Rating: 
Summary: Good addition to the excellent "Night's Dawn" trilogy
Review: "A Second Chance At Eden" is a short story collection by science fiction author Peter F Hamilton. All stories are set in the same universe as his acclaimed Night's Dawn trilogy (comprised of "The Reality Dysfunction", "The Neutronium Alchemist" and "The Naked God"). This collection fills in the period leading up to the first book in the trilogy and spans about 500 years. The stories describe the first uses of the affinity gene, the founding of the Edenist culture, and the discovery of the Laymill by Marcus Calvert (yes, the father of the trilogy's hero Joshua Calvert). The story "Escape Route" was included in the fifteenth edition of "The Year's Best Science Fiction" (ed. Gardner Dozois). The collection as a whole is uneven in quality, but definitely interesting for fans of the trilogy.
Rating: 
Summary: A collection of hauntingly beautiful stories.
Review: A few of the stories in this book were lemons, but "A Second Chance at Eden" is so wonderful that it pays by itself for the whole book. I also love the stories about the kid who had the dream buds and the guy who ran off with his terrorist organization's anti-matter (can't remember titles, it's been months since I read it). Peter F. Hamilton's stories, when set in the Night trilogies universe, are so realistically sophisticated, compared to other universes like the Star Trek and Star Wars universe.
Rating:
Summary: good grounding in the nights dawn universe
Review: a very satisfying read. I judge a good scifi book on the pseudo realism of it's content. 'A Second Chance at Eden' passes this test with flying colours. All the stories were extremely well written and fit seamlessly into the nights dawn universe. A real future history ride. I should've read this book before launching into the nights dawn trilogy.
Rating:
Summary: STUNNING - A MASTERPIECE
Review: Absoultely stunning, a perfect way to berak up the nights dawn trilogy, a better insight into the universe he's created. The stories flow as seamlessly as the trilogy and the writing is stronger and more fleshed out (if it ever needed to be!) A MASTERPIECE
Rating:
Summary: A necessary read for any Hamilton fan.
Review: After reading Hamilton's Night's Dawn Trilogy (The Reality Dysfunction, The Neutronium Alchemist and The Naked God) I found myself WANTING to learn more about the universe that he had so wonderfully created. I found this little book full of short stories set in the same universe as that series and was totally impressed. There are hints to the stories in A 2nd Chance at Eden in The Naked God (When Calvert tells Ione that his dad had once traveled through time and she didn't believe him, for example.) There is also a VERY valuable and fascinating story of Edenism which paints its esteemed leader in a much different light than most would think after reading the entire Night's Dawn series. So, check it out, and enjoy!
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Review: After reading the Night's Dawn series, I was excited to learn that there was a collection of short stories based in the same universe. I soon found that it was a major disappointment. While some of the stories are interesting, most are rather bland. The only reason to read this is for "Escape Route," in which we FINALLY find out what happened to Marcus Calvert and caused the Lady Mac to stay in drydock for so many years.
Rating:
Summary: I hoped it would hold me over until 'Naked God' was released
Review: but I finished it in two days. Now I'm left wanting for more! Hamilton's imagination has brought us several interesting stories that add more detail to the incredible universe that started in the Reality Dysfunction. This book and the rest of the series have been the best SciFi I've ever read.
Rating:
Summary: Good Stories With One Great Story (with one caveat)
Review: First, the good part.
This is a great collection of stories, some ok, most good, and the novella of the same title as the collection (Second Chance at Eden) being a truly great story.
As you can read from other reviews, these stories are told in the same universe as the _Night's Dawn_ trilogy, but also serve as introduction of various concepts that will be introduced in _Night's Dawn_. So it's a great way to ease yourself info the series, or to try out Peter Hamilton's writing style and see if you like him before you plunge into the massive 6 book "trilogy." If you like this collection, you'll certainly like his later series. This is somewhat different from my reaction to reading Hamilton's _Mindstar_ stories where the writing was very different, with excruciating details of every incident, plodding story line and unlikeable characters. Unlike the _Mindstar_ writing, most of the stories move at a fast pace and great concepts are introduced and explored.
Second, the ok part.
There are some weaker stories in the bunch, like the _New Days Old Times_ which struck me as a social lecture on intolerance rather than being a good story, parts of _Candy Buds_ and _Deathday_ where there was way too much emphasis on getting to the point and exploration of a character that we don't like (sort of like _Mindstar_...), but these are more than made up for the gripping stories and mind-expanding ideas shown in _Sonnie's Edge_, _The Lives and Loves of Tiarella Rose_, _Escape Route_ and finally, clearly the best of the lot, _A Second Chance at Eden_. If anything, you should get the collection just to read that one story which takes up about half the book.
You have to judge Hamilton by the _Second Chance_ story. If you don't like that, you probably won't like the rest of the Hamilton corpus. If you love it, then it's a good sign that you should try out Hamilton's other writings.
Lastly, the not-so-good part (and thus the 4 stars).
One bizarre thing I have noticed with some of his short stories and his novels is that he has a recurring pattern of portraying an oldish man who is tired, world-weary, somewhat cynical, sometimes sarcastic (imagine Humphrey Bogart), meeting a young (sometimes very young) extraordinarily (as Hamilton tells it) beautiful woman who is immediately and unexplicably drawn to him, often leading to instance sex (like in five minutes of meeting him). Sure, this may happen, but it happens concistently, often, and with the same type of characters over and over again. For example, the Greg Mandel character in _Mindstar Rising_ novel, Chief Parfitt and Hoi Yin (Wing-Tsit Chong's assistant) in _A Second Chance at Eden_, Laurus (the main villain) who has a penchant for young women in _Candy Buds_, Eason who uses the interesting plot development to woo the young woman in _The Lives and Loves of Tiarella Rosa_ since her mother is "too old".
What is up with that?
One or two times is ok, or if they're different each time that's ok too. But no, it's the same type of characters, same situation over and over and over again, ad nauseum. It's distracting and verges on disturbing. Even though these aren't major parts of the story or the plot in most cases, and it's more than made up for the rest of the great story line, I still wish I didn't have to get distracted in the middle of the story and think, "huh, this is weird - that's the 100-th time that Hamilton is writing about the old, cynical, world-weary character (or the author himself) having an interest in younger women and the younger woman just inexplicably having sex with him instantly upon meeting him, without having any explanation, motive or attraction."
I wouldn't mind if the relationships were realistic, but they're not, and just bizarre or cardboard at best. Maybe the author needs to grow up or something.
Rating:
Summary: The "Night's Dawn" Primer !! An Excellent Beginning.
Review: For anyone contemplating delving into the "Night's Dawn" Trilogy, but aren't exactly sure, "Second Chance" is a quick read, and all I think it should take to convince even the most hardcore Sci-Fi afficionado to take the plunge. An engrossing collection of short stories, each of which deals with a different facet of Hamilton's Future World, it is an excellent lead-in. Biotech, living space habitats, starships born in the depths of Interplanetary Space, each different subject has its own tale of introduction, all rolled together in this excellent collection of short stories; with, as the grand finale, the short novella from which the collection derives its name, a prologue to the Trilogy itself. So, for even the most jaded of Sci-Fi fans who have been looking for new and more interesting worlds, Welcome!!(Just be prepared to stay for quite awhile!!)
Rating:
Summary: Great background stories for the Night's Dawn universe
Review: For fans of the great Night's Dawn trilogy of books, "A Second Chance at Eden" is a great buy. With background stories for the evolution of the technology and cultural mindset present in the Night's Dawn universe, this book is not to be missed.
|
