The Abyss Beyond Dreams

Let's say it as it is. Big disappointment all the way. The third books series that plays in the Commonwealth Universe this is also the by far weakest and most boring one.

Simply put, it just plays in the Void universe. All of it. There is outside/inside interesting development going on. There is actually no development going on at all. It feels like reading the same "Void Trilogy" Edeard stories just with a different character. Nothing interesting at all.

While it is still written very well and it is still a page turner, it was just not enjoyful at all. This is not a Hamilton book as I was expecting it.

The ending is a nice cliff hanger, but the most shocking thing for me was "So what, don't really care how it goes on". ( )

Starts good. gets really dumb, fast. skimmed to see what happens. not much. As Nigel says often, he's always right. that means no dramatic tension whatsoever.

and in there we also get a half-assed teenage infatuation plot complete with throwaway mom character, a scene about wonderbras (yes really), and need I go on? ( )

A fine example of the best of British Sci-Fi and space opera. ( )

Probably the best novel from Hamilton since Fallen Dragon. Much less padding, fewer viewpoint characters, no obviously, horribly wrong science.

The main problem here is a large section following a character called Slvasta that is highly repetitious of material following Edeard in the Void Trilogy. Fortunately it gets more interesting later when these correspondences are subverted. Nevertheless, it's much more fun when following Nigel Sheldon.

Typically of Hamilton it's more a fun adventure story than any interesting subtext but it's definitely one of his best such. ( )

Hamilton, Peter F. The Abyss Beyond Dreams. Commonwealth: Chronicles of the Fallen No. 1. Del Rey, 2014.
You and I and Larry Niven’s Puppeteers may think there is a big black hole at the center of our galaxy, but Peter F. Hamilton’s Commonwealth books say, not so. What we have there is a pocket universe called the Void that is more wibbly wobbly with the old timey-wimey than even the good Doctor Who could imagine. In The Abyss Beyond Dreams, the first of a two-part series that Hamilton tired of before it could become a trilogy, Nigel Sheldon, who you may remember invented the wormhole in the twenty-first century and got to Mars in time to greet the supposed first manned mission there, is still around in the thirty-fourth century to have his consciousness copied into a clone so he can set off on a dangerous rescue mission to the Void without endangering his original. That is good thinking, because it ain’t a safe place to go. If you are already a Commonwealth universe addict, you will like this book, too, but if you are new to the place, start with Pandora’s Star (2004). ( )