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Great North Road by Peter F. Hamilton

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Police drama, mystery, military action, aliens, and expansive world building, all packed together in a 900+ page science fiction epic. Peter F. Hamilton just can’t do small! And I’m all the happier for it.

This is a must read book if you are a fan of science fiction and Peter F. Hamilton proves again why he is among the top ranked current sci-fi writers. As usual, Hamilton goes to great lengths to build a unique world/universe and populate it with aliens very different from the typical sci-fi genre space dwellers. This is a very difficult task, because in reality any aliens we are likely to meet in the real world would have developed along completely independent evolutionary lines and are not going to be like us at all. And to create this in science fiction, to develop something that doesn’t even think like humans, is a very hard task indeed. Mr. Hamilton does it better than most, at least for what can be expected from a human brain.

I also found the near future police detective work to be absolutely fascinating. It was a real exploration of what it might be like to investigate a crime in a world filled with fancy surveillance equipment and tools, many of which were things that are just now making an appearance in our real world, for example, smart dust. It also explored the possible ways to counter such surveillance as the bad guys sure didn’t make it easy for our detectives. And over-all, it was neat to see how this was then worked into the larger story and the military expedition to find an alien who may was implicated in the crime the detectives were investigating.

The are several characters to follow in this one and the back-story of many of them is intertwined throughout the book. There was at least one character that I felt was not really necessary to the story, but it didn’t hurt anything to include; just seemed a little useless, like it was a character who was underdeveloped, started but never really finished being fleshed out. I’ll leave it to you to figure out which one.

The ending: it was expansive enough to allow Mr. Hamilton to return to this universe again is he chooses to do so, but final enough that this book can stand on it’s own without any further follow-up.

I strongly recommend this one and felt it was well worth the time invested; I’m still feeling the after shock of finishing a book where you can’t stop feeling like your still in that world.

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The Phoenix Rising by Richard L. Sanders

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

After reading the first book, ‘the Phoenix Conspiracy’, I was left with the feeling that the book was ok, but not spectacular; it had an interesting story, but suffered from some obvious editorial needs. However, I have to say that ‘the Phoenix Rising’ is a much improved book from the first in the series and I’m glad I didn’t stop at the first.

This book is a straight forward military/mystery sci-fi that will appeal strongly to those who like that genre or love Star Trek books. It keeps a fast pace through most of the book with only a few minor slow points to give you a breather. I’m not sure if I was really digging the romantic scene with the Chen character, but in the end you can see how it sets him up to do what he does; I might have simply chosen a stronger plot mechanism to drive him to the same conclusion. Also, I’m still having mixed feelings about the use of vampire/werewolf type characters in the story. I know it has more of a scientific explanation in this book, but I feel like it may be pandering to the current fades rather than trying for something truly inventive and new. I guess I just didn’t expect to find it here since the original book description of ‘the Phoenix Conspiracy’ didn’t mention it.

This was a decent read for an ebook only story and the price on these books is in line with the level of this author within the sci-fi ebook sphere. I will be moving on the the third book in the series in due time.

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The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I found this to be a rather interesting collaboration by two authors I never would have expected to get together. I’ve admittedly not read very much by Terry Pratchett, probably because his style of fictional humor simply isn’t my favorite genre. I am however a big fan of Stephen Baxter, so I thought that might make this worth a go. I was not disappointed.

I found the blended writing style to be well executed, with Terry Pratchett adding just a slight touch of humor without loosing the seriousness of the multiverse concept being explored in the story. The book is a good length and shouldn’t take too long to read, though it is clearly the beginning of a multi-book series; the ending left it wide open.

In general it was a very enjoyable read and I look forward to the next installment. At some point they really need to make some merchandise to go with this series, like a stepper kit (supply your own potato).

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Bowl of Heaven by Gregory Benford

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Seems there are quite a few low ratings for this book on GoodReads.com; I think this just shows me to be a bit old-school when it comes to my sci-fi. I rather liked the book and didn’t mind that it didn’t try to cram in more singularity kinds of stuff.

The book sets the story in a quasi Dyson sphere (only 1/2 of a sphere) with lots of different aliens and eco-systems. The science explored here ranges from realistic interstellar flight to evolution and brain science. While the story has plenty of strange aliens, the use of these aliens in the story is really a reflection for the study of ourselves and how our brains work. This seems to incorporate much of our recent discoveries in neuroscience and the topic of freewill; science I’ve also been reading in other recent non-fiction books. This is exactly the type of stuff I love and one of the best reasons to read good science fiction.

This book is not a stand alone story, so if you’re thinking about reading it and not continuing on with the other books when they come out, I’d say you should skip this. Otherwise, I think this will turn out to be a nice series from two of sci-fi’s greatest authors. I won’t give it away, but this first book does end with a bit of a mystery at the end, one I’m sure will take the entire series to play out.

I’m really looking forward to book number two, ‘Shipstar’

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