New Peter F. Hamilton covers

Tor Books have spruced up the covers for Peter F. Hamilton's novels set in his Commonwealth universe. The five novels published in the setting so far (the Commonwealth Saga duology and The Void Trilogy) have had their covers updated to match the cover of the latest book in the series, The Abyss Beyond Dreams. They will be available in the UK next month.

There's also an unusual, slightly retro feel to the spine design (nabbed from here):

All in all, interesting stuff, even if it is just two years since the last big PFH cover redesign. I'll be interested to see if his other books are also given this treatment, or if this is something reserved for just the Commonwealth books for now.

The Abyss Beyond Dreams is the next book in the reading queue once I finish Kameron Hurley's excellent Infidel.

The Evolutionary Void by Peter F. Hamilton

The Galaxy is in a state of turmoil. Millions of members of the Living Dream movement are preparing to plunge into the enigmatic Void at the heart of the Milky Way, believing it will deliver them to paradise. Others fear it will destroy the Galaxy altogether. The Ocisen Empire has allied with humanity's most remorseless foe to avert this fate, forcing the Commonwealth to unleash its most powerful weapon in response. But this very eventuality appears to have been prepared for by factions within the Commonwealth eager for the Living Dream to succeed...


Within the Void, Edeard has mastered his formidable new powers and sets out to deliver peace and justice to the world of Querencia. But for every problem he solves, more and more appear, and it may be that the Void's greatest gift is also its most horrific curse.

The Evolutionary Void is the conclusion to The Void Trilogy and also wraps up almost all the remaining plot threads from the earlier Commonwealth Saga. It is a generally satisfying finale that answers all the major questions remaining from the previous four books in both series whilst delivering Hamilton's trademark, widescreen space opera spectacle married to some solid, hard science and some interesting themes on growth, evolution (biological and sociological) and change, and the risk of ennui.

Structurally, the book is similar to the previous two, with alternating sequences set in the Commonwealth and in the city of Makkathran in the Void. The Makkathran sections are downplayed this time around, as Edeard's story really climaxed at the end of The Temporal Void. Evolutionary explores the ramifications of his discoveries at the end of the previous volume and adopt an almost Groundhog Day-style aspect, as Edeard's apparently godlike powers are now revealed to be anything but, and all the power in the world does not help if you cannot wield it responsibly.


In the Commonwealth, a large cast (although fairly modest compared to some of Hamilton's previous work) of well-drawn characters works to resolve the threat to the Commonwealth. Along the way they suffer some serious reverses. One brilliant sequence harkens back to Pandora's Star and is extremely impressive in how Hamilton sets up and executes it. Hamilton's ability to deliver good space battle has also not faltered.

The book's finale is epic, impressive and exceedingly clever (although a "Hang on, you didn't work this out ages ago?" line was possibly a little too meta for comfort). As far as his major series goes, this may be Hamilton's best-executed conclusion to date, although it does share some similarities to both The Naked God and Judas Unchained, including some elements that I know people disliked about both. The ending is also a little too neat. Pretty much everything is wrapped up with a nice bow at the end, and, sure enough, the biggest unanswered question will apparently form the basis of a new trilogy which Hamilton will start releasing in about three years.

The Evolutionary Void (****½) has some minor issues but is overall a solid conclusion to the series (both the trilogy and the larger five-volume Commonwealth story). It will be published in the UK on 10 September 2010 and in the USA on 24 August.

New cover art for Peter F. Hamilton's COMMONWEALTH SAGA

Continuing the theme from the last post, Pan Macmillan have also decided to rejacket The Commonwealth Saga, Peter F. Hamilton's duology which preceded his current Void Trilogy. Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained, with their new covers by Steve Stone, will be reissued later this year. Entertainingly, the two covers form one big picture when lined up next to one another (shades of HarperCollins Voyager's mid-1990s covers for Asimov's Foundation books, which form one big picture when the first six books are lined up next to one another).


Whilst the artwork is good, I can't hep but feel the artwork is misleading. Whilst there is military action in the duology, it is a fairly small part of the story. In addition, the artwork looks more near-future military SF than galaxy-spanning space opera in the late 24th Century, and might have been a better fit for Hamilton's near-future Greg Mandel trilogy.

Misspent Youth by Peter F. Hamilton

Misspent Youth is the eighth novel by British SF author Peter F. Hamilton, originally published in 2002. It is a stand-alone novel, but also serves as a prelude to his critically-acclaimed Commonwealth Saga (consisting of Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained). A new edition of the novel has just been released for the US market, although the differences with the UK edition are fairly minimal.

Hamilton is most famous for his epic space operas such as the classic Night's Dawn Trilogy, but it is easy to forget he started his career much smaller in scale, with his trilogy of near-future detective novels starring Greg Mandel. Misspent Youth, although set in a different timeline, recalls those early days by having the story set circa 2040 in Britain, in and around Hamilton's own home town of Rutland. The novel follows what happens to 77-year-old millionaire philanthropist Jeff Baker when he becomes the first human to undergo a complex rejeuvenation technique, which restores him to the physical age of 21, and the consequences of this on his trophy wife, his teenage son Tim and his friends.

Misspent Youth has the reputation of being Hamilton's weakest novel and it certainly is that. Hamilton has many great skills, including off-hand and easily comprehensible descriptions of high technology, great space battles, a furious pace and a knack for writing detective fiction. None of this is much help in this novel. The book is something of a character study and a treatise on the emotional impact of the rejeuvenation technology, but although Hamilton can certainly create cool characters, he is less adept at providing them with onion-like layers of complexity and depth. His biggest mistake in Misspent Youth is making most of the characters inherently selfish and dislikable. Jeff Baker rapidly alienates his old friends by preferring to go clubbing rather than hanging out at the local rehashing decades-old arguments over whether Alien or Aliens is the better film, and he later seduces his son's 17-year-old girlfriend Annabel. Annabel herself is one of the three principal POVs we follow through the story (along with Jeff and Tim) and doesn't come across as particularly likable either, though amusingly her often thoughtlessly-selfish actions do ring true for a teenage character. The only halfway likable character is Tim, whose relationship with his father shifts convincingly back and forth several times in the book.

Whilst this plot unfolds in the foreground, Hamilton remembers to include his trademark superb worldbuilding and it's fascinating to watch the very earliest pieces of the culture of the later Intersolar Commonwealth slot into place. Baker is the inventor of the datasphere, forerunner to the universal data-storage system seen in the Commonwealth novels, and the story of how he invented it and why he gave away all business rights to it is actually the highlight of the novel. The datasphere may allow virtually instantaneous transmission of ideas, video and audio (tens of thousands times faster than broadband) but it has also single-handedly wiped out most of modern culture. No one makes films or releases music commercially any more as the datasphere allows pirate copies to be spread and downloaded in microseconds, beyond the ability of any data-protection system to neutralise, whilst bands and writers only work for personal pleasure. TV is also pretty much dead, save for repeats, news and soap operas. In an interesting scene real-life SF&F author Graham Joyce debates the rights and wrongs of this system with Tim and Hamilton certainly raises a worthy debate with this plot strand.

It's all rather subsumed by the soap-opera like character machinations though. Some may find the rather large number of sex scenes to be unnecessary, and the dislikable characters do make the story somewhat laborious to continue with at points. I'm guessing most won't find the ending that unpredictable either. However, Hamilton raises some good points and for once his technology isn't that too far off from what might actually be possible, and his willingness to address that through a character study rather than his typical massive war-in-space is an interesting move. Also, it's relatively short (400 pages) compared to his usual behemoths.

Overall, not his best work and at times rather dull, but the scene-setting for The Commonwealth Saga makes Misspent Youth (***) worth reading. The novel is published by Pan Macmillan in the UK and by Del Rey in the USA. Hamilton's latest novel, The Temporal Void, is released next month in the UK.