres or the Prime.

The Raiel did, after all, man the observation project at the Void itself, where DF spheres were deployed.

Humans didn't know that at the time, but again: why deny knowing about the spheres and the Prime? And given the involvement of Raiel like Qatux in the Starflyer war, and the fact that they were the ones who built the tech, why not warn humans?

Furthermore, why leave humanity to face MorningLightMountain alone?

I realize there are narrative reasons. The story's stakes are lower if some incredibly powerful older brother type race could just swoop in and save the day, but on the whole it does not make much sense.

How much of the Marie Celeste Institute's workforce were actively controlled by the Starflyer? By the latter stages of Judas Unchained, they seemed to be in a full-on war-footing against the Guardians: had they been conditioned to believe without doubt that the Guardians were terrorists, or had they all been enslaved by the Starflyer as "human motiles"?

And why didn't the Starflyer enslave every human that came within it's sphere of influence? Oscar Munroe visits the Institute for information early in the story, and yet is not assimiliated by the Starflyer - why?

I’ve been smashing through the entirety of Peter’s work for the past long while, but I’m finding that some, if not all, of the Pan MacMillan releases have egregious levels of spelling errors that should have been picked up.

I just started Mindstar Rising, and I’ve already copped a couple in the first hundred pages.

I bought the first Exodus book - signed hardcover - from Forbidden Planet. I was wanting to get the second from them as well so they match, but there's nothing as yet on their site. The Broken Binding have one for sale, but the signature is on an inserted sheet so wouldn't be the same. Waterstones have pre-orders available but don't state that they are signed copies.

Does anyone here know of anywhere else to pre-order a signed hardcover?

I keep hearing that all the female characters are incredibly horny. I have only read/listened to the first Exodus book and The Commonwealth books (I have the last two void books to go) and while I agree, it is not JUST the females. Nearly every character in these novels are horny balls, wanting to screw anyone they meet.

Considering they are in a future where it seems the traditional religion of our day seems to have very little power, and they have gone past the whole shaming people for sex and desires, it actually seems reasonable.

Granted, some of the scenes are positively pornographic, and it would be nice to have known about it, I listen to them on audible, and sometimes have passages! But I can see that when post-religious morals come along, that are secular morals, take hold, sexual freedom will become quite a thing.

The track is called "Waterwalker" (lyrics below) and was inspired directly by the Commonwealth Saga and Void trilogy. It's one of the tracks on our upcoming self-produced album, Supercruise, which is heavily infused with science fiction themes.

We don't have a set genre but work primarily in the funk, hip hop, soul and blues spheres, mostly because that's the kind of music we love and know how to play. There are some retrowave sounds on some of the other tracks. This project began more than a year ago as a labor of love and there's no set date for the entire album, but we hope to have a better idea in the coming months as we finish a few more tracks and get a sense for how things are shaping up.

Lyrics:

Ingress burn aligned in phase

Riding lines through time and space

Emerge from a shining gate

Anti-matter drives ablaze

Burning toward an evening star

My primal human beating heart

Screaming photons teased apart

In the Void receding far

The Waterwalker flies below

In the city's mind enthroned

Guiding where the time will flow

To new horizons skylords show

The Morning Light on Mountains high

Portals blaze on ground and sky

On every world we're found alive

Raising swords and counting Primes

Waterwalker, bring the mighty low

Waterwalker, bring your far sight home

Waterwalker, turn the hills to ash

Oh Waterwalker, roam the Silfen paths!

Waterwalker, will you intervene?

Waterwalker, you're the Living Dream

Waterwalker, can we be redeemed?

In a world where we don't build machines"

I've also uploaded the album's intro track, which is just a short bit to get the party started:

https://youtu.be/FQ84Ur2J358?si=IbulndsVKjnKgoIt

That one has references to Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space series, and of course Deep Navigation is the name of one of AR's short story collections, used with his blessing.

If anyone digs this and is interesting, I will post updates as we hopefully bring a complete album together by the end of this year. I'm a huge fan of Hamilton, Reynolds, Banks et al, and it's been really fun to mine their stories for musical inspiration. Cheers.