The Reality Dysfunction Part 2: Expansion (Mass Market Paperback)

by Peter F. Hamilton (Author) "Graeme Nicholson sat on his customary stool beside the bar in the Crashed Dumper, the one furthest away from the blaring audio block, and listened..." (more)
Key Phrases: Lady Mac, Terrance Smith, Shaun Wallace (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
This second volume of Hamilton's two-part book The Reality Dysfunction is as fast paced and densely packed as the first. It picks up the many plot threads left hanging in Emergenceand runs with them, ending some subplots and beginning other more interesting ones. Joining the large cast of characters is Graeme Nicholson, a reporter stuck on the backwater planet of Lalonde, where mud and wood seem to be the only things in great abundance. But Lalonde is fast becoming the focus of an invasion that seems to defy time and logic, and soon Nicholson will regret ever learning about the biggest story to hit the galaxy in a thousand years.

Product Description
An epic science fiction saga is set in a primitive world of the distant future, where two groups battle for hegemony--the Edenists, telepathic, genetically engineered space-dwellers, and the Adamists, who reject technology. Reprint."

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 576 pages
• Publisher: Aspect (August 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446605166
• ISBN-13: 978-0446605168
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (71 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #272,701 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Series, But Not For Everyone, February 24, 2005

By	David A. Lessnau (Niceville, FL USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazon download/review mistakes, December 27, 2003

By	Lucius (northeast) - See all my reviews

"In the far future...The Edenists are genetically engineered space-dwellers with telepathic affinity to their biotechnological homes and ships. Adamists are...the Luddites of the future, willing to pioneer new worlds... The two clash on a primitive world called Lalonde..." Amazon.com review

As I have a bone or two to pick, don't read on unless you've read the novel: Despite the Amazon.com summary, the Edenists and Adamists do not "clash." In fact, they have nothing to do with each other, which is one of the premises of the novel. Adamists resolutely go their own low tech way. They are, however, as Hamilton puts it, "sequestrated" because their newly colonized planet Lalonde is the vortex entry point for
the souls of the DEAD. It isn't the hard working Adamist colonists hacking a life out of the frontier who confront the Edenists, but the reincarnated Dead. And that's a whole
nuther ballgame.

The Planet Lalonde is a pretty insane place. But for the Amazon "review" of part I, "Emergence" to call an Adamist priest "an ineffectual ....shocked by the world he has
come to settle... " is essentially an unfair and misleading characterization because it's relevant only to the first half of the novel. As anyone who has read the entire novel knows, the priest is the sole adult on the entire Planet to survive in his own skin. So if that is being "ineffectual," one has to wonder what "effectual" means. Indeed, what strikes me as ineffectual is loosing one's will and identity to another personality come
from the Beyond. In point of fact, the priest heroically saves some 23 children from being consumed by metaphysical beings incarnated into the living bodies of each and every colonist. Each and every, that is, except him. And this, I assume, is because he is the only man of the cloth, the only Adamist churchman. He alone goes through the gauntlet from Hell; but he emerges as himself. HIS self; not somebody else's. He alone
remains who he is. That seems pretty effectual to me.

And finally, "Joining the large cast of characters is Graeme Nicholson, a reporter....who will regret ever learning about the biggest story to hit the galaxy in a thousand years." Amazon.com review

Graeme who? The guy at the bar in scene one who is never mentioned again? That Graeme? Either I missed something, or Graeme Nicholson does not join the cast. And regret? I don't recall him actually regretting anything since I don't recall him being part of the plot.

In any event, Peter Hamilton has, in this novel, created a space opera that helps define contemporary SF. For lack of a better term, this novel is awesome. Its big, its bulky, its a
fantabulously detailed mind-boggling melding of DH Lawrence, Buck Rogers and HP Lovecraft (or something like that): Heroes and Maidens indulge in country matters; Living Habitats for a number of species germinated by a kind of Medici royalty have the
capacity to download the "soul" of a dying person; there are the technologies of ancient civilizations of unknown origin to be studied; and, of course, the incursion of the souls from the Beyond to wage a cosmic civil war, etc, etc. What's not to like?

Finally, beware axegrinding naysayers who after a thousand pages decide they don't like what they're reading. If they wasted their time, it's not the book's fault.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent sequel!, July 18, 1999

By	Adam Ruddermann (USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

When I finished reading the first Reality Dysfunction book, I was left wondering what was going to happen next since Hamilton tends to end his books as abruptly as they begin. There was no decernable main character in the first book, but, about halfway in you realize that Josh Calvert is definetly the binding factor for most of the numerious storylines that wind their way throughout the book.

Any writing issues that were in the first book were long gone in this one, leaving the writing much better and giving the story a much better scense of direction.

As usual, the story is amazing, letting you get ahead of yourself saying "oh, that's easy, they're going to do bla bla bla next" and then it turns out they do something totally different, adding another layer to the story in the process.

I'm very glad that Hamilton exended the Possesed's characters more, offering an interesting prospective of the human spirit, if you like to think that deep... =)

Either way, if you were slightly disapointed by Emergence, read this before you form any opinions about Hamilton, you'll be pleasantly surprised of what Hamilton is capable of.