The Reality Dysfunction, Part 1: Emergence

This is only the first half of the first volume in a trilogy and what a complex and fully drawn out storyline it is. Peter F. Hamilton writes science fiction like Charles Dickens might have. He embodies his characters with fully fleshed out lives and throws them into complex situations. This is definitely a trilogy that I will finish.

This first half of the first volume took me about two weeks to read, because it is so complex. The one drawback to me was the fact that there is three or four strong storylines. Each chapter begins with a new scene in a different storyline. So, it may be seventy pages or more before you return to a story line. It is a lot like watching four different movies. There are so many characters, that it is fairly easy to get misplaced at times. However once you are back into that scene, the story carries you along. But you are being carried along in four different stories. I am sure that these storylines will begin to converge and come together, but it was a bit difficult to follow at the beginning.

I had read some reviews before beginning and they all more or less agreed that the story begins to kick into high gear roughly 300 - 400 pages in. Which as a whole may be correct, but each storyline catches you much sooner than that. I look forward to continuing this tale, but I will be taking a break and read some shorter things. Even a top-notch story can become tedious after a while. That is my only bitch about this tale.