Customer Reviews

The Naked God: Flight - Part 1

5 star:		(38)
4 star:		(31)
3 star:		(22)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

For hard core Sci-Fi, the "Night's Dawn" Trilogy has it ALL!!!He-Man heroes, classy heroines, nasty bad guys (not to Even forget THE DEAD RETURNING!!!) New Worlds and Old;Aliens, space battles, suspense, intergalactic conflict and politics; who could ask for MORE? Starships, living space habitats, Biotech, Neurotech, Cyborgs, Genetic Engineering; it's all here; just be prepared to read nothing else for the next couple of MONTHS, 'cause this one is IT!! I originally was hooked into this Epic in the Hardcover Sci-Fi Book Club Edition, buying "The Neutronium Alchemist" first (somehow, I missed "The Reality Disfunction" when first offered; then had to wait another two weeks for that delivery rather than read the story out of sequence. THEN was forced to go through several cowhides, chewing leather and making a complete nuisance of myself until "The Naked God" was finally published and released in Nov. '99. BOTTOM LINE: If you're going to dive into this Epic, Buy the complete Trilogy as a complete set and be prepared to be enthralled by a whole new universe of the caliber of Heinlein, Asimov, or Clarke (and to stay for awhile!!!)

In case you don't already know, this is book five (or if you want to be technical, the first half of Book 3) in what is now published as a six book series.

In the Naked God you can see the need for splitting it into two books. It really is a monster. But not a bad monster, a great one, a really juicy piece of reading.

If you haven't read the earlier books, the rest of this review will make no sense. But I wholeheartedly recommend this series to any fan of hard sci-fi or of space opera. Even fantasy readers are delighted by the broad canvas and the exploration of the lines between life and afterlife, finity and eternity.

If you have been following the story so far, this volume concentrates on five main story threads.

Dexter Quinn is travelling, in Odysseus-like fashion, to a reunion with the Enigmatic Banneth on Earth. Along the way he is trailed by the strange and powerful force that obstructed him on Norfolk. Is this a manifestation of Laton? Or is there some other answer?

Following the same route, but on a voyage of personal growth and discovery is Louise Kavanagh, who is trying to fulfill a promise to warn Banneth and thwart the evil plans of Quinn. Through her travels we learn the details of earth and near-earth society, and the machinations of the Archology Dictators who control all that happens on the future Earth.

Across the Universe we continue to follow the adventures of the Sinbad/Lancelot like Joshua Calvert in his quest for the Holy Grail that is the Tyrathca Sleeping God, and in the process we learn some home truths about the Tyrathca and Kiint races.

Outside of our continuum we follow events on the Valisk habitat and on Norfolk, where things are not going how the possessed thought they would.

Finally, we continue to follow the fortunes of the possessed within our universe on Mortonridge and on New California. In this book we follow the fortunes of the military campaign on Mortonridge lead by Ralph Hiltch.

Add in the storylines about Kiera and her Hellhawks, Al and Jezibella, the real Kiint Homeworlds and their human spies, disappearing habitats, hellish energy draining monsters and you begin to touch the complexity that is the universe created by Hamilton.

The finale of this space opera reminds me of the cartoon where one scientist shows another a diagram of some horrendously technial process. The last box on the diagram has the label "A miracle happens here." The second scientist says, "I think we need to get a little more specific."

Resolving humanity's situation with the possessed by resorting to a magical technology takes care of the immediate crisis without solving the underlying problem of people's fear of death. By contrast, when the older, more advanced Kiint faced the problem of the possessed, they resolved it in a way that enlightened the entire species.

Without reducing humanity's fear of death, their possession problem will likely occur again. This is a very unsatisfying resolution to an otherwise awesome series.

When I read the other books in this series I thought that Peter Hamilton could go no further. This book proved me wrong. Despite parts that are a bit too trite for the overall theme (Al Capone? Give me a break) this book was fanntastic. All the way through I was thinking, 'there is no way that this can be ended satisfactorily'. With a hundred pages to go and still six or seven highly disparate story threads going on I was completely expecting a massive let down. This did not come. This book wraps up the entire trilogy brilliantly and I can only say, read it and see.

I loved his writing up until the end here. Of course if you have read the other books in the series there is no need not to finish the epic. I would read the whole series also knowing the ending would be anti-climatic. Some of the long plots end very well, not justice for all of the characters, but most of their ending plot is not to bad. Much of it however just does not follow the other books in just intense reading, there were a few times I just skipped pages to get through the insanely mundane parts of the book. Up and down like a roller coaster. And some rather surprising moments that left me wondering what "What the hell does that have to do with it?" New characters that just make no sense what so ever to an already long read, and seem there just to fill up some more pages. The end, the very end the part that was suppose to blow us away, well it just did not happen, left me rather confused and sad that it ended so silly. All the complications and search for knowledge ends in 1 page of explanation...

He could have done better from what I seen of his older books, this one just seemed to be rushed to get it finished.

Never mind complaints of the ending by others, I liked it. I guess one way to think about it that Joshua's choices wouldn't necessarily have been the same as mine. But really, I think most readers just didn't want it to end (as mentioned by someone else). The typos and errors were terrible and only challenged by Dune's House Harkonnen (a 5th of TNG's size and as many errors). The storyline was absolutely amazing and the narrative tight for the most part. The characters, the alien species, the universe were done beautifully. I hope that there are more stories to come out of this universe in the future. A solid finish and recommended read.

Go Hamilton, you good thing go!
(If you're reading this can you bring back Ione in another book? She is such a babe ;)

This is the first trilogy of over 3000 pages I've ever read, and yet I must say that at the end I'm more than satisfied!
A truly great read overall, I bought the first book second hand, and was so captivated that I bought the next two,
new in paperback, so I wouldn't have to stop.

That says a great deal on it's own, who could possibly run out of time with over 2000 pages to go!?

Sure, there are some slow sections, and occasionally the in-depth descriptions of trolling around in "mud and slop"
on a couple of planets wears a little thin, (Sci-Fi??..find out! ;-) but that is a minor critisism really.

The "Nights Dawn Trilogy" would have to be one of the greatest feats of imagination in a detailed, believable universe,
I've ever come across. Full of characters you can truly love, hate, laugh at or sneer at, and identify with as well.
All combined with huge and slightly bent scientific and philosophical concepts,
and lets not forget some fantastic weapons!!

I admit, now that it's over I miss that Universe already, and I already have "Second Chance at Eden" so I can return,
if only for a brief moment.

Truly unforgettable, a huge feast for the imagination and for the enjoyment of any Science Fiction fanatic.

Peter Hamilton is wordy. No one questions that. And his 'Reality Dysfunction' series is extremely long, very detailed, and populated with more characters than other series ever even attempt. As an overall story, it's a great series, telling a very compelling saga of mankind's confrontation of the afterlife, and the actions they take to understand and survive the encounter. As part of the overall story, this book is very important. However, as in most things, this book could have been significantly shorter. I found myself reading this book and enjoying the story, but thinking at the same time how much of it could have been deleted without damaging the story. It just seemed like Mr. Hamilton was so interested in this universe that he's created that he wants to take as much time as he can, and explore every nook and cranny of it before he moves for the finale.

Don't get me wrong. It takes a lot for a book (especially a series of this length) to maintain my interest, and this one did. However, it's obvious in parts that the story is being dragged out longer than necessary. The scenes are interesting, the dialog compelling, but it could have certainly done with a bit of trimming.

Volume 5 of a six volume series. See series review on the Reality Dysfunction: Emergence page.

In finishing "Flight," the first part of "The Naked God," Peter Hamilton has given himself a huge challenge: completing the Night's Dawn series in a manner that reconciles his far-flung sub-plots, makes sense of the somewhat incomprehensible "reality dysfunction" his heroes are trying to divert--and doing so without the condescension he's proven remarkably good at avoiding so far. Arguably the most entertaining installment yet, "Flight" introduces the enigma posed by the alien Kiint and Tyrathca races, whose wanderings through the galaxy may hold the clue to humanity's survival. Al Capone's interstellar mafia features big in "Flight" (a little too big, in this reviewer's opinion), and the quest of satanist bad-guy Quinn Dexter finally comes into its own, plot-wise. Ironically, Dexter's character is one of the weaker links in Hamilton's epic. For a transdimensional messiah bent on destroying the universe, Dexter comes across as little more than a screwed-up teenager who's listened to too much Marilyn Manson. Shortcomings are possibly inevitable for a work of this length (and yes, it's possibly a little too long, although I won't complain). But for every failing, Hamilton is able to dish up some hugely entertaining (and often thought-provoking) scenarios. The storming of the derelict Tyrathca arkship in the book's later chapters is especially well-crafted, as are Louise and Genevieve's exploits on an environmentally devastated future Earth. Consistently impressive in scope and plot, "Flight" is a good read that promises big rewards.