Review: The Reality Dysfunction by Peter F. Hamilton

Ryan Reavis — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 18:50:24 +0000

The Reality Dysfunction

The holiday season is over, and you’re looking to return at least one well-intended gift. What should you get to replace it? How about The Reality Dysfunction by Peter F. Hamilton? The Reality Dysfunction is the first book in Hamilton’s trilogy Night’s Dawn. It is the 27th century, and the human species has begun a great diaspora throughout the galaxy. New technologies have enabled humans to side-step Einstein’s cosmic speed limit allowing us to colonize worlds light-centuries away. Disease and genetic defects are things of the past, and new “bitek” (short for biotechnology) even allows for “affinity” (telepathy) between those who choose to have the affinity gene spliced into their DNA.

Enter Lalonde. A backwater planet rich in natural resources but completely untamed. Lalonde is one of nine hundred planets that Earth has colonized or has begun to colonize. Life on Lalonde is brutal, low-tech, and hard. The colonists have only a few years to get their homesteads up and running before economic collapse is certain, but something is watching them. Something evil. Not long after settling in (in the roughest of terms), the reality dysfunction begins. The dead begin to come back to life. Not dead bodies, mind you. No, the dead begin to return to the realm of the living by taking over bodies still enjoying life. Thus begins a battle mankind has never even dreamed possible.

The dead return with strange powers which baffle the technologically advanced living, and as they return, certain specific dead people return, like Al Capone. Killing the host of the dead spirit has the unfortunate side-effect of slaying the host him or herself. The death of the host only then adds to the amount of people trying to come back from the void which is the afterlife. The problem is easy to see. Also, the only goal the dead have is staying alive once they attain a living host. They will commit any act, regardless of how heinous, to stay newly alive.

The problem on Lalonde is not the only problems facing the human race in the Night’s Dawn trilogy. There are aliens. For the most part, humans have encountered alien species which are either so far beneath us in terms of technology that we cannot be bothered much with them or technologically advanced races which take only a passing interest in us. Two aliens species, the Tyrathca and the Kiint, belong to the governing body of humanity—the Confederation. In fact, the Kiint seem like our best possible hope for a solution as they claim their species has faced its own reality dysfunction—and survived. The Confederation is concerned with the safety of humanity and its allies. But starships with the fire-power to take out small planetoids becomes nothing more than frustrating when facing the return of the souls of the dead.

The Reality Dysfunction is a fast-paced read. Space battles happen in real-time. Readers learn how space warfare occurs at speeds which boggle the human mind. The horror of facing the return of the dead through the medium of the bodies of the living earns the book its back page teaser: “Space is not the only void…” The trilogy is enjoying a reprint. The first American release broke each book in the trilogy into two books. These were The Reality Dysfunction: Emergence and Expansion. The other titles The Neutronium Alchemist: Consolidation and Conflict as well as The Naked God: Flight and Faith were conflated as well.

Review: Titan, Wizard & Demon – John Varley’s Gaean Trilogy

Ryan Reavis — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 06:01:02 +0000

The original cover of Varley's "Titan"

With the series returning to publication in 2006, now is a good time for readers either to reacquaint themselves with Texas native John Varley’s epic Gaea series (Titan, Wizard and Demon) or read it for the first time.

While Cirroco “Rocky” Jones leads a group of astronauts to examine the moons of Saturn, they make the most amazing discovery in the history of space exploration-one of Saturn’s moons is not a moon but rather a sentient life form on a planetary scale. The crew explore this new creature they name Gaea and discover within her centaurs with three sets of genitalia (both male and female in the horse part of their bodies and one set in the front which determines gender), a race of angels whose raison d’etre is a blood feud with the centaurs, and whistling, blimp-like creatures who pick up passengers and fly them around.

While much of the joy of reading this trilogy comes from the sense of discovery the reader shares with the humans, the complex relationships between the main characters are what make this trilogy such a completely engrossing read. Themes such as lesbianism, the complex reproduction practices of the centaurs (with three sets of genitals, family trees start to look more like fractal images), and the goddess Gaea weave together in a tapestry of tension, occasional horror, and frequent delight.

Similar sexual themes in other sci-fi/fantasy works include: Tanith Lee’s Don’t Bite the Sun and Drinking Sapphire Wine, Lynn Flewelling’s The Tamir Triad trilogy, and Storm Constantine’s Wraeaethu works.

One of the Freff illustrations from the original printing of Titan

Characters similar to Gaea—alien, sentient, or psychotic habitats, appear in works like: Arthur C. Clark with co-author Gentry Lee’s Rama tetralogy (alien), Peter F. Hamilton’s Night’s Dawn trilogy (sentient), and Arthur C. Clark again with 2001: A Space Odyssey (“Open the pod bay doors, HAL.”).

Titan is a powerful first contact novel on the same scale as Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle’s The Mote in God’s Eye. While this is science fiction, the awe created by the indigenous people of Gaea and their forms give it a fantasy feel. The exploration of the interior of Gaea becomes a quest for the characters. In Titan, that quest is to find the physical manifestation of Gaea to learn about her and to stop the warring between the Titanides (centaurs) and the angels.

The fusion of genres probably worked in Varley’s favor as he won the 1980 Locus Award for SF Novel and was a Nebula Award nominee for the 1979 Nebula award. The second and third books in the trilogy earned Varley one Hugo and two more Locus SF nominations. Titan introduces readers to compelling characters who must live within their new environment and sets up readers for the adventures in Wizard and Demon.

Never look for a good book to read; instead, look for good trilogies.

The recent republications do include the original artwork from the first publication in 1980. The artist goes by Freff. I have been unable to locate any other examples of his work, so if anyone out there has anything, please share.

Missions Unknown » Ryan Reavis

Review: The Reality Dysfunction by Peter F. Hamilton

Review: Titan, Wizard & Demon – John Varley’s Gaean Trilogy