A Guide to the Books of Peter F Hamilton

I have decided to periodically post a guide to individual authors, starting with some of my favourite authors. First up is Peter F Hamilton, a popular author of science fiction space operas.

About the Author

Peter F Hamilton is a British author, born in 1960 in Rutland, England's smallest county. He began writing in 1987, getting several short stories published before his first novel, Mindstar Rising, came out in 1993. Since then he has published many novels, all in the science fiction genre apart from a recent series of young adult fantasy novels. His novels are usually set across a vast galactic landscape, with space travel, aliens and lots of future technology. The science is plausible and consistent but without loads of detail - this isn't hard sci-fi. His books have a lot of similarities with fellow British authors Iain M Banks and Alastair Reynolds.

Peter F Hamilton's Books

His first three books were a near future science fiction detective series, featuring psychic PI Greg Mandel. Unlike the rest of his books, these are in some respects a bit dated now, but still really interesting, portraying an England recovering from years of an oppressive communist regime. The books are:

Mindstar Rising (1993)
A Quantum Murder (1994)
The Nano Flower (1995)

They are all mid-size books in the 300-400 page spectrum. In contrast to his later books...

Confederation Universe Books

After quite small scale, near future science fiction, Hamilton moved onto a far future series written on a huge scale, with his Night's Dawn Trilogy. The first book is also in my all time top 10 reads. It is set 600 years in the future, on a distant world where a group of settlers are literally hacking out a new colony from the virgin forest. Something happens out there however, that throws the whole galaxy into chaos and threatens the continued existence of the human race...

The Reality Dysfunction (1996)
The Neutronium Alchemist (1997)
The Naked God (1999)

There are also a couple of companion books:

A Second Chance at Eden (1998)- A book of short stories set in the Confederation universe.
The Confederation Handbook (2000) - A non fiction guide to the Confederation Universe, compiled from the author's notes.

Commonwealth Universe

After writing  The Night's Dawn Trilogy, the author decided to move on to a completely different, unrelated set of stories. Set in the universe of the 'Commonwealth' several hundred years in the future, faster than light travel may not have been invented, but instead there are wormholes linking hundreds of planets. Humans may fill the galaxy, but there are various alien races which humans co-exist with in the galaxy relatively peacefully. Rejuvenation and memory stores give near immortality, and life is good for many. Then a strange astronomical event is spotted in the night sky, further out than anyone has gone before, and the safe, cossetted world of the Commonwealth is suddenly under threat.

This series is made up of two duologies, a trilogy and a standalone novel. The best place to start is Misspent Youth if you want to (see below), or Pandora's Star. Don't try to read them out of order.

Misspent Youth (2002) - A slim volume, not like his other books. It isn't well regarded - and can be easily skipped - but does set up the universe of the Commonwealth, showing the beginnings of rejuvenation technology and examines some of the implications.

Pandora's Star (2004) -
Judas Unchained (2005)

The Dreaming Void (2007)
The Temporal Void (2008)
The Evolutionary Void (2010)

The Abyss Beyond Dreams (2014)
Night Without Stars (2016)

Other Books

A children's fantasy series, The Queen of Dreams, perfect for 9-11 year olds apparently:

The Secret Throne (2015)
The Hunting of the Princes (2016)
A Voyage Through Air (2017 - forthcoming)

Fallen Dragon (2001) - A standalone space opera adventure, in a similar style to his other books.

Great North Road (2012) - A spectacular single volume novel, it weighs in at nearly a 1000 pages, and is set in a completely separate universe to his other books, but there are many similarities in style and content.

Manhatten in Reverse (2011) - A book of short stories, including a titular novella.

He has also written a young adult sci-fi novel, Lightstorm, and several novellas: Watching Trees Grow, Family Matters and A Window Into Time.

Links

Official website - He occasionally writes blog posts, and it has information about his books. It is a bit out of date though.

The Unisphere - A decent fan site covering the author's works.

2016 interview - A short interview with the author

Facebook page - Peter F Hamilton's Facebook page. He posts on here regularly, so is probably the best place online to find latest news about the author and his books.

So that's it. Definitely worth checking out if you like space based science fiction on an epic scale. My recommendation for a starting point would be either The Reality Dysfunction or Pandora's Star. Or if you want a standalone novel that gives a good flavour of what his books are like, try Fallen Dragon or Great North Road.

A Trio of Classic Science Fiction Novels

I'm steaming ahead with my book challenge at the very least, 10 books so far out of my target of 40. According to Goodreads I am 4 books ahead of schedule, though I feel like I will be losing some ground over the next few weeks as I'm about a quarter of the way through the 950 page Tolstoy opus, Anna Karenina. Anyway back to the science fiction.

The Caves of Steel by Isaac Asimov

The Caves of Steel is the first book in Asimov's Robot series, which has multiple novels and many short stories in it. This book takes place in the near-ish future, at a time when robots were still in their infancy. Most robots in this book are dumb things, not a great leap from artificial intelligences of today. This book features detective Elijah Baley, and possibly the first of the truly intelligent robots, Daneel Olivaw. An important ambassador has been murdered, and it is Baley and Daneel's job to investigate the crime and discover the culprit, to prevent a greater crisis.

This book has been on my to be read list for a long time now, and I finally got around to it after picking up a cheap paperback copy. The detective story itself is quite a basic one, but it was the world building and the great ideas that really got me hooked on this book. Considering it was written in (checks Wikipedia) 1954, it has aged really, really well. Okay so the computers they are talking about are pretty basic and possibly involved punched cards, and some of the numbers are a bit off (the 8 billion population may be several times that of Asimov's era, but today's population is close to that) but otherwise it is very believable. The political/social system described is bordering on communist, but is still quite believable, and some of the technology was a delight (I loved the idea of the moving walkways where you stepped from lane to lane, which increase in speed each time). Overall, a great, short book, still very relevant and enjoyable today and a good start to his Robot series.

The Space Merchants by Frederick Pohl & C M Kornbluth

This is a 1950's classic science fiction novel by the writing team of Frederick Pohl and C M Kornbluth. Ad man Mitch Courtenay is at the top of his game, and has been given the plum assignment of managing the Venus contract - promoting the new colonisation of Venus to ensure that his agency exclusively controls the spending of the would be colonists. In this imagined future, the world is effectively controlled by three giant advertising companies, the leaders of which are more powerful even than the US president. The ad men are rich, powerful and can have whatever they want, the consumers however are a downtrodden underclass...

This is a short novel, and in keeping with most science fiction of this era, it is desperately short on good characterisation - the characters are quite two dimensional almost just ciphers to move the plot along. The plot itself is also somewhat pedestrian, although with a twist at the end. I have to say however I really enjoyed this book. Although it is really dated, having been written over 60 years ago it has some very interesting technology and even the dated aspects of the novel hold a certain interest - in many ways the future the authors portrayed is already here. A lot of the scary stuff is a lot closer now than it was in the 1950's and even the stuff they got wrong casts light on the present. A great read.

The Stainless Steel Rat by Harry Harrison

In the far future, criminal intent, violence and deviousness has been bred out of the human race. Once in a while though someone slips through the genetic net. James Bolivar diGriz a.k.a. Slippery Jim is such a person. He is a master criminal and a brilliant disguise artist with a cunning mind, always staying several steps ahead of the law. Until...

This is the first in a science fiction comedy series, begun in the 1970s by the prolific science fiction author Harry Harrison. It was written, I think, as a spoof of the early space opera series by the likes of E E Doc Smith. I've never been a big fan of comic science fiction, or comic fiction generally, but it gives the author a lot of freedom to disregard the rules of science or sense and just have fun. I really enjoyed this, it was a great fun read. Incidentally, rather than reading this I listened to the audiobook from Brilliance Audio (on Audible.co.uk) and I thought it worked great as an audiobook and the narrator did a really good job.

That's it for now. I've just ordered several of the SF Masterworks so I'll be covering them in a later post. Before that, Hemingway and Tolstoy amongst others!

'40 Challenge update' - A Game, a Book and a Film

After a very busy week at work, I've made progress on all fronts this weekend, played a new game, as well as a film and have read most of a book. Here goes.

Game: Kingsburg

Gareth & Deborah came round on Friday night with a new game in the bag (actually quite an old game) - Kingsburg. This game is something of an oldie, celebrating its 10 year anniversary this year, and in the rankings it is a respectable 229 on Board Game Geek. It is a dice rolling, worker (dice) placement game. You roll three dice and then take turns placing the dice on one of the spaces of on the board (numbered 1 to 18) to gain resources, which you can then use to buy buildings that give abilities and are worth victory points. The theme of the game is that you are a noble sent by the King to govern frontier territories. The theme isn't overly important to the game, except for the end of each round when an invading army attacks and you need to have built up the strength to defend against it - otherwise it is bad news!

This is a really neat game which with four players took a couple of hours but with less chat would have been shorter. It's not too complicated - you can pick up the game quite quickly, but there's plenty of choices to think about (but not too many for analysis paralysis to set in). We played with the base game, but there's an expansion 'Kingsburg: To Forge a Realm' which we will play next time that really adds to the game.

Film: The Running Man

As we were flicking through the movies on Netflix, my wife exclaimed 'What do you mean you've never seen Running Man'. This was for her one of those classic childhood film memories, but one I'd obviously missed out on. Oh well never mind, I can make up for it now! Running man is an Arnie sci-fi action movie - Schwarzenegger is a wrongly accused prisoner forced to take part in a lethal game show. He has to run and try to get away while being chased and ultimately gruesomely killed by professional "stalkers", but in typical Arnie fashion he turns the tables and starts killing them instead. There's a nasty bad guy and a cute girl, as well as a freedom fighting resistance movement - it all adds up to easily one of the most enjoyable Arnie romps I've seen in a while.

Book: Lucky Man by Michael J Fox

Michael J Fox is one of my favourite actors, thanks mostly to his starring role in one of my favourite films of all time 'Back to the Future', and also one of my favourite 90s comedies 'Spin City'. I don't normally read celebrity autobiographies, but this one seemed a bit different, not least because of his being diagnosed with Early Onset Parkinson's disease in his late 20s. The first part of the book documents his early life, then the early years of his TV and film career. The mid part of the book is his description of the 'fun house years', with quite incisive observations about the strange and dangerous world of super stardom. The latter part of the book is about his decision to put his life back on a normal footing, and also about dealing with Parkinson's disease.

I almost never read celebrity autobiographies, with good reason I think, but I really enjoyed this book. It left me with the feeling, which I'd known already, that Michael J Fox is a genuinely nice guy, one of those rare all round good guys in Hollywood. It taught me a bit about Hollywood and the life of a film star, a bit more about Parkinson's disease, but a lot about life too. A great book, full of anecdotes, laugh out loud moments, but sad moments too, and it left me with a lot to think about.

Count as at 22 Jan:

Books 2/40
Games 3/40
Films 3/40

More next week.

The '40' Challenge in 2017

I know, I know, it is a bit late for new year's resolutions. This isn't one of those, it's a personal challenge for 2017. I'm calling it the 40 40 40 challenge. In 2017 I'm planning to do the following:

Read 40 new books
Play 40 new board games
Watch 40 new films

I wanted something challenging in a fun sort of way, not some really ambitious task that will keep me really busy and under pressure at home as well as at work. Why 40? Well I think it's quite a bit more than I managed last year - I think for instance I read about 25 books last year which - but I wanted it to be not too difficult to achieve. I thought about 50 or 52, the symbolic one a week, but to be honest particularly when it comes to books I didn't want it to be that tight. With the time I have, more than one book a week is quite a tall order, and I may want to read some longer books (War and Peace perhaps?). At 40 books in a year a few longer books are achievable, at 52 books a year I don't think so.

I love board gaming, and particularly playing new games but often don't play as many new games as I'd like, so thought I'd add board games to my challenge. Then there's films, I always want to watch more films, rather than just TV boxsets, and with the '12 movie nights of Christmas' present I got from my lovely wife, I'll already be watching one new film a month so part way there. I think films will be the easiest to achieve, but we'll see.

I'll be keeping a regular log on my blog of where I'm upto with the challenge, and posting reviews for many. Here's where I'm upto so far:

Books - 0/40. Currently reading a fairly chunky fantasy book by Joe Abercrombie. Really good, but delaying getting first book under my belt.

Games 2/40. Played a couple of Christmas presents so far - Imperial Settlers and Kanagawa. Both very enjoyable, will post reviews when I've played a couple more times.

Films 2/40 - I'm not counting Kinky Boots, which I watched most of on New Year's Eve 2016. I have watched though the Charlie Chaplin film 'The Champion' from 1915, and 'The Bounty' a 1984 film starring Mel Gibson, Anthony Hopkins and a helluva lot of other famous actors, about the mutiny on the HMS Bounty. Reviews to follow - probably.

Anyone else, want to join in the 40 challenge? 40 new meals, new beers, new music albums to listen to?

More soon.

Happy New Year - and Kinky Boots!

Last year I did quite a lot of blogging about travel and history, including a virtual tour round Europe. I exported this to my new blog Curiosity Cove. Since then this blog has been dormant, which seems a shame as it has been with me for quite a number of years now. So I'm going to revive it - all my history, travel, science and general non-fiction posts will still be over on Curiositycove.com, but on this blog I'm going to post reviews of board games, films, books etc.

My first film of the New Year was also the last film of 2016, as I started watching it last night. That was Kinky Boots. It is a 2005 film about a drag queen who comes to the help of an ailing shoe factory. Neither the name of the film nor the synopsis would have attracted me were it not for my wife wanting to watch it. I agreed, somewhat reluctantly but also knowing she has good taste in films! It was actually very good. After his father dies, Charlie becomes the owner of his family's shoe business, a business they have been running for many generations. Unfortunately, things are not looking good as they are undercut by cheap foreign imports. They are about to go out of business when a chance encounter with a drag queen leads to the idea of specialising in high quality stiletto boots for drag queens and men dressed as women!

The film isn't a comedy, but quite amusing in places. It is quite a touching story that has a definite ring of truth about it - not surprising as it is based on the true story of a Northampton firm that rescued their business and safeguarded jobs by specialising in shoes for transvestites. Not the best film ever, but certainly worth watching. I'd give it a solid 8/10.

Star Wars

After a late New Year's Day lunch and feeling a bit snoozy, it was time for an afternoon family film and this time it was my choice. I finally got my daughter to agree to watch a Star Wars film, after she's resisted for ages. I opted for Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace. Which film to start off with is a matter of much debate, but for a 7 year old girl, I thought that Episode One is a much more fun place to start, and she is less likely to get bored and wander off. Jar Jar Binks may be a much hated figure in the Star Wars universe, but for young children he is a source of great entertainment and amusement. Right now I'm thanking him for that!

So what do I think of Star Wars Episode One? I am going to risk being flamed, but I actually quite like it. If it didn't have the great expectations behind it, the first Star Wars film in a decade and a half, then I think it would have been lauded as a fairly decent film. It's definitely the weakest of all the Star Wars films but the weakest in a great film series can still be a good thing. The only thing that grates is the ending - all is lost and then Anakin accidentally blows up the generator, all the droids all fall over and the day is won (once Obi Wan destroys Darth Maul anyway). A bit too unbelievable really! Oh well. All in all everyone enjoyed.

Finland - Land of the Midnight Sun

Cabin in the Woods

If you look at Finland on a map, you will notice that it is the easternmost of the three ‘Scandinavian’ countries, which look a bit like three fingers pointing downwards. The shape of Finland is generally thought to be that of a woman pointing, although I can’t help but see it as a seated bunny rabbit with lopsided ears. I should probably say at the outset that although geographically Finland is part of what most people would think of as Scandinavian, they aren’t in fact usually considered part of Scandinavia. Scandinavia is a historic and cultural term binding together Sweden, Norway and Denmark. Finland, along with the proper Scandinavian countries, is a Nordic state. The far north of Finland is inside the arctic circle, and this area is known as the Land of the Midnight Sun, because in the summer months it is summer for all of the day and night, even at midnight. Conversely in winter, it is dark all the time. At Lake Inari for instance, the sun never sets between May 23^rd and July 19^th. Between December 4^th and January 8^th, the sun never rises. It’s also rather cold, with average lows in January of 19 degrees below freezing, and between November and early June it is completely frozen over.

Before we more into what Finland is like, here’s a few facts.

1. Finland is actually the Swedish name for the country. Finns themselves call their country Suomi.
2. Finland is the biggest drinker of coffee per person than any other country, each consuming on average 2.7 cups a day.
3. Finns are generally considered to have one of the best educational systems in the world
4. Finland has the most islands and the most lakes of any country in the world – approximately 180,000 of each.
5. Finland is the most sparsely populated country in the European Union, with only 16 people per km²

Finland has throughout its history been dominated by its two powerful neighbours – Sweden to the west and Russia to the east, and until it achieved independence in 1918 it was ruled by one or the other of them. During World War II, it was invaded by both Germany and Russia, and struggled to maintain its independence. During the Cold War, Finland managed to maintain its neutrality and sided neither with the Soviet Union nor NATO allies. As such, it was an important buffer between East and West, however it had to be very careful not to antagonise the Russians. After the end of the Cold War, it wholeheartedly threw in its lot with the European Union, joining in 1994 and then joining the Euro in 1999.

It is difficult to get across just how sparsely populated Finland is. It is two and a half times the size of England, but has just a tenth of the population. What’s more, the majority of the population live in the southern half of the country in the area around the capital Helsinki, making the north even more empty. What Finland lacks in population however, it makes up for in wonderful wildlife. The countryside of Finland is home to bears, wolves, reindeer, ermine and many other creatures.

The wildlife and countryside isn’t just the home of animals however, it is enjoyed by the Finns probably to a greater extent than most other countries. In Finland there is the concept of ‘Everyman’s Right’, and it gives everyone the right to roam over the Finnish countryside, no matter who owns the land. They can also collect natural produce anywhere, and even fish with a rod and line with no need for permission or a licence. The countryside really is everyone’s to enjoy, a wonderful concept.

By the Campfire at Kuusamo Kitkajoki, Finland

It might be cold in the wintertime, but when the weather warms up Finns really take advantage of it, particularly when it comes to their summer holidays. The idea of the ‘summer cottage’ is not exclusive to Finland, but they have taken to it with gusto. It is estimated that half of families in Finland have their own holiday home in the countryside, others rent or borrow a cottage. Vacationing at the summer cottage in Finland is all about getting away from it all, enjoying the peace and quiet and not being busy. Finns also benefit from the longer days in the summer, which can be very long – perfect for late night games. Of course in the wintertime it is dark and cold all day in some places, but at least then they can take refuge in the warmth of the sauna, a ubiquitous Finnish invention that they have gifted to the world.

Can you name any famous Finns? I bet you know at least one, every child does after all. Yes, that’s right, Santa Claus comes from Lapland in the north of Finland. He and his elves live in the Santa Claus Village in Rovaniemi, and children from all over the world write to him here – he receives about 700,000 letters every year. According to head elf Katja Tervonen, they answer all letters sent to Father Christmas as long as  they include a clearly readable address, and all letters have a special stamp on them. If you are wanting to write to Father Christmas this year, the address to write to is:

Santa Claus
Santa Claus’s Main Post Office
96930
Napapiiri
Finland

You never know, if you are good this year perhaps Santa will bring you what you ask for this year.

Photos on this page are from Visit Finland, and licenced under Creative Commons Licence, (CC BY-NC 2.0)

'Terra' - A decent board game where you learn stuff!

I like board gaming. I like all sorts of board and card games, but tend to prefer the 'Euro style' strategy board games, good two player games and fun party games. There's a rare class of games I'm always on the look out for though, and that's a decent game where you learn something new. Now there's plenty of so called educational games out there that are popular with schools and teachers but to be honest they're usually pretty awful. There either basic roll and move games with a pasted on theme and no meaningful decisions, or they info dump knowledge onto kids which puts them off completely. Some basic trivia games are alright, but I like it when they do something more interesting than just firing off a succession of questions.

Which brings me nicely to 'Terra' a board game from noted board game designer Friedemann Friese. This is all about geographical knowledge but rather than just testing your trivia knowledge - do you know the capital city of Peru etc - it gets you thinking about geography, and a bit of history too.

The board is quite simple - it's a map of the world, dividend into many different regions, and there are also three number lines, a distance line, a date line and a general number line. Each round, a question card is shown, and players take it in turns to place cubes on the board which they think correspond to the correct answers. It helps if I show you a card.

When the card is in the card holder, only the top card half of the card is displayed. It will display the name of something, a place or a thing, along with a photo. In this case it is 'Sunsphere'. Below the photo there's three questions you can answer. One is always the Area, i.e. where on the map this is, the other two will be some other measurement or date - in this case, the diameter of the sunsphere, and the year when the World's Fair was held here.

Players take it in turns to drop one of their cubes on the board, either in an area, or on one of the number/date lines, until everyone has passed. Then players get 7 points for each correct answer, or 3 points for each cube that is close, i.e. adjacent to a correct area or zone on a number line. Careful though, if you get incorrect answers, you might not get all of your cubes back.

The second half of the card displays the answers, and some additional information. This only gets revealed when everyone has passed.

There's 200 cards in the game, which may not seem a lot, but you only actually play with 6 cards in each game, so it should last you a while. What I really like is that it really gets you thinking about the topics, and even if you don't know the answer, you can have a guess, or tag along with another player who you think does know the correct answer (you can only have 1 cube per space, but you can get points for playing adjacent, and sometimes, the answer will cover several spaces).  We played this with just two of us, and it was a good game. I can't wait to try it with more players though, as I think it would provoke more discussion and debate, which can only enhance the game.