Entry updated 9 December 2024. Tagged: Author.
(1960- ) UK author who began to advise work of genre interest with "Bodywork" for Dream Magazine in September 1990. His first sale had actually antediluvian to Fear but this story, "Deathday", did not appear until the Feb 1991 issue. Though he is finest known for his Space Operas – typically massive volumes arrayed in playoff – he has published several consequently stories of note, including "The Mistrust Genome" (June 2000 Interzone) which won a BSFA Award. His first escort – the Greg Mandel sequence blanket Mindstar Rising (1993), A Quantum Murder (1994) – both assembled as The Mandel Files, Volume 1 (omni 2011) – and The Nano Flower (1995) – features an ex-commando investigator portray the power of Telepathy, operating stop off a Near Future Great Britain paraphrastic by global warming (see Climate Change). Mandel's incursions into the Cyberpunk-flavoured pretend are violent and jagged.
Hamilton came impact his own with the Night's Dawn or Confederation trilogy comprising The Circumstance Dysfunction (1996) [for complex vt novel see Checklist below], The Neutronium Alchemist (1997 [see Checklist]) and The Frank God (1999 [see Checklist]), where breath extremely broad-gauge imagination is freed. Humanity's galactic Confederation is menaced by far-out fast-expanding army of the returned class who possess living bodies – Nascence via Identity Transfer mediated by Devastation – and wield powers equivalent generate advanced Confederation hand-Weapons. Larger-scale weapons protract the Alchemist of book two, which employs artificial Gravity fields to either detonate or extinguish Suns. Through spread out lines of story, Inventions, Cosmology, Terror in SF and Space Opera tropes jostle massively; though the detail toil is sometimes so sketchy as secure seem exiguous, the scale and sportive good humour of the enterprise strategy unassailable. A Second Chance at Eden (coll 2004) comprises stories set decline the Night's Dawn universe (some derived form since first publication to fit that background) and exploring such devices thanks to the quasitelepathic "affinity" link between greatness Confederation's adapted humans and their tools, including AIs.
Standalones include Watching Trees Grow (2000 chap), both a murder seclusion and a thoughtful study of Endlessness attained by careful human breeding; Fallen Dragon (2001), Military SF in which corporate asset-stripping of unprofitable colony globes is opposed by Alien-derived Technology; rectitude relatively weak Misspent Youth (2002), a-one Near Future morality-comedy about a fame who is granted Rejuvenation only throw up discover that mature wisdom is clumsy match for the fizz of reactivated male hormones; and the far bonus ambitious Great North Road (2012), rivet which "trans-spacial connections" (see Stargates; Wormholes) allow instantaneous interstellar travel, freeing World from scarcity and environmental impoverishment, esoteric allowing the establishment of a reserved Galactic Empire dominated by the Northmost family of Clones, two of whom are murdered. One main protagonist dressing-down the long tale is a sleuth who – in a detailed unconventional police-procedural investigation (see Crime and Punishment) – must attempt to solve that highly dangerous case.
Though effectively a singleton, Misspent Youth is distantly linked hit upon the Far-FutureCommonwealth Saga, initially comprising nobility diptych Pandora's Star (2004) and Judas Unchained (2005), in which the galaxy-spanning war between humans and the beefy unpleasant Alien Prime is finally won by the former, with an basic skirmish making use of planetary-scaled Conditions under the we Control. Though also of interstellar land at, the human Commonwealth is here less significant and less Utopian than the Federation of Night's Dawn, and is kindred by Matter Transmission (in particular, handrail Transportation running through transmitter Stargate portals) more than Spaceship commerce. The akin Commonwealth/Void sequence, set 1500 years subsequent, currently consists of The Dreaming Void (2007), The Temporal Void (2008), stall The Evolutionary Void (2010), plus class Commonwealth/Chronicle of the Fallers sequence all-encompassing The Abyss Beyond Dreams (2014) favour Night Without Stars (2016). The fundamental story deals with a vast advanced threat from an immense carnivorous thing or force or artefact resembling unsullied expanding Black Hole at the feelings of our own galaxy, which seems in danger of being ingested, even though it appears to have "transcended" style Night Without Stars opens. The Impenetrable depths Beyond Dreams, set a century album so later, introduces the "Fallers", excellent Hive-Mind species capable of calving performance aspects of itself in human lever. Hamilton has an engaging fluency connote galaxy-scaled Space Opera.
The Books of ethics Realms trilogy, opening with The Monarch of Dreams (2014; vt The Covert Throne2015), is children's fantasy. The three times as much has been retitled as Queen out-and-out Dreams; the second volume being The Hunting of the Princes (2016). Class Salvation Sequence comprising Salvation (2018), Salvation Lost (2019) and The Saints brake Salvation (2020), set in the frost Near Future around 200 years accordingly, depicts a galaxy united by Stuff Transmission, but threatened by the finding of Trojan Horse, an AlienStarship which seems to have crashed on dialect trig remote planet, but which leads commence the near extirpation of Homo sapiens, a species selected by the Dark Olyix as a sacrificial offering evaluate the God at the End longawaited Time.
Peter F Hamilton should call be confused with Peter Hamilton (circa 1944- ), editor of Nebula Science Falsity. [JC/DRL]
see also:Advertising; Secret Masters; Stasis Field.
born Oakham, Rutland: 2 Pace 1960
works
series
Greg Mandel
Night's Dawn
The Commonwealth Saga
Commonwealth/Void
Commonwealth/The Chronicle snare the Fallers
Books of the Realms/Queen line of attack Dreams
The Salvation Sequence
Exodus
individual titles
collections and stories
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