The story takes place 1.000 years after the Commonwealth saga. We see a few new faces, but also characters from the first two books. The same things I loved about the first series by Peter F. Hamilton continues in this series. A super detailed and rich world, even though it's the same universe a lot has changed in 1k years. The plot builds up slowly, but I think you can expect this from Hamilton novels and I guess the whole scope of the story is much bigger than started in the first volume. So I...

First things first: Don’t start your galactic journey here! Even if “The Dreaming Void” is listed as the first of the trilogy, it makes heavy use of the worldbuilding, storyline and characters from the Commonwealth Saga – events that precede the current timeline by about 1200 years. I should have read “Pandora’s Star” first. It took me about half of this doorstopper to get a clear picture of the various human factions and there are new characters introduced in the last quarter of the novel whose...

Executive Summary: A decent story in Mr. Hamilton's Commonwealth universe, but not as satisfying as the original Duology.Audio book: I really enjoy John Lee's reading voice. It seems to fit well with the universe. He doesn't really stick out to me as someone who does a lot of voices and accents for the characters, but at the same time I wouldn't want anyone else to read this series. Full Review I really enjoyed Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained when I listened to them last year. I was happy t...

A massive space opera, with a galaxy full of alien species, FTL drives, stealth space ships, a big mystery at the center of the galaxy (the Void), and more PoVs than you can shake a stick at.So. A nice space adventure in the truly operatic tradition. Sadly, it didn’t quite scratch my style itch.The prose style is very straightforward. There’s a fair amount of description, but for the most part, the writing exists simply to ferry us along from place to place, conversation to conversation. There’s...

The last time I read a book by Peter F. Hamilton was around mid-April 2014, as I write it is the 2nd of April 2015, almost a year in between. The book was The Naked God, 1268 pages of eye watering mayhem. What that useless factoid means is that his books are so damn long that after I finish a series by him I tend to feel the need to take a year’s break. What it also indicates is that after a while I always come back for more of his long winded adventures. Having said that The Dreaming Void is a...

Brilliant as the others. And because the events are taking place more than one thousand years after the ones in Pandora's star, it will be hard to understand the complexity of this universe if you skip the first series. So, if you plan to read it, read Commonwealth Saga first.

I've come to the conclusion that Peter F. Hamilton is an acquired taste. Maybe it just requires patience and getting used to his often HUGE PAGE COUNTS. Most of it is devoted to establishing his characters and their backstories, so it's not a huge complaint. Where he shines is his vast SF worldbuilding which takes on a very complex and rich character rarely seen in ANY series. We're dealing with 20 or 30 thousand pages of the same universe across vast distances, worlds, and timeframes. And not o...

This book bombs the Bechdel test. Those of you who just rolled your eyes are dismissed. For the rest of you, I'd like you to get your heads around the fact that this novel is over 600 pages long. It's an effing slog. In it at no time do two female characters discuss anything other than the men they've screwed and the ones they want to screw. There aren't more than a handful of conversations involving two women. Most of the female presence in this story is of the 'visual aid' variety. Big bosoms

First off, let me say I really like Hamilton's work and I have read most of it that was published before this. Because of how much I enjoy him, that made my disappointment with this novel more poignant. I know his latest trilogy explores a new milieu and for reason I am looking forward to it as TDV felt like a rehash of the Commonwealth Saga, albeit 1000 years later, but lacking the freshness of it.Hamilton's trilogies are famous for being door stops and sprawling and this is no exception. I los...

4.5 ⭐️‘s rounded up. The Dreaming Void is the first of what seems to be a promising trilogy. It’s part of a longer series of books dealing with The Commonwealth. Although I should have read the earlier ones in the series ahead of time - I had become impatient with my library ignoring my *recommend* request 😀 - a little research showed I would be ok not reading them in order and I was able to follow along with the story in this pretty well. There were references to things like “The Starflyer War”...

Actually, I'm only WITHIN STRIKING DISTANCE of finishing this interesting book, which was a gift from one of my daughters more than a year ago. While worthy and as I said interesting in many ways, it was not for me a compelling read. Hamilton is gifted but seems to write without any discipline with regard to outlining his story arcs in advance of writing, or if he DOES so, it is not set out for the reader in any clearly discernible way.His gifts and strengths do lie in his imagination, and the s...

The Dreaming Void is the start of a new trilogy that takes place in the same universe as Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained, but thousands of years later. Like those books, it's a huge, epic space opera full of powerful aliens, amazing tech, and galaxy-threatening perils, and like those books, I found it packed with Big Ideas and should-have-been intriguing characters that never really thrilled me.Given my similarly lukewarm feelings about Iain Banks, Alastair Reynolds, and Charles Stross, I am

This book (and indeed, the entire series) is trite fluff, and it contains almost no interesting ideas that weren't directly borrowed from much better books. The author's prose is both verbose and insipid, though he does setup some amusing situations. The principal distinctive characteristic of the author for this series is his profound laziness with respect to his story development. Many pages are used to describe characters, who then act contrary to their development when convenient to advance

I must have been a teenager the last time I read proper science fiction (you know, the stuff with spaceships and shit). I have no idea what stopped me reading science fiction then (I remain to this day deeply in touch with my childhood Doctor Who fan) and no real clue why I got it into my head to start reading it now. All I know is that Peter Hamilton seems a big name in British science fiction these days and so I thought I’d give him a whirl.If I’m honest this isn’t the easiest book to write re...

1,5k millennia from now, in the year 3600, the most future set series takes place in a science fantasy mixture just as Hamiltons´milestone debut The Night´s Dawn trilogy. I deem this visions of future worlds not just entertaining and, depending on the author, very educating, but really important too, because these are real mirrors in a future we, probably let me once be optimistic please, won´t see anymore, but can help reducing or increasing the possibility of it being a dystopia or utopia. Tha...

The Dreaming Void: Good Start to a Follow-Up Trilogy in the Commonwealth UniverseMuch like the Commonwealth Saga, this is a very long, detailed, imaginative, and sprawling epic space opera that involves dozens of characters, plots, advanced technologies, alien races, ancient galactic mysteries, nefarious plots and counterplots, all told in an engaging narrative that doesn't get bogged down in exposition like a lot of other hard SF stories. It's far more entertaining than the more grim future vis...

This is the first novel of a trilogy by Peter Hamilton--it is science fiction, interspersed with "dreams" that are fantasy. The science fiction follows along similar lines to Hamilton's Commonwealth Saga; some of the same characters return, but they are a thousand years older! Neither the science fiction plot-lines nor the fantasy contained much in the way of interesting new ideas. And while I generally enjoy science fiction more than fantasy, here I enjoyed the fantasy episodes quite a bit more...

Too many characters, too many factions and factions within factions, mind boggling technology, and what else is one to expect from Peter F Hamilton. Well, maybe we should add in some very cool action sequences with bionic weaponry blasting everything to slag, some returning characters from the Commonwealth Saga like Paula Myo, Gore and Justine Buirnelli, Sheldon, Oscar Monroe - Yes, we are back in the same Universe some thousand years after the Starflyer war, and just when I thought I had a hand...

I'm so glad I stuck with Peter F. Hamilton. I think he's now one of my favorite SF authors. And, in this audiobook, John Lee has redeemed himself as a narrator. I was totally annoyed by his narration of Pandora's Star, but was totally engrossed in his narration of The Dreaming Void. In fact, I downloaded The Temporal Void from Audible while I was listening to the last half hour of this book.I'm not going to bother telling what this book was about because the synopsis sums it up pretty well. What...

I didn't think I would enjoy this book. It had 2 strikes going against it before I even read a single page. I came away from the Commonwealth Saga less than impressed. It was ok, it certainly wasn't bad or anything, but it wasn't my cup of green tea. It sounded great on paper, but I thought it was poorly executed at critical times and felt very bloated. Upon reading the description on the book jacket: "At the very heart of th galaxy is the Void, a self-contained microuniverse that cannot be brea...