This book followed the traditional pattern I have found in this author- detailed astrophysics, well elaborated and constructed worlds, highly integrate characters and sophisticated plots that run concurrently, along with parts that slog down to a near grinding halt.There are times this author keeps me fascinated. The plot moves quickly, events shock me, and I am riveted. Then I reach parts where everything crawls to a halt. The details in his world building are enormous. So enormous, in fact, my...

A decent story muddled with far too much technobabble. The story drives itself along well but it seems like once one of the subplots gets intense or interesting it will take a long vacation while the book switches to a subplot. This leads to a constant ramp up then slow release of tension and it gets kind of frustrating. Most of the characters stay very flat and undynamic until they suddenly snap into a new role without much reason to do so. The "twists" if you can call them that are also way to...

1087 pages !! - UK arc editionOnly a few points for now with a more detailed review later:I finished Great North Road by Peter Hamilton and on the whole I am a little mixed; addictive but very self-indulgent, a new universe and a somewhat fresh take on the author's usual themes (long life, the rich, sense of wonder, detailed world building, alien aliens...) but also a lot of repetitions...This is truly a book that should have been slimmed down considerably and could have easily done with much le...

Peter F Hamilton’s books have a tendency to be long but that’s because he paints a broad but detailed picture of his characters and the surroundings they find themselves in. The pictures are sharp and the characters compelling and relatable which makes all his books a pleasure to read and enjoy.In his latest offering we find the North family which through cloning themselves have managed to put themselves in a position of immense wealth and subsequently power. The only drawback to the cloning is

Purely by coincidence I found some reviews for this book here on Goodreads. This is 'my kind of book' exactly. It doesn't give great insights, it is not a literary masterpiece, but it is a delightful SF adventure combined with a police procedural. I happen to like both genres a lot. It took me a while to finish it because I've been very busy, but I'm glad I bought the book.

It only took a little more than 9 months to read. And I teared up in the end. Good book.

Things I learnt from this book:1. Rich sociopaths are awesome and we should let them do what they want because they are much better at governance and science than faceless bureaucrats.2. Long expeditions into boring jungle are boring.3. 1000 pages requires more than two major plots and one minor.4. Approximately 600 pages of this book could have been removed without affecting the plot.5. There's no happy ending too pat that can't be used in a welded on ending.

Peter F. Hamilton writes large. He writes 1000 page behemoths of narrative. And he writes with ideas that are space and time spanning, far beyond the usual windows of ordinary lives. And his words are imbued with the power of ideas and concepts far above today's water cooler subjects. Yet, despite the immense dimensions of his imagination, he keeps it all within reach, grounded on human sensibilities, maintaining a keen sense of the grand human drama. So in this decidedly large book, Hamilton mi...

I'm afraid that this huge doorstopper of a novel is going to be one of those love-hate jobs. I now only love it after having finished it, but I felt my stamina drain and drain and drain through long long passages of mind-numbing boredom and a litany running through my head went, "Where is the editor? Why can't these last 150 pages be safely omitted without losing any story whatsoever?"*sigh* It's rather the same problem I had with The Reality Dysfunction, although, to be very fair, I think this

Screw Americans.12/30/12 - Come on B&N, I know you have the book in the back. Just give it to me. And I know you have it too Audible. I can see it on your site when I'm not signed in.pg 26/948 (32h) - All the high quality tech, thought out world, and characters are there, plus it's a bit more timely. I hope I can finish it. There's quite a map, Time Line, and character list in the front of the book.Here's the first page of the Time Line:https://pbs.twimg.com/media/A_di5T_CY...pg 70/948 - I'm a s...

Peter F. Hamilton irritates me and annoys me in many ways, but he has some damn good ideas and puts together some mighty fine stories.The Good: Great SF ideas, great SF settings, and characters I grow to love.The Bad: Way too long, and some really unnecessary explicit sex scenes.The Ugly: As in his other books, the women are always really hot, look 17 even when they're not, and are very horny. I don't think a fat, middle-aged woman has ever made an appearance in any Hamilton book I've read. With...

If you’ve not read one of my reviews before: “Hello, lovely to meet you. My name is Chris, but I’m here on Goodreads under the ‘handle’ of Clouds because I thought it was a rather nifty moniker – one which captures neatly what stories are to me: subjective shapes seen in the random patterns of clouds, snatched down and bound with words to share with friends over a good cuppa.Some of my reviews are firmly on-topic, but others tend to waffle and wander. I’m a firm believer that a readers opinion...

Peter F. Hamilton is considered to be the best currently active British science fiction writer. After reading this book I agree - with some reservations. He is also considered to be the best space opera writer in English-speaking world. After reading this book I agree - this time without any reservations. He is also a guy who cannot write anything shorter than 1000 pages even if his life depends on it. Think Stephen King of science fiction. Unlike King he wrote big from the beginning of his car...

That. Was brilliant. It took me three weeks to read this nearly 1000 page monster of a book. Normally that would seem like a long time on one book, but not here. A busy schedule kept me from devoting large chunks of time to it, but that was okay. I was able to savor it. I'd never read Hamilton before, and now I'm a fan. It's rare for a book this size to churn along without boring parts, but this had very few of those. Part mystery, action-adventure, police procedural, epic scale space opera, and...

I like my scifi optimistic not dystopic and Hamilton's work always fits the bill. This isn't one of his absolute bests in my opinion: the setting is too close to today for my taste, and the tech a little too similar to the Commonwealth Universe but without the flair of Ozzie and Nigel. Having said that it is still an excellent read and I enjoyed the detective story wrapping the more traditional sci-fi elements, but then I never object to having too many pages in a novel ( I wouldn't recommend th...

I'm not sure why I keep reading Hamilton's books. There's a nugget of excitement lurking in them, but in this case it's pretty hard to find.The book could have easily been cut down to half its size without loss. Like many of his books, it's full of pointless detail. He seems to have an interest in buying property and property development, which we are treated to the details of. We also get endless descriptions of some crazy arcane police procedure. It is only near the end of the book where there...

Proof that even when Hamilton is bad, he's still very good.First things first, let me get this off my chest: Long. Loooonnnnggg. Too long. Far, far too long. There's not enough story here for the book to be this long and large swathes of the book could and should have been trimmed in any sensible editing process. I'm guessing that by this stage of his career, the author and his publisher consider page count to be a selling point with Hamilton's audience, so that there's little appeal in doing th...

imagine a 13-year-old boy genius. he loves science fiction, he loves world-building, he loves physics and biology and all the sciences. he also loves his family and he definitely loves girls. he loves binge-watching exciting tv shows. he's open-minded and appreciates diversity. overall this is a great kid and I'd be happy to know him. now imagine if this boy genius were to write a book. what would it be full of?it would be full of GEE WHIZ EXCITEMENT of course! and spaceships! and alien threats!...

4.5 StarsI am giving this truly massive read nearly perfect marks as I had so much fun reading this book for such a very long time. Like all Peter Hamilton books he writes, writes some more, and just for good measure, he writes even more. I have come to expect that from him. I appreciate his skill at maintaining such large stories. I even don’t really want his books to end. Could they benefit from editing? I am sure that they would. Would he have a larger audience if his books weren’t so intimid...

This was fun! I think I like this Hamilton book better than Pandora's Star/ Judas Unchained mainly because of a more reasonable length (treating the two other books as one) and also the amount of characters that got introduced during the whole book was far more manageable and attaching than in the other. A great murder-mystery meets science fiction with its best: smart cells, cloning and rejuvenation...just what I like. It's complex and the characters are interesting. The only thing that makes m...