Books › The Dreaming Void
The Dreaming Void
795 pages
A sprawling, galaxy-spanning epic that balances mind-bending post-human technology with the intimate, fantasy-tinged allure of a mysterious utopia.
What it feels like
Reading this massive space opera feels like stepping into a meticulously constructed, galaxy-spanning puzzle box. The narrative demands patience, unfolding at a steady, deliberate pace as it weaves together a dizzying array of perspectives, from post-scarcity political maneuvering to a low-tech, fantasy-tinged coming-of-age tale set inside a cosmic anomaly. The mood is expansive and awe-inspiring, drenched in the sheer scale of deep time and post-human evolution. The prose is dense with technological detail and cinematic world-building, grounding the mind-bending concepts in vivid reality. It is a deeply immersive experience designed for readers who love to lose themselves in complex, multi-threaded epics where the tension slowly tightens, transforming sprawling curiosity into gripping, high-stakes momentum.
- Mood
- expansive
- wondrous
- tense
- awe-inspiring
- Tone
- ambitious
- analytical
- epic
- earnest
- Pace
- steady
- Themes
- technological transcendence · religious fanaticism · the allure of utopia · post-human evolution · cosmic mystery
- The writing
- Dense and cinematic, weaving intricate technological exposition with sweeping, vivid descriptions of alien worlds and fantasy-tinged landscapes.
- The arc
- The journey shifts from sprawling, awe-struck exploration of a vast galaxy to a tightening, high-stakes tension as disparate destinies collide.
- Who it's for
- Readers who crave massive, multi-POV space operas that demand patience but reward it with mind-bending scale and intricate world-building.
Content notes
- sci-fi violence
- religious extremism
- existential dread
About the book
Reviewers exhaust superlatives when it comes to the science fiction of Peter F. Hamilton. His complex and engaging novels, which span thousands of years--and light-years--are as intellectually stimulating as they are emotionally fulfilling. Now, with The Dreaming Void, the eagerly awaited first volume in a new trilogy set in the same far-future as his acclaimed Commonwealth saga, Hamilton has created his most ambitious and gripping space epic yet.The year is 3589, fifteen hundred years after Commonwealth forces barely staved off human extinction in a war against the alien Prime. Now an even greater danger has surfaced: a threat to the existence of the universe itself.At the very heart of the galaxy is the Void, a self-contained microuniverse that cannot be breached, cannot be destroyed, and cannot be stopped as it steadily expands in all directions, consuming everything in its path: planets, stars, civilizations. The Void has existed for untold millions of years. Even the oldest and most technologically advanced of the galaxy's sentient races, the Raiel, do not know its origin, its makers, or its purpose.But then Inigo, an astrophysicist studying the Void, begins dreaming of human beings who live within it. Inigo's dreams reveal a world in which thoughts become actions and dreams become reality. Inside the Void, Inigo sees paradise. Thanks to the gaiafield, a neural entanglement wired into most humans, Inigo's dreams are shared by hundreds of millions--and a religion, the Living Dream, is born, with Inigo as its prophet. But then he vanishes.Suddenly there is a new wave of dreams. Dreams broadcast by an unknown Second Dreamer serve as the inspiration for a massive Pilgrimage into the Void. But there is a chance that by attempting to enter the Void, the pilgrims will trigger a catastrophic expansion, an accelerated devourment phase that will swallow up thousands of worlds. And thus begins a desperate race to find Inigo and the mysterious Second Dreamer. Some seek to prevent the Pilgrimage; others to speed its progress--while within the Void, a supreme entity has turned its gaze, for the first time, outward....From the Hardcover edition.
Description from Open Library.
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