The Naked God by Peter F. Hamilton
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This particular novel was almost 1,200 pages and between it and the other two in the ongoing single story that takes up this trilogy, it's almost 3000 pages. Let me stress this: It's a single story. This isn't a huge ongoing big-book deal like the one Robert Jordan made... but it's close.

And it's epic Space-Opera with anti-mater explosions, the dead coming back to take over the living, vast interstellar exploration, hunting for a god, and lots and lots of regular people just happening to make up pop superstars, Al Capone, runaway rich kids, and the fate of us all... considering the idea that souls persist. The dead come back. And we have a choice to make... as a species.

The aliens refuse to get involved. They had to make their own choices when it came to this.

In the meantime, humanity is devolving in a war between possessed bodies and the high-tech remaining populace. Earth is under siege. Both sides are running out of options even with the ability to transmute matter, move whole planets, put themselves in zero-tau, or live in shared-consciousness ecologies. :)

Just... wow. The ideas and the buildup is freaking amazing.

BUT. I should mention, the execution is often bloated, full of long sequences about nothing much in particular, and while it helps develop characters, there's just SO MUCH OF IT and I found myself wanting the really BIG stuff to happen. And it eventually does. The reward for putting up with over 50 hours of this third novel is well worth the wait. :) BUT.

My observation? Be patient. Enjoy the ride. It's not a race. Enjoy this honker of a novel for what it is and watch the original Poltergeist again for the sheer enjoyment of it. :)

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