Last week, I finished a book that I’ve been working on since Christmas*: aaa|The Neutronium Alchemist Part 1: Consolidation|0446605174|aaa. This book is part of a science fiction saga created by Peter F. Hamilton. Hamilton has created a huge universe, with a vast array of characters, cultures, settings, technologies, and concepts. I enjoy reading science fiction books such as this for the sheer escape value of far-out science fiction. Imagine if you will, sentient, biological starships that gestate their human captains. Or nano-scale implants that can enable humans to run programs on their own nervous systems, for example to block out emotional impulses, or tactical programs that coordinate your body’s nervous and muscle response without you even needing to think. Or souls that have come back from the dead by way of a dimensional rift, and are possessing the living, endowing them with energistic abilities and bringing some of history’s most notorious personalities back to life.

That, in a nutshell, is the universe that Hamilton has created. If you’re into far-out science fiction, with lots of weird technology, aliens, etc… this is the book for you. My one complaint is that Hamilton includes too much gratuitious sex and gore in his narrative… if it was toned down, I think it would still be a great story. But I have been able to look beyond that and enjoy the rest of the fictional universe he has created.

* It’s not a long book, and I’m not a slow reader or anything, I just don’t spend as much time on reading as I used to. These days, reading serves as a nice diversion in the middle of the work day, when I spend my 30 minute lunch break reading and eating.