Peter Hamilton - Reality Disfunction

I confess, I have been wanting to read something by Peter Hamilton for a while, so when our store science fiction club picked him as our January author, I picked up the first book in his Reality Disfuntion duality with with a good deal of anticipation.

I wanted to like this book. I have several customers who love Hamilton, and his series seem to be popular.

There were a number of things about this book that I did love. The division of the human race into those who believe in bioengineering as a way to improve the human race (the Edenists) and those who believe the human race should not be altered (The Adamists) creates interesting dramatic tension. The bioengineered, sentient spaceships and planets were a cool concept. The mystery of the alien race that dissappeared/committed mass suicide intregues me. And there are many of the characters and storylines that Hamilton weaves into his book are well developed and likable.

However, I think that in reaching to make a galactic spanning epic, Hamilton tries to tell too many stories. I got bogged down in the switching from storyline to storyline. Everytime the storys started to get interesting, Hamilton would switch to a different set of characters. I am sure that in the 5 books that follow these storylines will be woven together. But I am sometimes impatient, and this is one of those times. If Hamilton had limited the storylines to 2, switching back and forth, I would be digging into the second book right now. However I am going to put aside this series and find something to read that is less epic and more compact.

---Bruce