Powers so strong in fact that he can become the ultimate ruler of a people (without them being aware of being ruled) and become immortal.

The questions lying at the heart of both these stories are profound life after death, what is the ultimate goal of existence, can nearly unlimited power and immortality bring us lasting happiness and satisfaction, and what is good government.Ĭentral here is the character of Edeard, who learns that he has very strong magical powers. There is first a tenuous link between these, which predictably is later brought to a convergence. One of these stories resembles traditional fantasy much more than Science Fiction (including a young male protagonist who leaves their hometown village to find adventure in the world, medieval technology and magic), while the other is very much more Science Fiction with galactic empires and space ships. What I enjoyed most in the Void Trilogy, and what sets it apart from other similar works, is that it is in effect two individual, distinct stories and worlds wrapped into one epic work. It is more like an epic or a legend, or in fact often a multiple of these.

I actually think that the term 'opera' here, notwithstanding the grandeur of this art form, falls short of capturing the scope of what the authors seek out to achieve here. The Void Trilogy by Peter Hamilton falls very much within this fold, a story that spans a galaxy, civilisations and ages. I do quite enjoy the genre of Science Fiction literature labelled Space Opera, such as the the all famous Star Wars or the Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons. Thus begins a desperate race to find Inigo and avert catastrophe. But then he vanishes.Ī new wave of dreams broadcast by an unknown Second Dreamer serves as the impetus for a massive Pilgrimage into the Void, which could trigger an accelerated devourment phase that will swallow up thousands of worlds. Thanks to the gaiafield, a neural entanglement wired into most humans, those dreams are shared by hundreds of millions-and a religion, the Living Dream, is born, with Inigo as its prophet. Then Inigo, an astrophysicist, begins having vivid dreams. Even the oldest and most technologically advanced of the galaxy’s sentient races, the Raiel, do not know its origin or its purpose. At the very heart of the galaxy is the Void, a self-contained microuniverse that cannot be stopped as it expands in all directions, consuming everything in its path. This box set includes The Dreaming Void, The Temporal Void, and The Evolutionary Void. Taking place twelve hundred years after the events of Hamilton’s Commonwealth novels.

The dreaming void trilogy