My NEW "Favorite Author" is Peter F. Hamilton - an Englishman. His style is a wonderful blend of "Hard SF," great characters and just plain excellent story telling. He kind of reminds me of Vernor Vinge (A Fire Upon The Deep and A Deepness In The Sky).

I'm reading Pandora's Star right now (I only have about 20 pages left!!) which will be followed by Judas Unchained and then The Dreaming Void, which is actually not a part of the Pandora story, but he does use many of the characters from Pandora in The Dreaming Void, which is the start of a new trilogy. Got all that?  :>} or ?(Bwahahaha!)

Ahem ... anyway, Pandora's Star is epic in scale combining several of my favorite SF plot devices, i. e. instantaneous travel (here via wormhole technology) and immortality (via a combination of digital memory storage and full rejuvenations) among others. It's all tied together by a really neat "mystery" sub plot and a HUGE megalomaniacal alien species named the Prime that are hell bent on eliminating all other life on all other planets in the galaxy. The Prime have just discovered wormhole technology and are ... well ... if I told you what they are doing, it might spoil the book for you (if you decide to read it).

So - the book (and story) is huge, complex but easily followed, more than interesting, and VERY Science Fiction!  If you are an SF fan, READ THIS BOOK!!  One small caveat - if you're not an SF fan, or if you find detailed character building tedious and hard to read, this book is not for you.  And I DON'T mean this in an insulting or sarcastic way.  Really and truly!

RD