Customer Reviews

The Reality Dysfunction (Night's Dawn Trilogy, Book 1)

5 star:		(103)
4 star:		(54)
3 star:		(27)
2 star:		(30)
1 star:		(40)

 

 

I waited until I had read all six vols. of this marathon. Thus what I'm going to say relates to the entire series, not just this first part. As to the first part, it will suck you in with the hope that all of the following five long, long, long episodes are as good; they are not. Nothing about the final books is as good as the first, or even the second.

Marion Zimmer Bradley says (Why Stories Get Rejected) that one of the fatal errors of science fiction is resorting to some outside power to resolve the story rather than having the main character(s) do it on their own. This series has outside forces to spare. One is introduced in the first installment, but seems to be put in hibernation. But in each subsequent book more and more unexplainable outside forces, omipotent, all-intelligent, supra-normal, beings or forces come on the scene. And the end. . .well, let's just say the main characters DO NOT resolve the issues by themselves.

Another thing about this series that got my goat was the disappearance of primary characters at the drop of a word processor. The first two books and the middle two books (The Neutronium Alchemist) introduce a plot and characters that simply disappear on a single page toward the end of the fourth installment (oh, one of them comes back as a crew-member, but of no signifigance). This disregard for plot line and point-of-view really drove me crazy. I kept expecting them to come back right up to the end. For example, the main character has a brother suddenly show up and present a nice plot twist. Is the twist resolved? No, the brother just disappears into the background (as another crew member).

I realize that long, long, long series are all the rage in SF these days, but the last couple of books in this series don't make any sense. I was not only disappointed, I was down right ticked off that I'd been tricked into spending my money but worse, my time. I finished this series in Australia but hauled the final book back with me so that I could rail about it.

I probably should give this one or two stars, but in all fairness, the first two books, and maybe the third, were pretty good. Especially the action descriptions. But, if you are looking for this entire series to be of that quality, you will be very upset.

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.

Very few Science Fiction novels can manage (well) the scope and intricacy required to effectively build characters that literally jump out of the book....This is one of those few. Every reader has personal favorites in terms of story lines and writing style...As for myself... I will proudly rate this series above Asimov's "Foundation Series", Vinge's "Fire Upon the Deep" or Herbert's "Dune",(Blasphemy I know). I found it difficult to put the book down, even at work:). The intricate character building, assorted plots and the insightful, but original, variations of technology used, create a believable world that swallows the reader and drags them willingly into the future. Far too often SciFi "epics" expose the reader to the same technology and themes...NOT this series. If you want to read horror...SciFi at its grandest...political intrigue...Future economics...All out, Ultra High-Tech Warfare...and ABOVE ALL "Original Thought"...Then read "The Reality Dysfunction" and ALL of the others in this series. It will be difficult to find another Science Fiction epic capable of building such a grand cast of characters and intensly high energy plot. If you love SciFi at its best and want to immerse yourself into the funnest, most enjoyable page burn'n novel ever...Read this!

This series is truly an epic. It's also a sizable investment in time. After getting through the second or third book, however, I found myself pleasantly lost in Hamilton's universe.

Many reviewers here complain about the apparent lack of plot cohesion in Emergence: there are too many characters, too many stories to follow, they say. In fact, this is what I like most about this series. There is so much going on, I feel like I really am witnessing the political and social events these books showcase on such a large scale. Getting to know so many characters from so many different sides of the stories was awesome. Hamilton did such a great job with these books that by the end, I felt as if I had lived a lifetime in his universe.

Even if you don't enjoy books with so much going on, it's worth the read for the pure sci-fi goodness. Living starships, doomsday weapons of unbelievable scale, guerilla combat, neural nanonics... the technology in these books will become as deeply engrained into your mind as it is in the world of the characters.

If you're a serious sci-fi or 'space-opera' fan you need to read at least the first few books in this series... it only gets better the more you read.

I'm writing this more as a review of the entire series that of just this first book. I figure no one would bother with the first book if they didn't have some interest in the entire series.

The first book is a little slow. Frankly, I came close to not buying the second Reality Dysfunction title because this first didn't seem to be headed anywhere very fast. On that topic: just be patient. Although this is sold as a series of six 500-700 page books, it is really three 1000-1400 page books. They're just chopped in two and it does mean that end of Reality Dysfuntion Pt I, Neutronium Alchemist Pt I and Naked God Pt I are just blahs. No cliff-hangers at all...but that's because it is really only the end of a chapter. The cliff hangers come at the end of the second part of the books.

That being said, the concepts in this book/series like sentient biological starships, possession, interesting alien races, etc. Hamilton does a great job of world creation and story telling.

I have immensely enjoyed the entire ~3200 pages of this series.

My only caveats. One is frequently noted by others and I'll second it. The ending of the series where they find "the answer" is lame, hokey, stupid, etc. There is a certain "ta-da" aspect to it. Still, the other 3100 pages of the series were enjoyable enough to make up for that. The disappointment is probably that I have to think Hamilton could have wrapped up better. He also leaves a few plot threads up in the air which I found odd.

The other caveat is this: What is with sex in these sci-fi books set several hundred years in the future? "Forever War" was this way too. You know...its the "future where everyone has sex with everyone they meet". Hamilton isn't overly graphic with it, but its a little over the top. Some of it fits in the story, but most is just excessive. I'm not a prude, but it takes away from the joy of passing a book on. My wife who was an english major actually enjoys GOOD sci-fi(much to her chagrin). Just read "Deepness in the Sky" and thanked me many times for suggesting it. I'd be ashamed to pass this series on to her for this reason and would never let my daughter read it. Its a shame because otherwise the series has a lot to recommend it. So, sorry kids, PARENTAL WARNING: If you're reading these reviews to police what your teenage boy is reading, be warned. The men are mostly womanizers and the women are "powerful women who aren't afraid to use their sexuality to get what they want". Spare me.

Overall....great series. Crummy ending. Too much sex, but otherwise great.

I'll have to comment on this book as it's printed in Australia - one loooong book containing both the Emergence / Expansion books (in fact all 6 books are printed in only 3 books - each about 1200 pages long).

A much more cost effective way to buy them by the way....

First up, this is a very good book that is worth trying, but it won't change your life - you aren't going to be confronted with overwhelming ideas and concepts, multi-levelled character development or even anything terribly original. The book, ultimately, is only about one group attempting to dominate another with all of the flaws/prejudices/nobility, etc of humanity thrown in then placed in a futuristic setting.

However, The Reality Dysfunction is, in the end, an engaging book, one obviously written as a long and sweeping saga, ultimately taking in 3 books (or six if you're from the US of A) - therefore, some bizarre comments by readers saying the book ended with too many loose ends comes out as just ridiculous. If you want short, fast-paced plots that skim over techno-babble and character building (although some characters here are clichéd and many are given far too much description for what turns out to be only a brief appearance), you'll probably find this somewhat boring. However, if you're happy to sit back and flow with it you'll find it a rewarding experience - just don't expect quick answers, there won't be any.

Your enjoyment of this book relies solely on how much depth you want/require in your characters, your story and ultimately in the world you're about to enter for days of reading. There are times you feel part of this universe. Yet there are also times you feel manipulated solely to progress the story; hence many clichés do crop up - the benevolent aliens, the genius-like, young, sex-obsessed captain, the women in power who seem ultimately guided by their feelings for the men (I know I shouldn't but I just can't stop thinking about him), and then there's the bad guys. Evil is a one-shaded character here. It is only the `good guys' that you often wonder about. Too many times when we're back with the bad guys we know something bad (and usually somewhat gruesome) is going to happen - you often wonder what these people do in-between being evil; nothing obviously. Being evil must be a 24/7 job. Then there's the `red shirt' cliché. Pretty much any time a `marine' is in the picture you just know they're going to die a pointless death just to demonstrate how powerful the `sequestered' people are (an original Star Trek syndrome here - you know the guys wearing the red shirts are going to die). And naturally the good guys are stumbling around wondering (ignoring) what's going on and being (typically) self-absorbed in their own lives; results of which can often be frustrating to the reader, especially when the same issue is brought up several times by different groups. Some judicious editing could have been good.

But I look at it this way, it's a long book, you're not going to like everything. Overall though, the majority does hold your attention and truly makes you want to read on.

Whether you are satisfied with what the `reality dysfunction' turns out to be is a personal issue. I wasn't - and fully admit it took me some time to continue. From the behaviour of the original `sequestered' people to what happens with them later simply came across to me as weak (just consider the behaviour of the sequestered people in the start to how mushy and good-feely some turn out by the end). We're presented with what appears to be a true evil, something we can't comprehend, something whose only goal is total domination - and we end up with mere shades of ourselves. Again, one group trying to dominate another.

The Reality Dysfunction deserves 10 out of 10 for effort; it truly has the grand sweep of classic space opera with the overriding intelligence to set it apart. However, it needed more editing to quicken the pace (you really don't need an entire page on someone's history when they never appear again), and it needed to drop a few of its many clichés.

In the end though, if it's good SF you enjoy, then this book will be hard to beat. Just give it the time it deserves and try not to get frustrated over how long it takes to resolve issues - good things come to those who wait (oops, a cliché).

I could blabber on for ages about how amazingly cool this book is... But the fact is all I can say is simply - READ IT! Ok, so it takes a while to get going. But when it does it's a real page-turner... And when the Reality Dysfunction itself occours, the story takes on a whole new dimension. Exotic technology, facinating characters, sentient starships, massive space-battles... If this were ever put on the big screen it would blow everything else away. It seemed a bit daunting at first taking on the whole 1200 pages of this (the European version), but I found myself realy getting into it after the first couple of hundred pages and ploughing through chapters after that. The only gripe I have with it is the sheer number of characters (each with thier own colourful histories) that are introduced. No wonder the sequal book, 'The Neutronium Alchemist' (which I have just started by the way and does not let up the pace) has a cast-listing of them all! The universe Hamilton has created is Epic in scope and TRD keeps hopping from planet to planet following the advance of the darkness... Probably the greatest creative act in the field of Sci-Fi since Babylon 5 blew away the cobwebs of Star Trek... Without a doubt the best book I've read this year.

I wanted to wait until finishing the entire series before I sat down to write a review of this book, and I'm glad that I did. On the strength of the rest of the Night's Dawn books, I would recommend this beginning installment, although as a single novel I did not particularly enjoy it.

I'll start with the bad news. The story starts off in a disjointed fashion. I found that as soon as I was beginning to become interested in a particular character, the chapter ended and I was introduced to someone totally new. The characterization in general is very weak - in the entire series, actually, but it is weakest in the beginning. The characters are the stock, cliched participants in most space operas, and do not have enough personality to become interesting.

There are several disturbingly graphic scenes of violence, which I found somewhat distasteful and difficult to read. The main villain does not have an ounce of humanity to him, making him one of the most detestable characters I've ever read, but at the same time making him something of a cardboard cutout. Furthermore, Hamilton seems to feel the need to toss in way too many explicit sex scenes unrelated to the plot, as if he thought he needed the sexual content to sell the book. Yes, some of it is needed as it is an integral part of some of the character relationships. But it goes overboard and lessens the impact of the plot.

Lastly, the writing style irked me. I don't know if the differences in grammar that bothered me are due to the fact that Hamilton is a British writer and I am American, but the sentences were frequently choppy and the grammar not quite right.

So why on earth would I recommend the book at all? Because if you can make it through this first installment in the Night's Dawn series, it is a series that is worth reading. I wouldn't call it *brilliant* (some people compare it to Dan Simmons' "Hyperion", but personally I don't think Hamilton can hold a candle to Simmons' genius), but it is a real page-turner and will give you a lot of food for thought. As the series continues, there is less violence, the sex becomes less irrelevant to the plot, historical figures pop up in unexpected places, fascinating mysteries are introduced and eventually resolved, and the ending is quite satisfying. If you have a difficult time getting through this first book, it might be worth having someone explain the major plot points to you so you can continue with "The Neutronium Alchemist", because that's when it starts to get good. Happy reading!

After reading the reviews online here, I was very hesitant to read this book. I majored in woman's studies in college, and I have little interest in spending time reading a book that is full of misogynist plot lines. To my great surprise, I found that the book was not only an excellent read but very tame compared to hard-core books from other genres.

Hamilton uses a multiple storyline structure in this book and it is very hard to say who the is the main character. I rather liked this approach, mainly because each of the characters had a distinct voice in the book. None of the characters are meant to be utterly sympathetic, nor entirely evil. Hamilton gives each character strong motivations that seem to me to show how the world really works, and not an idealized version you see often in science fiction.

I am not one to spoil a book, so I will not delve very deeply into the plot, but for me I really enjoyed how each plot twist was somehow related to another storyline later down the road. This is a rather Dickensian concept, and I find refreshing for a modern author. Once you get through a few chapters it is easy to tell what is important to the storyline, and what is not by how much time the author takes to describe the setting. This made it very easy for me to keep track of who was what over the 1100+ pages of the book.

And lastly, in regards to the negative reviews here, I really do not agree with the assessment. I kept waiting for a very disturbing scene to happen, or for awful things to be described but that never manifested. This is perhaps because I am a horror junkie, but the violent scenes in the book did not seem gratuitous or excessively descriptive.

I really found very little misogyny in the book, and in fact as I read the book I was impressed by the amount of strong female characters in it. The author does takes a very realistic approach about sex, and perhaps that is where the accusations of misogyny come from. Seriously, it is not wrong for women to want to have sex with another man, and it is not wrong for a man and woman to use each other for that purpose. That is how the world works. People are not priests and nuns, we lead varied and interesting lives and Hamilton is very good at portraying those traits realistically.

In closing, this book was a great read. Do not let the negative reviews bother you, and be prepared for a long read. The best part for me about this book was knowing that once it was over, there were 2 more equally long books that take place after this one. I love being able to find an interesting book and to see how it caries along in a series. 5 stars all the way, and I am glad I gave this book the chance I did.

I've read an awful lot of science fiction over the years, and recently returned to the genre after a lengthy absence. In doing so, I made a concerted effort to upgrade my reading list and familiarize myself with the new generation of sci-fi writers. My recent experience has been a real revelation. Whereas in the past, most of the science fiction I consumed was very easy to read and understand (Asimov as an example), some of the works I've sampled in the last year or two have quite literally been over my head.

I read Dune (multiple times) many years ago. I proceeded on to the Dune sequels, but after two or three they became so philosophically dense that I lost interest. I recently read Herbert's widely acknowledged masterpiece The Dosadi Experiment and again was forced to admit that I was incapable of appreciating it fully. Ditto for much of Philip Dick's writing.

In an effort to read all joint Hugo/Nebula Award winners, I ran into a few other such works. Some of the new generation of sci-fi writers have published undeniably outstanding novels that I simply couldn't enjoy fully. Charles Stross, Neal Stephenson and Ian McDonald come immediately to mind. These cats are just too intelligent for me to relate to (and I have a post graduate degree!).

Others, such as Joe Scalzi, David Brin and Joe Haldeman crank out easily understood and entertaining work (in the mode of Asimov), but without all the heavy lifting some of the previously cited authors require. All of this to say, that in Peter Hamilton's The Reality Dysfunction I discovered what I felt was a very happy medium: Vastly entertaining, but with just the level of challenge and difficulty that I could master without detracting from my enjoyment of the reading experience. There are some pretty heavy concepts in this novel, yet I never felt that I was lost or over my head. Outstanding example of "hard" science fiction.

One of my science fiction pet peeves are hackneyed alien life forms. Multi armed/legged creatures, insect or other animal like beings, as if alien life forms have to fit into human constructs. Larry Niven's Ringworld is a perfect example (giant cats and Pierson's Puppets). While this novel has some of that, it also has some very intriguing alien life forms which do not fit neatly into our preconceived notions of how an alien may look or behave. It also includes sentient habitats and spaceships, a concept I first encountered in Charles Stross's Saturn's Children.

At over 1,000 pages, and only the first of three books in a series, this is an undertaking that requires a significant time commitment. There are also a dizzying number of plot threads which could be hard to keep straight.

Not the kind of book that you read for a while, put aside and take up again a few weeks later. However, if you're up to the challenge, I don't think you'll be disappointed. On to book two.