Name: The Reality Dysfunction
ISBN: 9780330340328

Peter F. Hamilton

In the 26th century the human race is finally beginning to realize its full potential. But on a primitive colony planet a renegade criminal's chance encounter with an alien entity unleashes the most primal of fears - "the reality dysfunction"

The Reality Dysfunction

Matthew Royal

** spoiler alert **
           This book initially reminded me of fan-fiction or erotica in its screenplay-like narrative simplicity, and how every scene pushes toward a specific payoff: the protagonist experiencing success. Business success, sexual success, chance successes, validation of his success by rivals, and his hunches always being right on the money and paying off. 


The writing is entirely superficial. No beautiful prose, no thoughtful descriptions, no world that lives on in your mind long after you’ve put away the pages. It’s almost a storyboard for a television miniseries, complete with notes on lighting. Very little of your imagination will be engaged here, except for how much SUCCESS the protagonist is likely to have next.


The male gaze weighs heavily, categorizing every female on the sexiness continuum, and providing a bevy of barely legal girls who “aren’t looking for anything serious” and think middle-age men are extremely attractive. Big subplot conflict: how will protagonist SUCCEED at resolving his pregnancy of conservative client’s unmarried daughter and maintain SUCCESS of business monopoly? The worldview of the author is that people descended from “European stock” are demonstrably superior to all others, demons are real and are responsible for destroying powerful civilizations, and thus Christianity has the ultimate answer to SUCCESS.


The science fiction isn’t great either. It’s not space opera, because there’s no sense of vastness or improving technology. Everything is categorized in simple taxonomies, and cycles of development have all been seen before; there really isn’t anything unknown to the inhabitants of this universe. Hamilton presents no novel technology or concepts.


Would have added this to my DNF shelf except I wanted to see how Hamilton resolved the obvious contradiction of his heavy-handed “God’s Not Dead” and graphic sexual themes. Answer: the protagonist is just a lovable scoundrel.

Cindy Lieberman

A massive book that starts out as a space adventure and becomes a disturbing horror show. But it’s also quite a feat of world building and of tackling the really alien aliens

In a future world where humanity is divided into two radically different groups, the genetically engineered Edenists and the pioneering Adamists, both groups clash on the primitive world of Lalonde. Reprint.

Emergence

Carlo Zottmann

It failed to grip me… it failed to grip me _hard_.

I love PFH's Commonwealth works, but Night's Dawn just doesn't do it for me.

Garren

This is a monster of a book to get through. But it's worth it. It is a great story built in a really interesting world.

The Reality Dysfunction is a modern classic of science fiction, an extraordinary feat of storytelling on a truly epic scale. Space is not the only void. . . In AD 2600 the human race is finally beginning to realize its full potential. Hundreds of colonized planets scattered across the galaxy host a multitude of prosperous and wildly diverse cultures. Genetic engineering has pushed evolution far beyond nature's boundaries, defeating disease and producing extraordinary spaceborn creatures. Huge fleets of sentient trader starships thrive on the wealth created by the industrialization of entire star systems. And throughout inhabited space the Confederation Navy keeps the peace. A true golden age is within our grasp. But now something has gone catastrophically wrong. On a primitive colony planet a renegade criminal's chance encounter with an utterly alien entity unleashes the most primal of all our fears. An extinct race which inhabited the galaxy aeons ago called it "The Reality Dysfunction." It is the nightmare which has prowled beside us since the beginning of history.

The Reality Dysfunction

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