The Confederation Handbook - Softcover

Hamilton, Peter F

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0446610275 ISBN 13: 9780446610278

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing, 2002

Synopsis

The Night's Dawn Trilogy is one of the most triumphant works of science fiction to appear in decades. Swiftly gathering a worldwide readership, this masterwork of cosmic imagination and storytelling brought to life an entire galaxy of diverse planets and astonishing civilizations. At the core is the Confederation, an assembly of human and alien colony worlds whose cultures, conflicts, and turmoil are described over a Timeline of nearly 600 years. "The Confederation Handbook" is Peter F. Hamilton's companion guide to the diverse elements in the massive universe he created. Including a full list of characters and their roles and, of course, details of the Timeline itself, this is a must-read for Hamilton's fans.

About this title

Review:

Remember those fact-filled appendices in Frank Herbert's Dune and JRR. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings? Here's the equivalent--though separately packaged--for Peter Hamilton's enormous and popular Night's Dawn SF trilogy, comprising The Reality Dysfunction, The Neutronium Alchemist and The Naked God, plus related stories collected in A Second Chance at Eden.

As a "non-fiction" companion volume, The Confederation Handbook maps out this future galaxy's joyous complications. Technologies: the affinity gene allowing telepathic man/machine communication; neural-nanonics implants which link your brain to the net; intelligent voidhawk and blackhawk spacecraft; forbidden antimatter weapons; and space drives. People: human Adamists who reject the affinity gene; Edenists whose affinity links offer a "real" afterlife that replaces religion, struggling colonists everywhere; and three very different alien species--the Tyrathca, Kiint and Jiciro. Places: crowded old Earth with its O'Neill halo of orbital installations; communist Mars; utopian Edenist habitats mining helium-3 fusion fuel from gas-giant planets; quirkily various colony worlds; and the mysterious alien wreckage of the Ruin Ring.

The Handbook carefully, almost too carefully, avoids spoiler revelations about the apocalyptic action of Night's Dawn. As in those books, its Timeline stops before the main story begins, and--besides names of "Possessors" in a cast list slightly updated from The Naked God's--the superpowered returned dead who threaten the entire Federation aren't mentioned at all. Readers nervous of SF terminology may find this a useful guide to the trilogy's huge, exhilarating blend of roller-coaster action and ghost-train chills. --David Langford

Book Description:

This handbook is an essential companion volume for all the countless readers past, present and future for whom the 'Night's Dawn' trilogy has evolved into a defining SF classic.

About this edition

• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0446610275
• ISBN 13: 9780446610278
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 306