Review: The Temporal Void
Posted: May 19th, 2009 | Author: Ed | Filed under: Uncategorized | 1 Comment »The Temporal Void, Peter Hamilton’s 2nd installment in the Void Trilogy has a lot a to like and some things I could do without. This trilogy takes place in the same universe as his earlier books Pandora’s Star and Judas Unchained though set about 1300 years in the future. After recovering from the Prime war, humanity continued its expansion across the galaxy and divided into several factions: ANA, a post-physical collection of human minds centered around earth, the “Higher” worlds of people close to earth with enhancements that make them practically immortal and the external worlds, a loose federation of planets further out with different ideologies.
As we discovered in The Dreaming Void, there is a massive “something” at the center of our galaxy, another universe that occasionally grows and shrinks, devouring everything near it. While this artifact is largely a mystery to inhabitants of our universe, Inigo–the First Dreamer–has dreamed of its interior and revealed a place of simplicity and happiness for humanity. A place where one’s mind has the power to interact and shape the world around them, and containing a mysterious city built by unknown entities named Makkarath that has been occupied by humans for several millenia. Inigo’s dreams follow the story of Edeard, the Waterwalker, a young man from the country who comes to the city and discovers that he has great powers and the ability to communicate with the city. While outside the Void Edeard’s life and the city of Makkarath is viewed as a paradise, the inside is actually more like feudal England with mind powers–not my cup of tea.
Outside the Void, in our universe, a religion has sprung up around Inigo’s dreams, with the goal of entering the Void and achieving ultimate happiness. Inigo, after having led the religion for a while, has disappeared, and everyone is scrambling to find him since the Dreamers are mounting a massive pilgrimage to the void, spurred on by the dreams of a Second Dreamer, an unknown person that is channeling visions of the Void. Both books chronicle the search for Inigo and the Second Dreamer by various factions, as well as the response of the rest of the races of the galaxy and their reaction to the pilgrimage, an act which is widely thought to bring about the destruction of the galaxy.
Once again, Hamilton has woven an intricate plot from the threads of many different characters, each pursuing their own agenda with regards to the mystery of the Void. The return of familiar characters from the first book and the Prime War series brings a comfortable familiarity to the book that I find appealing. Additionally, the future history he describes is very compelling to me: high technology, fully integrated into people’s lives and an extentsion of their own minds and bodies. Human’s are effectively immortal, and the “biononic” enhancements of some humans are so extensive and powerful, that they’re essentially magic. For me, the ideas he presents of the evoloution of technology is one of the best parts. I’ve read some reviews of his books that cite humans’ motivations, desires, and personalities as so similar to contemporary people that it doesn’t ring true, but for me, it just facilitates my visualizing of “what it would be like.”
It wasn’t all great, however. Close to half the book is the telling of Edeard’s life through Inigo’s dreams. These are basically fantasy interludes embedded into the sci-fi plot. I’ll admit, they’re not awful and in a few instances they’re pretty great, but I almost feel cheated when he spends so much time in the fantasy world when I signed up for a sci-fi adventure. It’s not a deal breaker, however, and his story telling is so good that the Edeard stuff isn’t awful, but I felt deprived that there was this awesome sci-fi universe out there and we were stuck with medieval psychics.
Regardless, I loved the book. Like most of his titles, sex and violence abounds, and a subtle, wry humor is woven is throughout. The only downside for me at this point is having to wait for the conclusion of the series which doesn’t even have a release date yet. Get to work, Mr. Hamilton! I’m dying over here!
I really enjoyed the two prequels, but Dreaming Void left me a bit cold. I like Hamilton’s ideas a lot, but his prose and his character development leave me a bit cold. Maybe it’s not the actual development but just the characters as a whole. They don’t seem realized enough for me psychologically, or their voices are either not different enough, or when they are it’s kind of forced as with Ozzie in the prequels.
I can see what critics are saying when it comes to the characters being too recognizably contemporary that far in the future. Somehow writers like Sterling with the Schismatrix books and Banks’ Culture books seem to pull it off without actually writing people who would seem too alien to identify with.
Also the fantasy interlude thing was a big pain to me as well in the first book. In addition from the jarring dichotomy, it just comes across as pretty pedestrian, cliched fantasy. Sounds like it gets worse which is a pity.
And yet after all that I plan on picking this up post-haste, along with the new Sterling and Lethem books.
Still