Customer Reviews

The Naked God, Part 2: Faith

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

There are six books in Peter F. Hamilton's "Night's Dawn" series:

- "The Reality Dysfunction - Part 1: Emergence,"
- "The Reality Dysfunction - Part 2: Expansion,"
- "The Neutronium Alchemist - Part 1: Consolidation,"
- "The Neutronium Alchemist - Part 2: Conflict,"
- "The Naked God - Part 1: Flight," and
- "The Naked God - Part 2: Faith."

Be warned: you CANNOT read these books individually. They are, essentially, chapters in one whopping great book. If you like the first book, then you'll have to read the other five books in order. There's no tie-up of any sort between any of the books. The publisher just broke the story up because it totals over 3,000 pages. If you pick up a book before you've read all the previous books (in order), put it down. It won't mean anything to you. Since these books are entirely dependent on each other, I'm writing this review on the series as a whole, not on the individual books.

This is one of the greatest science fiction sagas written. It ranks up there with David Brin's "Uplift Saga." It is literally a story of good vs evil and shows some of the potential (and pitfalls) of the human race. Over the years, I've read the whole series five times, and I still love it. I really only have two gripes with the book. First, and this is unavoidable in what Hamilton is doing, the evil in the series is definitely, graphically evil. This is not a book where the villain twists his mustache and laughs "nyah hah hah" as he forecloses on the orphanage or ties the heroine to the railroad tracks. The writing is fairly graphic in a lot of places. After five readings, this gets a bit wearing. My second gripe is one which somewhat limits the audience of the series (even more so than the evilness presented, and it's why I've given the series four stars instead of five): there's too much sex and the writing about it is too graphic. This is a problem with all of Hamilton's books, but it seems more prevalent in this series. Because of this, I wouldn't recommend the book for your children to read. But, as long as you're aware of that, I highly recommend the series and give it 4 stars out of five.

Warning: This review contains spoilers.

As other reviewers have said, Hamilton's 27th century is a fascinating place. I haven't felt this excited about a future history since I first encountered Iain M. Banks's Culture novels. I did find the ethnic-streaming colonization policy rather ridiculous, based as it is on contemporary racial stereotypes; the female characters can also be somewhat annoying. However, these are just cavils. I got tremendous pleasure out of this space opera. Hamilton's mingling of SF and horror is visionary in scale and potential. Imagine Banks possessed by the soul of Stephen King. Breathtaking.

It could have been so much more.

Few and far between are hard SF authors who tackle theological issues dead on. For the first 4000 pages of his opus, Hamilton seems to break the mould. He manipulates points of view with virtuosic skill, introducing ghosts, souls in what looks like purgatory, otherdimensional entities that look like demons, and an exorcism that actually works, and in the process he manages to make the question "Does God exist?" one of burning importance to reader and characters alike. In "The Naked God: Faith," the last sixth of the "trilogy," he leads us towards an encounter with something called the "Sleeping God." It turns out to be basically a xenoc Tardis, solves all the characters' outstanding problems in one go, and fixes our hero's commitment issues to boot. In the last few pages of the book, which celebrate the human race's potential for growth and greatness, the gospel according to Hamilton becomes quite clear: 1) Believe in yourself. 2) If you are an educated atheist you have a good chance of "transcending" the dimension that equates to purgatory. Why? Because educated atheists believe in themselves, apparently.

Shame on you, Hamilton, for taking the coward's way out. I feel as if I'd climbed Everest and found nothing but an empty crisp packet at the top.

It was extremely good fun on the way up, though, so I'm still going to give this four stars.

...>1st and foremost: The Night's Dawn is one of the most ambitious series ever written. Compared to most of the latest articles in the science fiction and fantasy genres, it whips bottom. Simple as that. It is an ingenious masterpiece.

You would have expected, for example, a brilliant beginning as the 27th century universe is unfurled (which you got in the previous volumes), then a slowing of the world-making and an increase in focused action and character-building. This is not the case with Naked God. It carries you deeper into the world of the Galaxy-spanning Confederation than any of the other volumes, and it provides one with insights into the future which tiptoe on the edge of prophesy. At the same time, the action (and tension) just keeps on building, and the characters are not only fleshed out, but allowed to evovle and become more complex, as well. Therefore, the two stars I usually reserve for writing strategy and technique are mr Hamilton's by right.

On to the prose, which is absolutely wonderful in the sense that Hamilton can juggle the roles of in-the-character's-head narrator, the character's thoughts tinging his prose, and the superior Gods-eye-view narrator who knows all and sees all. He can juggle that seamlessly. It is simply as natural as one could hope for, throughout all three novels. Three stars.

As for genre-capability, the ability of giving the genre reader what he/she has been looking for, in this case very plausible high-powered gadgetry, aliens and all the essentials of a 27th century setting, Hamilton simply excels. I fail to see how it could possibly get better. The Naked God brings even more obscure actual and fictitious science into the series than its predecessors. Unbeleivers, read his account of the Mosdva. Four stars.

So far, Naked God and the other Night's Dawn books are so perfect, there's no sense of proportion to the whole series. It is too good.

Now let's talk about the much discussed deus ex machina ending. It's a very bad ending. in fact, I'd say it is pathetic. Too wishy-washily magical. Too good to be true, and too short. OK, satisfied? But, first of all it IS an ending. How many series have I read that just go on and on (ring a bell?) while the author becomes fabulously rich and his readers start going into comas... And even if some of those supra-genial reviewers don't think it challenges their intellect sufficiently, it wraps everything up in a way that is INTERNALLY plausible. Which is to say, it is not contradictory or unsuitable. It's just too hurried and clumsy. I will still indulge these people and hold back my fifth star which, up to page 1200, I would have given away gladly.

Now, does the bad ending mar a good series? I don't think so. For 30 pages of disappointment, Hamilton has written 3000 pages of pure genious! Compare it to Robert Jordan's 100 pages of action for thousands of pages of drawn-out bore, and you'll see what this guy Hamilton is worth.

Reviewers such as mr. Eftychiou (reviewing Naked God: Flight) should not mistake bile for style. Giving extreme ratings for minor failings is not an indication of character.

Buy these books, everyone. You stand to lose nothing at all.

As with his other books in the series it's an excellant read. Well worth the time spent on it. One problem though is that for some reason the american release of this novel is in 2 parts. The full novel has been available overseas for some time. So I am going to sell my US copy (part1 - Flight ) and buy the UK hardcover which (at twice the pages as the US versions) is the full novel. I wish I had done this originally and I would recommend to anyone that they check out amazon.co.uk.

It's going to be hard talking about this without revealing plot points but I'm going to do my best. If you're reading this you're either reading because you want to see if someone agreed with your opinion or you're curious about the series and want to see if it's worth it. The former folks I can't do anything about but to the latter I can definitely say it's worth the trip. The last book in the series mostly wraps up the myriad of major plots, granted they converge in a way never thought possible but at the same time it was fairly exciting how they all suddenly merged. The action is as rapid as ever and Hamilton deftly keeps things moving to the point where you're literally flipping through pages because the pace is just that rapid. The characters are . . . well, toward the end they start falling into the traps of their own stereotypes, Quinn Dexter was never the most three dimensional of people but he gets tiresomely predictable as the book winds to a close, while even the good characters tend to start wallowing in their own goodness. Still it's a classic good versus evil fight with some wacky philosophy thrown in and generally that requires its character to be living embodiments of goodness or vile evil, Hamilton normally handles it well but sometimes you just want to roll your eyes. The ending isn't as much abrupt as really "deux es machina" but if you can figure out a way to wrap all that up without writing an entirely new book, I'd like to see folks try. It wasn't the perfect ending that I was hoping for but at the same time it didn't ruin the book for me like others are claiming. All in all the entire series is a very satisfying experience, it's sort of sad to finish it since if you've been following this since the beginning it's been nearly three years and over three thousand pages, this people good or bad start to become sort of like part of your family. Hamilton should be praised for making one of the best future histories to come along for a long time, it's detailed and more importantly it's a place (well before that whole possession thing) that I wouldn't mind living in, full of action and adventure and political intrigue, he could theoretically mine the setting for stories for years. I don't think since Larry Niven's Known Space series have we seen that. Is the series perfect? No, it's not, but there isn't any single problem that I could see that made the books less worthy or anything that made want to stop reading. There was something for everyone here and what we got was one of the greatest SF epics of the last ten or so years that raised a bunch of interesting concepts (and distilled a bunch more, Hamilton wasn't utterly original but it's what you do with the concepts that counts), was vastly entertaining and entirely readable (except when you skip a few years in between reading, don't make that mistake) and it's a series who's reputation will only grow in the years to come.

So this is the climax to the "Nights Dawn " trilogy - A "deus ex machina" indeed! Gripping to the finish, but ultimately disappointing. A rollicking yarn of around 3600 pages all wrapped up in the last 10 or so-puh-lease! The first two books in this series were so gripping that I had to force myself to go to work in the mornings and not just stay in bed reading all day. The sense of expectation, all the exciting plotlines rushing towards some enormous and totally inevitable conclusion was so tremendous that you really needed a majestic ending to it all, not some fairy tale thing, over so quickly that you had to read it again to notice that it had happened at all.

The overall impression I gained from this book is that the author, having developed all these marvellous storylines in the earlier novels, ran out of steam when it came to "closure". All the problems, the inexorable spreading of the posessed, Quinn Dexter, Joshua's love life etc. had to be solved and it really looked like he had bitten off more than he could chew. I think he had to end it quickly before he ran out of motivation.

Having been very critical up to this point, it is still a very enjoyable book and I found it most refreshing to read an English SF space opera by an English author, full of obscure English cultural references. A planet called Norfolk with a capital called Norwich for Gods sake!! Populated by a landowning pastoral society! I hope my fellow East Anglians arent too upset by all the stereotyping - personally I found it hilarious. And there are so many little gems to be found - my favourite being a very brief cameo of ex PM Maggie Thatcher appearing as one of the posessed - in an "antique blue suit!" Get her into that Zero tau pod QUICK! Priceless.

...but an extremely boring one. I had such high expectations for the climax of this outstanding series that I don't see how Hamilton could have met them, but in the end it felt like he didn't even try. Don't, however, let the last fifty pages of this novel keep you from enjoying the rest of the series. I thought it got off to a slow start but the "meat" of the story was thoroughly engrossing. I think Hamilton has also left the door open to a series following this and I hope he does follow up with the further adventures of humanity as it encounters more xenoc races.

The scope of Peter Hamilton's work is, as always, breathtaking. Even in the dying pages of the series, he finds room for a most intriguing new species. However:

I think that Hamilton bit off more than he could chew with the various problems he gets the human race in, and sees no other way out than a rather simplistic, deux ex machina solution whereby a wand is figuratively waved and everything is made all better. It is sad, and as I looked at the pages of the book dwindling to the right, and realized that the characters were not coming up with anything on their own, I knew this would happen.

Hamilton seems to have trouble with endings--Fallen Dragon is another example. Maybe he'd do better to stick to open ended series, where nothing need ever be truly shut down?

Peter Hamilton created a universe filled with wonders, such as the Edenist culture. Throughout every word of this series, I was struck by the wonderful job he did in making the outgrowth of our society today work in painting a realistic picture of our culture in several hundred years.

The technology fit well with the view he painted. It was neither too wondrous nor too annoying. Everything he wrote fit within his sense of our future history.

This book finally wraps up the entire series, revealing previous hidden secrets that tantalized you throughout the earlier books.

The ending, which many people appear to rant about, wrapped up the series quite well in my opinion. Not to spoil the book, but it wrapped up the possession problem in the only way that really could have solved it in any respectable time or way. It also leaves the struggle for humanity's resolution of the problem of the beyond wide open.

Humanity must still deal with the fact that when they die they will enter the beyond. People throughout the human race must still be taught to believe in themselves. What happened to all of the human stars is a thing of wonder, and still makes me smile.

All in all, this is a wonderful series, that is concluded in a wonderful way. It makes me respect Peter Hamilton as much as I respect many other Sci-Fi gods.

If you got this far that means you are already hooked on this series. And what a great series it is.

Finishing off something of this scale is always a daunting task. One the one hand there is the danger of leaving lots of loose ends dangling, which annoys some readers and leaves you wondering if there will be further sequels.

On the other hand there is a danger in trying to tie up every loose end.

Hamilton falls somewhere in-between on this one. He solves the immediate problem in a rather neat way, that puts the loose ends on a long finger, beyong the scope of any immediate sequel.

Not everyone will love the end, but for me, it works!