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[JuntaJoe]

.....is unlike any scifi author I've ever read.

His stuff is pure gold.

The guy cranks out loads of pages every year of gripping space opera.

There are several kinds of scifi. First you have the classic stuff born from real scientists where they explore the edge of science theory. Then you have the grit stuggle in military scifi. Next is the near future dark visions. Finally, you have the heroic fun of space opera. While proper "convention" of intelligent scifi isn't ignored in space opera, it quits being the focus in order to allow the heroic entertainment be the star.

Sadly, this stuff turns into average pulp entertainment fast when books from the same space opera author start to all look alike. Fly around in a ship, shoot the aliens, and save the galaxy. Ho hum. The reason is that no matter if he changes the characters and story you still get the same old backdrops. It's like filming a bunch of movies on the same movie set.

Not Peter Hamilton.

His first series, the Night's Dawn Trilogy is set in a far future where space was conquered long ago and mankind has settled into a feudal style confederation. Different sects and empires are eons old. Grand ships fly far and vast of the galaxy. Into this he tosses an interesting plot. It seems that there really is an alternate plane where souls go when they die. But it's not a place that any religion has considered. And "hell" is getting full. A freak accident of grand physics has opened a rift and the souls of the dead are streaming out, taking over people's minds along the way. Mankind gets a late start on the problem and has to become heavy handed in cleaning up the mess. Whole worlds get shattered. Al Capone returns and builds up an opposition to take over the galaxy and trillions of lives are lost. It's quite the mess and we have our prodigal son hero racing the flames to save us all. Six paperbacks, around 6000 pages, of gripping stuff.

Then Hamilton switches gears for Fallen Dragon. A stand-alone huge book where space travel wasn't the miracle of economy we envisioned. Too expensive for even governments to afford. Colonization is almost abandoned after countries and companies go backrupt financing new colonies. Into this mess a company emerges that buys the dead profit rights to all these colonies. They recoup these expenses by swooping in on these planets and forceably extracting profits every couple of decades. A huge army will just show up and take everything valuable off the planets. This ia a story of one colony that fights back.

Now Hamilton has started a new series that I'm just starting. Pandora's Star is set in a future where man makes a stab at space flight and forgets it. The first Mars flight arrives to find they aren't alone. Not aliens, though. Humans. It seems a couple of Cal Tech hippies have made a wormhole generator in their basement lab and meet the astronauts as they arrive, much to their chagrin. At the same time the Euros have perfected cloning and memory transfer. If you have the money then you just keep rejuvenating yourself every 50 years. Then the story shoots ahead and human space is several dozen worlds all connected by wormholes that you ride the trains through.

Now I've only got about a third of the way into this book and is likely to be only the beginning for several more books. So I can't give a better storyline synopsis. At present, I've only got the backdrop.

But it's the backdrop that is noticeable. It's Hamilton's third complete universe. Every time he starts a story he restarts his conventions of the future. No one else in space opera does this.

It also might be why he shares an award with Asimov as the only scifi writers to ever get the Hugo "All Time Greatest Science Fiction Series". And this guy is barely older than me!

You really wouldn't have to be a scifi fan to love his writing. If you like fiction then he'll entertain you. I've pushed his books onto avid Westerns readers and Mystery readers and they've all loved his stuff.

It reminds me of the way so many people who would never read fantasy, or read anything for that matter, liked the Harry Potter stuff. It's just a general appeal based on a fun story with well developed characters in a fantastic setting.

And these days with paperbacks topping $8, it's nice to see a guy who will give you a full 1000 pages for your money and produce one of those annually. That's a hugely prolific rate. Most of the best are lucky to get out 500 pages a year.

If you like to read any kind of fiction then go start his first "trilogy". It's really 5 or 6 books because the publishers hacked his 3 huge books into multiple parts. Go find The Reality Disfunction, part one and you'll be hooked. The inside cover will point you to the rest of the books in the Night's Dawn series.