The Temporal Void by Peter F. Hamilton
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I'm frankly getting rather awed by Peter F. Hamilton.

Any single book doesn't quite DO his stories justice, which is kind of weird because each book seems to be bigger than a mountain, more sprawling than wide plains, and filled with meandering and sometimes inconsequential passages. They could be tightened up with more focus on the core stories and threads. Easily.

BUT.

When it comes to the sheer scope in time and space for all his books, each of which is interconnected with common events, histories, and characters who live for an awfully long time thanks to the heavy SF factors of re-life and alternate methods like multi-life, dream paradise, AI, or even some much stranger methods... everyone eventually comes back to play in this awesomely developed universe.

It only keeps getting larger and stranger with every new book. Some characters don't get interesting until after their lives get turned upside down, others are fantastic from the get-go. But when it comes to every core story met with truly awesome convergences between all these threads, Hamilton just can't be beaten.

His imagination is truly phenomenal.

Okay, this kinda sounds like an apology for his work, but don't be confused. I love this. It has a few faults, but damn, when I compare this to practically any other SF author on the grounds of glorious worldbuilding and scope of characters, Hamilton basically wins by default.

Epic SF, folks. Just think of the most sprawling fantasy you most love and multiply it by two, give it everything from bionics, massive dreaming collectives, a total space-opera atmosphere with multiple alien forces, and then shake it up by having an intelligent UNIVERSE threaten to grow and eat our own. Epic stakes. Epic scope. And through it all, thousands of years of novels and history pulling forward to this late historical date.

I'm frankly amazed. And it's getting better with every book I read.

The last time I was this bowled over was the first time I read through the WoT series. Both have their faults. But for the patient reader, both are freaking awesome. :)



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