Subject: Re: Morrison watch in effect
From: "Steve Brooks"
Newsgroups: alt.tv.farscape
>> [1] A Quantum Murder by Peter F Hamilton. The least good of the Greg
>> Mandel books IMO - But still pretty entertaining.
>
> Haven't come across any of those - should I add him to my "new
> authors to try someday" list? Is there a particular title you'd
> recommend as the first to read?
I'm not sure really. It depends what you like. With Hamilton you're probably
better to start at the beginning since his ideas have grown over the years.
There's a bibliography at
http://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/~susan/sf/books/h/hamilton.htm
I've read the Greg Mandel books, the Night's Dawn books and 'Fallen Dragon'.
And I do like them. But -
They are - IMO - a bit mannish. The technical ideas are excellent and
intriguing. The plots are mostly good. The Greg Mandel books are excellent
SF thrillers. Night's Dawn is rather more ambitious and works more often
than it doesn't. The prose is above average - but not by a huge amount. The
characterisation is less impressive. A lot of the time I don't really
believe in his characters. And I certainly don't like most of them.
But he is definitely growing as an author. Give him another decade and he
might just do something exceptional.