Rating: 
Summary: Great idea.. disappointing execution
Review: This is the first part of a 6 book (3 2-part books) series spanning over 3500 pages. It is not actually 6 books or even 3, but one incredibly long novel. The breaks at the end of each book are strictly for purposes of publishing and binding, and have little or nothing to do with natural break points in the story. None of the books stands on its own, so don't even think about starting this one unless you intend to read all 3500+ pages.I cannot fathom why the book is so long. I seems to me that it could have been shortened by at least 50% with absolutely no loss of content or style. But this is consistent with what appears to be an overall complete lack of editorial input throughout all the volumes. There are tons of grammatical errors and typos that could have been fixed by a decent editor but weren't. But these aside Hamilton is still only a mediocre writer who lacks the ability possessed in spades by colleagues like Bear, Brin and Benford. The main plot idea is great - souls of dead people returning from the "beyond" to "possess" living humans. The universe that Hamilton constructs, with nanobiotech playing a central role is also fascinating. However, although sounding like a hard sf novel, there is actually very little in the way of mechanistic explanations for any of the really cool stuff like "affinity bonding", a form of telepathy, or the "neural nanonic" implants that lots of folks have. Instead we are supposed to basically take all these things and more on faith. The last 100 pages of the last book wrap things up in a nice neat little package, but in a way that is ultimately not very satisfying. All in all, a valiant effort but one that the author couldn't quite pull off.
Rating: 
Summary: Overrated Drivel
Review: PLEASE people. If you're going to wax eloquent over something, at least make it something worth while! What a disappoinment. Don't get me wrong, I like a good space opera as much as the next person, but this thing by Peter Hamilton is a total dysfunction. At 58 years of age I still come back to SF because of that frisson you feel run up your spine when some SF writer throws an idea at you that so fries your brain you almost feel the little grey cells fizzle. While Mr. Hamilton does have a few good ideas, he just doesn't match up well to people who can REALLY throw off imaginative stuff(Verner Vinge, Cherryh, Brin to name a few). Like most space operas, it's not the destination that counts(after a couple hundred pages you can pretty much figure where this one is going), it's the journey. Mr. Hamilton's journey is so unremittingly nihilistic and pessimistic, it's downright depressing to read: sadistic violence, gratuitous and graphic sex, and hedonistic satanism abound. Someone suggested that if he cut at least half that stuff, he wouldn't have needed six volumes to complete it. I agree! None of the characters seem to have any redeeming value. They all seem to be motivated by greed, power, money, or the next lay for goodness sake. There wasn't a single character that I felt the least bit of empathy for. A space opera without a hero! Read the next five installments? Not me folks. I've had enough.
Rating: 
Summary: Enormous
Review: Peter Hamilton embarks on a giant series in this book. He initiates a large number of storylines, pitting a variety of surviving human 'cults' throughout the galaxy against each other, before introducing an alien element into the mix which massively upsets the balance. This is gripping prose and storytelling which any fan of reasonable hard science fiction should have on the shelf. Plan some late nights of reading...
Rating:
Summary: Forget Star Wars. Read the Night's Dawn series!
Review: I have just finished Night's Dawn Trilogy and it is the BEST sci-fi series I have read. It is similar in scope and grandeur as The Lord of the Rings. I hope somebody will make a movie out of this series. I'm sick and tired of the Star Wars/Star Trek movies. It's about time somebody came up with something new. If the people who made the Final Fantasy movie could do the same for this series I would be eternally grateful. And so would the legions of fans of this series.
Rating: 
Summary: So far... not so good.
Review: I fully understand that this book is just the first half of a trilogy (i.e., the full story will cover six books like this one), so I'll probably add a separate review for the second half. This series seems to be quite popular, so I decided to get the first two books and see what they are about. Frankly, I'm not impressed. So far the book is a kind of Stephen King-influenced Space Opera. I.e. a lot of characters, a LOT of pages, horror/gore, a real page turner with decent suspense, but not a lot lasting appeal. The story point of view keeps changing, trying to follow the various characters in a galaxy-spanning epic. Strangely (deliberately?) the author seems to continually shift tone and style. The perpetually-horny, wild spirited ace pilot's parts are mostly funny and light-hearted (a sort of late-years Heinlein), the Lalonde planet pages are depressingly violent and sad (Stephen King?), while the Adamists characters seem to deserve a more "Clarkeish" style. All in all, I'm not impressed. The main baddies seems quite out of place in the story (I could rectify this after the next volume, I don't really know much about them for now), and their rise to power is quite implausible. Most of the action on the Lalonde planet is not very believable: even if we know that it is a recently colonized place, the idea that horses and steamships are the main transportation systems and people go around in the jungle without using a walkie talkie is pretty hard to swallow. Someone else complained about sex scenes. They are not graphic, so I don't think people would be shocked, but there are a lot of useless sex interludes, in some cases verging on the ridicule. It is mildly fun, if you don't care about the cliches and are willing to suspend disbelief on a lot of things. I'll probably read the next part, but I think I'll skip the rest of the trilogy. I understand that this is Space Opera, so I didn't require hard science or a lot of plausible analysis of how things/people/societies work, but even if I concede that there are good parts and some nice ideas, I think that this book is overrated.
Rating:
Summary: Cruel sex demeans this work.
Review: Other reviewers have mentioned sex, but not how cruel it can be in this book. The young female colonists are constantly raped. On page 222 Quinn rapes a 17 year old boy as part of a Satanic ritual. It's a slow, disjointed, rambling work. It seems to be promising, but I refuse to read any more rape scenes. There is just way too much cruelty.
Rating:
Summary: Not Impressed
Review: The title of this review sums it up. I was not impressed at all by this book. It was a long, rambling 586 pages that ended almost completely arbitrarily. The big suspense-filled (please note the sarcasm) ending is about one paragraph that loosely suggests that whatever the evil thing is that has been unleashed, it's starting to spread. Honestly, Hamilton does not build up any sort of drama that makes me want to read the next one, especially if it's another almost 600 pages. The worst thing about this book is the "hero" Joshua Calvert. Maybe Joshua Pervert would be a more apt name since he is "with" just about every female character he runs into. This guy has not a shred of moral fiber and after a while he just becomes a sad caricature. I also loved how people just vanished from the storyline. There's a priest, Horst Elwes, and a little girl named Jay in the story pretty regularly for the first half of the book, but come the second half they just disappear. I, as the reader, have no idea if they lived or died because Hamilton doesn't bother to check in with them later on. The same for Ione Saldana the "Lord of Ruin". I expected that the computer Josh uncovers early in the book would have some kind of dire warning about the terrible evil unleashed, but apparently Hamilton didn't have time for that either. Honestly, not to push the decency standards here, but if Hamilton cuts out 2/3 of the gratuitous, pointless sex scenes, he wouldn't need a SECOND book. There were, surprisingly, a few good things about the book. I liked the "Edenists" and "Adamist" thing where Edenists use all sorts of genetic tampering to give them telepathy, etc. while the Adamists use little nanoimplants to do almost the same things. The Edenist ships, "voidhawks" and "blackhawks", and how the ship has a personality that relates to the ship's captain is pretty interesting. I'm sure that there will be more about those in the next ramble. Apparently a lot of other people liked this book, I didn't. Maybe I'm being too prudish about the gratuitous sex scenes, but I thought that 99% had no point or purpose and added nothing to story and detracted from being able to like the main character or being able to see him as any kind of heroic-type figure. To any parents, don't let your kids read this book, it's too advanced for them. I'll probably give the second one a try eventually, but I doubt it will impress me much more than the first.
Rating: 
Summary: Emergence: A Cosmic Dysfunction on a Galactic Scale
Review: The Reality Dysfunction: Emergence is a thought provoking book that poses far-reaching ideas about the future and humanity's contact with other forms of sentient life. I agree with the reviewer, SHEL99 that some of the grammar and character buildup leaves at times, a lot to be desired. SHEL99 is also correct that some of the rhythmic irregularities are due to the fact that Mr. Hamilton writes in a British style. A book of this type of far reaching vision would no doubt have some cracks and weaknesses in it. I feel that the ideas put forth by Mr. Hamilton far outweigh what little grammatical or character inconsistencies there are in the book. In real life there are character inconsistencies all the time when people come in and go out of our lives... (think about it). At present, I'm working on "Expansion" and am finding it better though at times it does seem to meander. When I feel burdened or disturbed by the story, I'll read something else and come back to the Reality Dysfunction epic with renewed interest for the characters and the wanting to know what will ultimately happen. True the Emergence ended screaming "sequel" but that's what we the reading public want. To start another story. With regard to the violence and sex; what I've encountered so far is part of the plot and not too gratuitous. Also, when thinking about aliens, they (the aliens) will not have a shred of humanity so how can anyone criticize that actions of the aliens are too violent? Granted, some of the images in the book are graphic and disturbing, but think about the future. The survival of humanity will depend upon how we deal with the "unthinkable." I'll write another review when I've finished the series. Add this to your list of "gotta have..." you'll think about this story for a long time. Enjoy! Dr.Eclipse.
Rating:
Summary: Great series - weak first book
Review: I wanted to wait until finishing the entire series before I sat down to write a review of this book, and I'm glad that I did. On the strength of the rest of the Night's Dawn books, I would recommend this beginning installment, although as a single novel I did not particularly enjoy it. I'll start with the bad news. The story starts off in a disjointed fashion. I found that as soon as I was beginning to become interested in a particular character, the chapter ended and I was introduced to someone totally new. The characterization in general is very weak - in the entire series, actually, but it is weakest in the beginning. The characters are the stock, cliched participants in most space operas, and do not have enough personality to become interesting. There are several disturbingly graphic scenes of violence, which I found somewhat distasteful and difficult to read. The main villain does not have an ounce of humanity to him, making him one of the most detestable characters I've ever read, but at the same time making him something of a cardboard cutout. Furthermore, Hamilton seems to feel the need to toss in way too many explicit sex scenes unrelated to the plot, as if he thought he needed the sexual content to sell the book. Yes, some of it is needed as it is an integral part of some of the character relationships. But it goes overboard and lessens the impact of the plot. Lastly, the writing style irked me. I don't know if the differences in grammar that bothered me are due to the fact that Hamilton is a British writer and I am American, but the sentences were frequently choppy and the grammar not quite right. So why on earth would I recommend the book at all? Because if you can make it through this first installment in the Night's Dawn series, it is a series that is worth reading. I wouldn't call it *brilliant* (some people compare it to Dan Simmons' "Hyperion", but personally I don't think Hamilton can hold a candle to Simmons' genius), but it is a real page-turner and will give you a lot of food for thought. As the series continues, there is less violence, the sex becomes less irrelevant to the plot, historical figures pop up in unexpected places, fascinating mysteries are introduced and eventually resolved, and the ending is quite satisfying. If you have a difficult time getting through this first book, it might be worth having someone explain the major plot points to you so you can continue with "The Neutronium Alchemist", because that's when it starts to get good. Happy reading!
Rating:
Summary: Science Fiction for teens!! Yeah!!
Review: I feel so hollow; I cannot believe I wasted my money with all six books before venturing into reading this one first! Now, unfortunately, I am forced to read them all. But fortunately nowhere is written I should read them sequenced, so now that's a relief. The moral of this story: Never again believe the hype kids, even if you aren't used in believing on it. (Like me) The why people compare this work with "Dune" is way beyond me, and even if it were but a joke, I find myself unable to conceive the concept. I really wanted to like this book, really, but it seems that it is not for me. Don't take me wrong, I love a good book dealing with matters of faith, but this was ridiculous; the author seems to know nothing of Satanism and the few things he happen to know are the urban myths around it, so it really doesn't help that much. So maybe Quinn's funny religion was not Satanism at all but a cult. That would help move the story; unfortunately we are talking about a society of the future here, not a secret society from Middle Age Europe that calms its thirst with bloody orgiastic rituals. And this is one of the many stereotypes flowing through the pages. Just about any cliché character that comes to your mind figures in here: The drunken fanatical priest; the though chief; (that guy menatlly connected with his dog) the rebellious teenage girl who sleeps with whoever that crosses her way; the rogue pilot who has luck with all the women; the sex hungry adolescents; and the freak show goes on. The description of useless events is annoying as well. Have you ever been driving your car comfortably through the street just to suddenly find yourself lowering your speed because of the turtle-man in front of you, and tried to pass by the side of the car but couldn't for any reason? Well the same happens here, only worse. And that gets me to another important point: Sex. Why is it that mostly all modern science fiction needs to have mandatory sex on it? Are the editors a little bit randy or something? Why can't people learn from masters like Arthur C. Clarke, who uses little or no sex on his stories? (I am sure the sex scenes from the Rama series were Lee's doings) Well we can't blame people, mostly all sex is but a medium to further the story, isn't it? After all, for every single sexual encounter here we have maybe two or three pages of descriptive sex that would make the Kamasutra jealous. Pure juvenile fiction, which is a shame, because the idea behind this melodrama is interesting. The two stars raitting is because some parts were indeed interesting.
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