Night’s Dawn Trilogy
I’ve just finished slogging through Peter F. Hamilton’s Night’s Dawn Trilogy. It’s an epic space opera set hundreds of years in the future with an incredible number of plot threads to follow. Like the pair of novels Pandora’s Star and Judas Unchained which I read earlier (oddly enough, these were written later), I enjoyed the trilogy tremendously. Anyone who prefers light reading will be utterly confused soon enough with all the details that need to be kept track of, however.
At the beginning of the story, one might find it odd how religion and spirituality seems to be so prominent in a science fiction story, with there being Adamists and Edenists and with how Christianity and other religions are still going very strong. While there being religion is no surprise, religious beliefs are much more stronger than one would expect for the secular societies depicted. By the middle of the first novel, however, it will become obvious that it’s more than just part of the background setting: it’s actually highly relevant to the plot itself.
And the trilogy ends literally with a deus ex machina. This has got to be one of the few stories where a deus ex machina fits naturally, instead of being a contrived plot device to get a happily ever after. Although the concluding love relationships for the central character seems to be a bit contrived. And there were a few things that still left me wondering, such as what Ruth Hilton was running away from, which might be answered in supplements.
