Rating: 
Summary: As always with Hamilton, wonderful ideas and a shoddy ending
Review: The scope of Peter Hamilton's work is, as always, breathtaking. Even in the dying pages of the series, he finds room for a most intriguing new species. However:I think that Hamilton bit off more than he could chew with the various problems he gets the human race in, and sees no other way out than a rather simplistic, deux ex machina solution whereby a wand is figuratively waved and everything is made all better. It is sad, and as I looked at the pages of the book dwindling to the right, and realized that the characters were not coming up with anything on their own, I knew this would happen. Hamilton seems to have trouble with endings--Fallen Dragon is another example. Maybe he'd do better to stick to open ended series, where nothing need ever be truly shut down?
Rating: 
Summary: It's Not Worth It
Review: The sixth & final volume,thank God,(no pun intended) of a six volume series. See series review on the Reality Dysfunction: Emergence page.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Series, But Not For Everyone
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: A memorable series destined to become a classic!
Review: This is a review of this author's complete series the NIGHT'S DAWN TRILOGY. Rarely have I been treated to such a sweeping panorama as in this space opera mural painted by a master storyteller. By the time you finish it, you will be dreaming of the universe he has displayed. I highly recommend anyone with a true love of the hard science fiction genre to make the effort to acquire all 6 books at once together with THE CONFEDERATION HANDBOOK, pull up a chair, grab your metaphorical napkin & tuck in! Wonderful reading!
Rating:
Summary: The Naked God
Review: This section of the series, "The Naked God", is probably the best in the series next to the first two sections. The action moves fast and furious. Although it did have a "poof" magical ending, I enjoyed reading it. This combined with the first two sections of the book would have made an excellent series. The middle sections definitely dragged the series out longer than it had to be. A series that I read a bit at a time. A good time killer, but not a series that I absolutely couldn't have done without.
Rating: 
Summary: Would have made a delicious short story
Review: This story is a galaxy - Some brilliant ideas trapped in a mind-numbingly large volume of nothing. Read it at warp speed.
Rating:
Summary: The Deus Ex Machina That Wasn't
Review: Warning: This review contains spoilers.
As other reviewers have said, Hamilton's 27th century is a fascinating place. I haven't felt this excited about a future history since I first encountered Iain M. Banks's Culture novels. I did find the ethnic-streaming colonization policy rather ridiculous, based as it is on contemporary racial stereotypes; the female characters can also be somewhat annoying. However, these are just cavils. I got tremendous pleasure out of this space opera. Hamilton's mingling of SF and horror is visionary in scale and potential. Imagine Banks possessed by the soul of Stephen King. Breathtaking.
It could have been so much more.
Few and far between are hard SF authors who tackle theological issues dead on. For the first 4000 pages of his opus, Hamilton seems to break the mould. He manipulates points of view with virtuosic skill, introducing ghosts, souls in what looks like purgatory, otherdimensional entities that look like demons, and an exorcism that actually works, and in the process he manages to make the question "Does God exist?" one of burning importance to reader and characters alike. In "The Naked God: Faith," the last sixth of the "trilogy," he leads us towards an encounter with something called the "Sleeping God." It turns out to be basically a xenoc Tardis, solves all the characters' outstanding problems in one go, and fixes our hero's commitment issues to boot. In the last few pages of the book, which celebrate the human race's potential for growth and greatness, the gospel according to Hamilton becomes quite clear: 1) Believe in yourself. 2) If you are an educated atheist you have a good chance of "transcending" the dimension that equates to purgatory. Why? Because educated atheists believe in themselves, apparently.
Shame on you, Hamilton, for taking the coward's way out. I feel as if I'd climbed Everest and found nothing but an empty crisp packet at the top.
It was extremely good fun on the way up, though, so I'm still going to give this four stars.
Rating:
Summary: Die, Monster, Die.
Review: Well, I can't believe I read the whole thing! This lumbering behemoth of a novel is as addictive as junk food and just as satisfying. I congratulate Mr. Hamilton on synthesizing nearly every urban myth and legend in our demon haunted world into a witch's brew that is barely recognizable as contemporary civilization. It is however ourselves in a distant mirror whether he meant it to be or not. Instead of ESP, we have "affinity," instead of satanism, we have the possessed, Quinn Dexter as vampire, etc. Some tropes are literally present like ghosts and ghouls. Then there is a mish-mash of contemporary physics, distorted from the pages of the New Scientist. Do we have a sci-fi "War and Peace" here? By weight, certainly. Mr. Hamilton excels at the short story which keeps this novel on track, episode after episode with a common theme. Whereas his tactics are good, he fails miserably with strategy. The deus ex machina ending, for example, is predictably simple minded. Overall one is left with no take home message, no noble revelations about existence, and one rollicking good entertainment. Just like the possessed, I kept wishing this monster of Hamilton's would just die -- put out of its misery by some well meaning critic. Alas, no Captain Calvert was forthcoming to save us from its possession. Like a soul from the beyond, it just kept coming back, book after book, episode after episode, with no redeeming resolution except perhaps reveling in self-indulgence. Wave after wave of white fire scouring our eyeballs out. At the end, it left me empty and depressed. Maybe faith is all we need in the end, we will just have to wait for the sequel.
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