The Neutronium Alchemist [Paperback]

The 'reality dysfunction' has escaped from Lalonde, overrunning several other Confederation worlds and asteroid settlements, subverting people to its will. On the Kulu Kingdom principality world of Ombey, Ralph Hiltch, a veteran of Lalonde, organises a desperate battle against the enemy. Pastoral Norfolk is easy pickings for the menace, but, with help from an unexpected ally, Louise Kavanagh manages to stay one step ahead of it. Ultra-advanced New California comes under siege, whilst the decadent Valisk habitat becomes a raging battleground between the subverted and the habitat's insane controlling personality.

As the Confederation goes to a war footing and unleashes its resources against the new threat, another problem arises. Dr. Alkad Mzu has escaped from Tranquillity and is now on the run, seeking to complete a thirty-year vendetta to annihilate an entire star system. Joshua Calvert reluctantly agrees to pursue her, although half the intelligence agencies in the Confederation are also on the case. Meanwhile, Syrinx recovers from her own considerable physical wounds but finds her mental recovery to be much harder. At the urging of the Edenist government, she travels to the Kiint homeworld to find out how they defeated their own brush with the dysfunction thousands of years ago...

The second volume of The Night's Dawn Trilogy is the direct continuation of The Reality Dysfunction, pretty much picking up the story immediately. The book has a slightly different focus - Lalonde has been left behind and a couple of superfluous characters like Kelven Solanki have been rather abruptly jettisoned from the story - but it's generally a continuation of the same writing style as the first book. Simply put, if you liked the first book, you'll like this one too.

It improves on the first book in a few key areas as well. Hamilton reigns in the info-dumping, apparently partially a conscious choice and partially because after the first book set up the Confederation setting so well it's no longer necessary. In addition, the slow start to Book 1 is missing. Book 2 hits the ground running and, if anything, the pace increases and the tension ramps up throughout this immensely thick volume (it's actually several dozen pages longer than the first book). The sex scenes, which I know put some people off the first volume, have been radically reduced in quantity as well. After all, with the extinction of the human race looming and the Galaxy at war, getting laid is not the highest priority any more ;-)

Unfortunately, the book does have a couple of niggling issues which detract from it. Hamilton develops this very peculiar obsession in the second volume of his broad-canvas space operas to have an extremely tedious car chase taking up a chunk of the book. It's not as bad as Judas Unchained (where such a chase takes up about half the book, intercut with other stories), but The Neutronium Alchemist does feature such a sequence which takes up several dozen pages. In addition, the Valisk storyline is simply not as compelling as many of the other plots in the trilogy, and the pages devoted to it do feel like they could have been better spent on events elsewhere. Once you've completed the trilogy and realise how little this plot thread adds to the overall story of all three books, it's inclusion feels even more pointless, despite some good lines from Rubra.

Readers' reactions also vary immensely to what happens on New California. I thoroughly enjoyed it and felt it was a logical extension of the premise, and if you can swallow the premise of the reality dysfunction itself than what happens next shouldn't pose any problems. But I do know people who thought it a step too far and stopped reading. A shame, because it actually works very well, and sets up the absolutely brilliant ending.

The Neutronium Alchemist (****) is a very fine continuation of the story begun in The Reality Dysfunction. The story is meaty enough to support its immense length, and Hamilton's prose skills have improved somewhat from the first book. That said, the absence of some characters from the first volume and the amount of time spent on less-compelling plot-threads does leave it as a slightly less-accomplished novel. Still, as readable, epic space operas go, this is one of the very best out there, and it ends on an absolutely killer cliffhanger which at the time of publication was jaw-dropping (although now you can just go out and buy the third book straight away). The book is available now in the UK and, at long last, in one volume in the USA.

If you're reading this review, then you've probably read The Reality Dysfunction. If not, you need to do so. This is book two of a three book series and cannot be read as a stand alone novel. The three books are really three volumes of the same story (Night's Dawn), a 3,500 page behemoth to be sure.

I found The Reality Dysfunction to be an outstanding work of science fiction, striking a perfect balance between complicated "hard" science fiction concepts and captivating story lines. The numerous threads made it something of a challenge to keep abreast of the action, but I was able to do so by reading it through without pause (over the course of 2-3 weeks).

I rated this volume slightly below the original for the simple fact that my least favorite story thread (the Norfolk heiresses) plays a significantly more prominent role in this book. As with most "book twos" of multi-volume works, this tome advances the story line of the original book without achieving much resolution, but it certainly does so in an entertaining and captivating manner.

Certainly, any story in which "the dead" return would be missing a potentially captivating angle if certain famous historical personages were not represented. In an angle reminiscent of Philip Jose Farmer's classic Riverworld series, such is the case here, though on a very limited, though nonetheless effective basis.

I must confess that near the end of this second volume, I found it more difficult to keep track of the numerous threads and peripheral characters within each thread. Again, you cannot hope to stay on top of this story unless you dedicate time to it on a daily basis. I'm certainly hoping that the final volume begins to merge some of the threads as the overall story comes to its final conclusion.

Hamilton's Night's Dawn books immediately set themselves apart on any bookshelf. How, you ask? Simple. It's by being twice the size of anything else on the shelf. That size is what dictates pretty much element of the trilogy, from plot, to characters, to structure, to the writing itself. These books are not gigantic by accident. Rather, their space is used deliberately to create an effect that would be impossible in a more focused volume. In an article on the writing of The Night's Dawn trilogy, Hamilton says:

"The example I always give is The Battle Of Britain. A conflict which saw the warrior heroes of both countries battling it out for supremacy in the most sophisticated technology of the era. Theirs is a fantastic story, full of heroism and struggle and sacrifice. All very well, but there were hundreds of thousands of people who lived underneath the dogfights in the sky, whose lives were going to undergo monumental change because of the conflict (whoever won). Ultimately what happens to them i.e. society as a whole, is more interesting."

Nominally, the Night's Dawn trilogy is about a mysterious disaster originating on Lalaonde and threatening the entire Confederation. In reality, though, Hamilton's goal is to create a believable society and then show every effect of that disaster, both physical and moral, on his creation. As a result, this is a very decentralized story, where the number of point of views spreads throughout the entire Confederation, staying just half a step ahead of the waves of change and destruction. The best way to understand these books is to imagine a massive glass creation, gigantic but every inch carefully devised and filled with details, and then to imagine the inexorable destruction of the sculpture, inch by inch, the cracks spreading so slowly as to be visual but so quickly as to be unstoppable. It's an effect that would only be meaningful if the reader first understands every intricacy of Hamilton's creation, and so Hamilton shows us exactly that.

Imagine, for a second, that there are three layers to every story. The first layer is the present time, the plot, if you will. Just about every author will explicitly show this, because it is, presumably, why we've come. The second layer is the backstory, how the characters got where they are, who the characters are, etc. This is generally implied, though the degree to which it is shown depends on the author. Finally, we've got the layer behind even the backstory, what's simply the background. This is stuff like the minutia of the justice system, or how planet X was settled, why coalition Y makes this product, etc. it's the kind of thing that's important for an author know, but it's rare for the readers to ever learn - or care - about much of it.

Hamilton doesn't follow that template. Instead, he shows you the first and second layers in their entirety. We are not dropped into a fully functional colony on Lalonde. Instead, we build the colony with our own two hands and watch every single event that occurs upon its path. The third layer, too, makes its way into the books, primarily the first, in the form of expository infodumps. These can get a tad excessive at times, but are usually interesting enough to make up for that.

[From a reporter on Lalonde, towards the two-thirds mark of The Reality Dysfunction]
"'I have followed the arch-diabolist here from the city. And nothing I have seen has given me the slightest hope for the future. His interest in the spaceport can only indicate he is ready to move on. His work on Lalonde is complete. Violence and anarchy reign beyond the city. What monstrous curse he has let loose is beyond my imagination; but each day brings darker stories down the river, sucking away the citizen's hope. Fear is his real weapon, and he possesses it in abundance.
...
"The alliance has been formed. His plan advances another notch. And I cannot believe it will bring anything other than disaster upon us. Four decades has not reduced the fear. What has he achieved in those four decades? I ask myself this question time and again. The only answer must be: evil. He has perfected evil.'"

The trilogy opens with The Reality Dysfunction. This volume bears the brunt of the exposition that's so central to the tale, and, as a result, the beginning is very hard to get into. Right off the bat, we're introduced to three point of views, and we alternate between them for the first third or so of the novel. At first, this structure is a bit self defeating. None of the three plot lines are boring, but none of them are right off the bat spellbinding, either, and the vast number of intervening pages (Hamilton writes huge chapters) between one appearance and the next seem geared to kill all momentum.

The interesting thing about these early threads is that they're as close to slice of life as you can get in a space opera. That's not to imply that they're pedestrian or mundane, but rather to say that, no matter how interesting the events that take place are, they're generally par for the course for the world. The result of this is that, when things finally do go out of hand, the reader can feel how wrong it is without being told. Joshua's attempts to circumvent standard business practices and make huge amounts of cash, but, crucially, still playing within the system (just in a new and inventive way), serve to indoctrinate us into Hamilton's Confederation. By the time the ground rules start to change, we're at least as capable of pointing out the changes as any of Hamilton's characters, having received lessons in every aspect of the worldbuilding from Joshua, Syrinx, and the various Lalonde pilgrims.

Hamilton's characterization is always adequate, but only occasionally notable. In a cast of this size, it's absolutely vital for each character to be distinctive enough for the reader to be able to recognize them when they pop up, and know who they are, and at this Hamilton has no problems. With main characters, appearing again and again over a span of pages this massive, however, the reader expects to see some growth. In this regard, Joshua is by far the best character of the series. Though his is not the kind of evolution you're going to be analyzing in essays, his arc is believable and consistent throughout. Syrinx, too, is passable, though - and especially in this novel - she can occasionally be too idealistic at times.

Oddly enough, though, it's when discussing groups that Hamilton's skills with people come to the fore. Though there were few individual characters in the trilogy that I would've been devastated to lose, there were several locations that I developed a strong bond with. In this, I think it's Hamilton's sense of scale, and ability to convincing juggle night on countless viewpoints, that carries the day. Though there's no one colonist on Lalonde that you particularly care about, the colony itself feels like something you built with your own sweat and blood, a place where you are on congenial terms with all of your neighbors and nod happily to everyone, and the threat of its destruction evokes an emotional response that's far greater than the collective death of its citizens can account for. Easily eclipsing Lalonde in this regard, Tranquility, especially in the later books, becomes a symbol of hope, a message that the spreading disaster makes a happy life difficult but by no means impossible, and that message effects the reader to the same degree that it effects the characters.

Something that has to be mentioned when discussing The Reality Dysfunction, especially Joshua's storyline, is the sheer amount of sex in it. Now, I'm not arguing that something like this can never be appropriate, but Hamilton exceeds any sane measure of excess. Any meaningful relationship is all but drowned out in a sea of orgasmic white noise. Furthermore, the sex scenes never come across to the reader as anything but a chore to get through. The characters, in their absurd over-enjoyment of every act, create an impenetrable barrier of quadruple orgasms that the reader has no hope of penetrating, in the manner of an actor overacting to a degree that we just see the performance, not the material, leaving us feeling more like an uncomfortable voyeur than a participator. Thankfully, Hamilton seems to have been aware of the problem, because the number of sex scenes drops off faster than you would believe in book two.

The sex isn't the only unpolished aspect of book one. Though Hamilton's writing throughout the series is never exemplary, it's never trying to be. It gets the job done fine, paints a clear picture, and brings you to a swift understanding of the incredibly complex world that Hamilton's created. In the first book, however, comma splices appear in what feels like every other sentence. Let's turn to a random page, 126. Most of the way down, we get: "The food they had been served was strange, the aboriginal fruit was all odd shapes with a mildly spicy flavoring but at least there wasn't any vat meat like they had at the arcology." Now, I'll admit it's an incredibly small complaint in the grand scheme of things, but the mistake's endless appearances become more than a tad annoying as the book goes on.

As I've said, The Reality Dysfunction's pacing is iffy at best for the first third of the book. At that point, however, Hamilton kicks things into high gear. Things begin to come together, both large and small, and various plot threads slowly begin to coalesce, while Hamilton throws more and more into the already overflowing pot. The book becomes something akin to a runaway truck. At some point, any sane person would think, something has to give. But it doesn't. Impossibly, the pace picks up and up until it's hard to stop reading for long enough to turn the page, until the urgency is almost painful.

That's not to say that the book becomes mindless action, however. Far from it. Though Hamilton is excellent at military skirmishes and combat in general, it is the weight of the world building and the density of the atmosphere that makes the book so incredible. The disaster on Lalonde isn't revealed in one go, nothing even remotely like that, and the initial encounters are absolutely terrifying in a way that even dedicated horror fiction seldom manages.

This works precisely because of the lengthy build up. That sense of wonder that we all love so much is actually layered. There is the initial shock of immersing oneself in another world, but by the time you get up to the actual disaster, you're thinking like an inhabitant. That, however, is just in time to be absolutely blindsided, alongside every character, by what's suddenly emerging. The double effect is, needless to say, incredibly powerful.

[The exact nature of the disaster, revealed partway through the Reality Dysfunction, is a key component of the series. Since I don't wish to spoil it for anyone, but cannot proceed without revealing it, be warned that the rest of this review has SPOILERS for book one. Then again, most reviews I've read spoil it anyway, so...]

The central conceit of the Night's Dawn Trilogy is the dead returning as possessors. It would have been incredibly easy for the idea of possession to devolve into silliness, especially once famous people begin to start popping up, but, barring a few mishaps, Hamilton treats his ideas seriously enough to not rob them of their power. Crucial to this is his decision to not rob them of their humanity:

"'Do you think [Hitler] changed after he died, Mr. Halahan? Do you think he lost his conviction or his righteousness? Do you think death causes you to look back on life and make you realize what an ass you've been? Oh no, not that, Mr. Halahan. You're too buys screaming, you're too buys cursing, you're too busy coveting your neighbor's memory for the bitter dregs of taste and colour it gives you. Death does not bestow window, Mr. Halahan. It does not make you humble before the Lord. More's the pity.'"

As the series progresses, and as more and more possessed get their own viewpoints, the conflict turns from one of horror to one of military action and moral consequences. Hamilton brings back Al Capone to lead the possessed Organization, and his conflicts - both with other possessed and with the government at large - are well done and gripping, featuring several very clever ideas.

The main theme of the series is that, helpful as it is, technology doesn't hold all the answers. As a result, the people of Hamilton's future are very much the people of our present. There is no easy solution here, whether it is to be found by magic or brute force. In order to progress, society is going to actually have to face - and fix - its problems. The implementation of these themes is somewhat mixed. Hamilton has no problem with weaving these ideas into the story. The ground war begun in book three, for instance, does an excellent job of showing the impossibility of any kind of military solution.

What isn't so interwoven is the Neutronium Alchemist sub plot. Now, by itself, this would be okay. Even effective. What isn't so okay is that this sub plot takes up an incredible amount of space. Someone would be forgiven for thinking that something that comes up in the second chapter and easily has several hundred pages (a decent novel's space, mind you) devoted to it would turn out to matter for more than reproving an already understood point.

Equally disparate from the rest of the narrative, but far more effective, are the sub plots - beginning in The Neutronium Alchemist but coming into their fore in the final volume - that show the possessed's attempts at creating a utopian society. As it turns out, magic's no more helpful than nanotechnology when it comes to correcting basic human flaws, and the possessed, who are, first and foremost, people, and their attempts to deal with reality once again formed some of my favorite parts of the whole trilogy.

Despite all these issues, The Neutronium Alchemist is the best paced book in the trilogy. Though the number of threads is even larger than in The Reality Dysfunction, Hamilton focuses on one thread at a time - though not to the total exclusion of the others - until it reaches a climax of sorts. As a result, though there is a truly incredible amount of ground covered in this volume, it never feels scattershot, and we're able to get closely involved in each struggle as it comes up.

The Naked God, by contrast, returns to an exacerbated version of the flaws that were so prevalent in the first book's structure. Once again, we're seeing events through several hard to connect plot threads, and since the number only swells as the series progressed, the amount of different side stories is truly unwieldy by this point.

That's not to imply that the book doesn't work, however. The various sub plots are some of the strongest of the series, even if they rarely gel all that well (and occasionally get lost in the shuffle).The most out there plot is definitely the battle for Earth's arcologies. The concept is interesting, and the deliberations and actions of B-7 formed some of my favorite parts of the series, but none of the events here felt like part of the main story. Part of the problem is Louise, because the pacing grinds to a dead stop every time she walked on stage. Worse, however, is Quinn, who is the only character that manages to get shallower with each book that passes and is, by this point, a painful caricature of his early self. Which, mind you, wasn't exactly a paragon of in-depth characterization.

After over a million words, you're expecting some serious payoff. Something that will BLOW YOUR MIND as far as endings go. For books one and two, after all, Hamilton certainly showed himself to be no slouch with endings. The Reality Dysfunction ends with a huge battle, some character development, and a relatively decent amount of closure (or, at least, a you-can-take-a-breather-here moment). The Neutronium Alchemist does nothing of the sort, ending on a cliffhanger, but it's a well done cliffhanger that I can't really blame him for, despite how much I may have ranted about it in the past.

The ending of The Naked God, however, is absolutely unforgivable. Now, Wert's argued ad nauseam about why it's not a deus ex machina, and I'll give it to him. That doesn't mean it isn't one of the most anticlimactic endings I've ever read, however. Imagine, for a second, that Robert Jordan went so far as to have titled the final book in The Wheel of Time: The Dark One Kills Himself. Would that have made his purposeless suicide any more entertaining to read about? If not, you're probably going to hate this ending. Essentially, had all but one character in The Naked God sat around twiddling their thumbs, humanity would've still come out just fine.

The Night's Dawn trilogy has quite a few problems, not the least of which is the sheer number of sub plots, many of which are either extraneous or just plain not as good, that clog it up. None of that changes what it is at its core, however, and that is one of the most explosive and wide screen science fiction stories ever conceived of. Hamilton's creation is both majestic and impossible to put down. If you're a fan of the genre, you need to pick this up without question.

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