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Great North Road Peter F Hamilton Books

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Great North Road Peter F Hamilton Books

I love Hamilton and have read most of his works. What's so disappointing is that the story itself had incredible potential but we get LOTS of fluff, random events, boring filler and only occasionally does the author remember, "Oh , I need to return to the plot." The characters get a C. I'm reminded of American Idol when an inferior candidate thinks they can make the judge forget a bad performance with a bang-up ending. It just won't work this time.

I like stories with future technology but not when these must be described and explained in detail. It's totally unrealistic. Do we say to each other, "I gave my son an IPAD, you know that powerful device that allows you to surf the web, play games or do office work, is 11 x 8, weighs 1.2 pounds and uses a rechargeable lithium battery"? No, we say, "I got Billy an IPAD." It's a case of either letting the story do the talking or painfully explaining each new wonder.

And it's all so...unreal. I'm not predicting a dystopia but I doubt it will be the benevolent, Star Trek-like society depicted here. The idea that humans will no longer judge by appearance is absurd. Long ago we lost our evolutionary senses of smell and hearing and since have increasingly become a visual species. To suggest we will morph into something different is kaka. The "religion" present here is also in the Star Trek tradition - interesting tidbits for others. This society reminded me of the vision of someone who spends their time on the net where people present themselves in the manner they think others are expecting.


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Great North Road Peter F Hamilton Books Reviews

That term - epic - gets thrown around a lot but in this case it's a most fitting title. There is enough here for five books a Crime Thriller, a Space Opera, A Clone Novel, a Conspiracy Mystery, and a Adventure tale. There are too many characters to possibly mention - except who I consider to be the main femme fatale and protagonist Angela, a person of such single-minded ambition you won't soon forget. The thread weaving through the story reminded me of the 'Fountainhead' a little, where Roark would sacrifice everything and anything so does Angela.

The story is so weeping it's breathtaking, starting with a mundane murder connected to clones and gangs and corporations and other worlds while encompassing aliens and ... Angela the most badass determined female I've ever read. The author dribbles out enticing bits of critical information when you least except them just enough to always keep you guessing. The world building is phenomenal with rich tidbits of things that will certainly come in the next few hundred years. The best part of the book is that every time you think you know where it's going, the story opens a new unforeseen path to go down.

Yes there are a few flaws. Some of the technology seems oddly dated considering the time frame. While we have gateways to the stars and implanted communications mesh, most vehicles still have human drivers despite the proliferation of Artificial Intelligence.

And he length of the book is not one of those flaws though despite some complaints. At 1077 pages I don't think I would have cut a single word. I was so sorry when I got to the end I became slightly depressed. I wanted it to go on....
Paragraph by paragraph the book is interesting and the plot line is pretty good. But the total collection is dreadful. At 948 pages it is a tome better made for use as a door stop.

The plot is simple. The story takes place in the year 2137. - An alien apparently killed several people on the planet of St. Libra 20 years previously, but no one believed that so Angela was convicted as the killer. Twenty years later a similar murder happens in Newcastle in the UK so Angela is released from prison. The rest of the book follows two threads - a police investigation in Newcastle to find out "who dunnit" and an expedition that includes Angela on St. Libra to see if there really were aliens there. The use of detection hardware, security systems, and computer technology seemed interesting and reasonably possible for an event about 125 years from now.

The problem was that the story goes on forever. You learn the back story of several important characters in large chunks that reveal only a small amount of information each time. Just when the author is about to reveal some important piece of information, the story reverts to the present and you have to wait some 100 or so pages until the next flashback. Some of the back story seemed irrelevant to the plot and was there simply to extend the book.

Even when the two mysteries were solved - the cause of the murders 20 years previously and the current murder in Newcastle - most books will wrap up the story in 5 to 10 pages. Not here. The story slogs along for another 150 or more pages to wrap it all up. By this time you just want it to end, but it keeps on going - much like an old Saturday morning movie serial that keeps on generating cliffhangers until finally it all ends.

I finished it, but by the end, my feeling was that it wasn't worth it.
I love Hamilton and have read most of his works. What's so disappointing is that the story itself had incredible potential but we get LOTS of fluff, random events, boring filler and only occasionally does the author remember, "Oh , I need to return to the plot." The characters get a C. I'm reminded of American Idol when an inferior candidate thinks they can make the judge forget a bad performance with a bang-up ending. It just won't work this time.

I like stories with future technology but not when these must be described and explained in detail. It's totally unrealistic. Do we say to each other, "I gave my son an IPAD, you know that powerful device that allows you to surf the web, play games or do office work, is 11 x 8, weighs 1.2 pounds and uses a rechargeable lithium battery"? No, we say, "I got Billy an IPAD." It's a case of either letting the story do the talking or painfully explaining each new wonder.

And it's all so...unreal. I'm not predicting a dystopia but I doubt it will be the benevolent, Star Trek-like society depicted here. The idea that humans will no longer judge by appearance is absurd. Long ago we lost our evolutionary senses of smell and hearing and since have increasingly become a visual species. To suggest we will morph into something different is kaka. The "religion" present here is also in the Star Trek tradition - interesting tidbits for others. This society reminded me of the vision of someone who spends their time on the net where people present themselves in the manner they think others are expecting.