Peter F. Hamilton’s The Abyss Beyond Dreams

I just finished Peter F. Hamilton’s The Abyss Beyond Dreams. This is part of the Commonwealth series, but it is also the first book in a subseries called the Chronicle of the Fallers, which follows a trilogy in the same series called The Void. Got all that? It doesn’t really matter. You can read The Abyss Beyond Dreams without knowing any of that and without having read the earlier books.

I have read the first book Hamilton wrote in the Commonwealth series Pandora’s Star, and the second book Judas Unchained. I have not read the three books in between those two and this one. If I had, it might have cleared up some initial confusion, but I was able to grasp what was going on. Hamilton writes complex worlds and his novels have an epic feel to them. Some of the tech and concepts are mind-bending. I felt that way reading the first two novels, and the same can be said here. He writes stories that you have to invest yourself in. They aren’t a little light reading that you don’t have to think about too hard. On the other hand, books that are light and easy, tend not to have much staying power. I have forgotten them the day after I finish them. Not so with Hamilton’s books. You will be thinking about them long after you finish them.

I am not going to say anything about the plot because, well, it would be impossible to summarize and do it any justice. Suffice it to say, there is a big bad mystery. Someone comes up with a bold plan for how to deal with said mystery. Now execute it and let the chips fall where they may, etc.

There are sometimes disjointed sections of the book that make you wonder why we are following this particular character or that. But eventually it all does tie together nicely. The ending does leave a lot of unanswered questions, but then we assume they will be answered in the next book: A Night Without Stars, which is the conclusion to this set.

I enjoyed this book and have already ordered the next one. But this series may not be for everyone. It does take patience and a willingness to pay attention to the details and put in the work. For me at least, it was worth it.

Star Liner

Comments

Retired

I retired this week. So, big lifestyle changes for me? Not so much. I retired on Thursday. My office had an amazing party for me on Wednesday, lots of food, lots of cards, lots of personal connections. Gifts too, I wish I had told them, no gifts. I really don’t need anything. But all this does make one feel appreciated. It also makes me feel appreciated that they want me to come back on a contractual basis every now and then to impart my institutional knowledge. It is always the case when someone retires, knowledge is lost to the organization. Things have to be relearned by the next generation. This is somewhat offset by the fact that the world is changing through advancing technology etc. So, the knowledge that the retiring person has might eventually become obsolete anyway. Better to go out while you are still on top. We have all seen professional athletes who stayed on well beyond their prime. It would have been better to go out while still on top. But it is a hard thing to ...

All That We See or Seem by Ken Liu

My first experience with cyberpunk as a genre of science fiction was Neuromancer by William Gibson. Neuromancer was one of the early works that defined the cyberpunk genre. It was insanely influential. It won the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, the Philip K. Dick Award. But for me, it just did not resonate. I had a hard time visualizing the concepts. It left a bad taste in my mouth for cyberpunk. I mostly avoided the genre. Then a couple of years ago I read Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson which is cyberpunk (although some people say it is a parody of cyberpunk). Whatever, I liked it. I recently picked up All That We See or Seem by Ken Liu and it immediately became apparent to me that this was cyberpunk. Julia Z is the main character, and I think this is going to be the start of a series following her. She is a hacker (hence cyberpunk). She has got herself in trouble and so she lives on the margins, barely making it. Then a lawyer asks her for her help. His wife has been kidnapped. The ...

Darkness

There was a moment when I discovered that l liked dark music. I do like dark music. I like minor keys and a haunting theme. I like other kinds of music too, but that darkness speaks to me in a special way. What does that say about me? Am I messed up? I don’t think so. Maybe I am just built that way that haunting tunes or lyrics imparts some inner truth to me. It resonates. I know precisely when I discovered this about myself. It was Summer of 1971. I was 12 years old. I was on a plane with my family heading to Illinois. Airplanes back then did not have much in the way of entertainment, but what they did have were headphones and music channels you could listen to. I was listening to a channel of popular current hits, and a song came on called “That’s the Way I Always Heard it Should Be” by Carly Simon. I had never heard of Carly Simon. This was before “Anticipation” and “You’re so Vain.” She was not yet famous. But this song came on and, I don’t know, it did something to me. It...

A speculative mind

Search This Blog