(9) PETER F. HAMILTON –

NIGHT DAWN TRILOGY (1996-1999)

I do like my space opera and it doesn’t get more, ah, space operatic than Peter F. Hamilton’s Night Dawn trilogy – with all the space opera tropes set to maximum in a zombie apocalypse IN SPACE! Or Evil Dead IN SPACE!

It’s enjoyable just (or perhaps even more) for the world-building (or galaxy-building) of the lush galactic civilization of 27th century humanity linked by faster than light travel. Lush, that is, if you’re rich. Being rich rocks. However, being poor sucks, a recurring characteristic of Peter F. Hamilton’s fiction (arguably art imitating life).

Earth especially sucks (except for its body-hopping secret conspiratorial overlords). And it turns out the afterlife exists (in some sort of weird quantum way), but it also especially sucks. For everyone. Hence the weird quantum zombie apocalypse – mind-possessing, reality-warping super-powered energy zombies

And if you enjoy that, you can replay it in Hamilton’s Commonwealth Saga, with its lush galactic civilization of 24th century humanity (with immortality through rejuvenation and memory storage, alien space elves, and an independent machine civilization), where it still sucks to be poor, and which faces its own apocalypse in the form of alien invasion

RATING: 4 STARS****

A-TIER (TOP TIER)