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The Dreaming Void (Commonwealth - The Void Trilogy Book 1) Kindle Edition

by Peter F. Hamilton (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.4 2,284 ratings

Book 1 of 3: Commonwealth - The Void Trilogy

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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 first volume in a 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. . . .

BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from Peter F. Hamilton's The Temporal Void.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In the tradition of grand-scale SF sagas that explore the potential of human evolution, this densely plotted and intensely thought-provoking opener for Hamilton's Void trilogy takes place roughly 1,000 years after the events of 2006's Judas Unchained. Humankind in the 34th century has effectively conquered mortality, but many humans are still searching for existential transcendence, and a growing number believe the answer can be found inside the Void at the galactic center. Once thought to be an enormous black hole, the Void, which supposedly contains an entire micro-universe inside an impenetrable event horizon, slowly devours stars to sustain itself. If left unchecked, it will eventually consume the entire galaxy. When the technologically augmented telepath Inigo begins experiencing revelatory dreams, his shared visions ignite a mass pilgrimage to the Void, which some believe will trigger the apocalypse. Readers can expect big ideas and big story lines as well as big cliffhangers at the novel's conclusion. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

Praise for Peter F. Hamilton

Judas Unchained

“An interstellar suspense thriller . . . sweeping in scope and emotional range.”
–San Antonio Express-News

“Bristles with the energy of golden age SF, but the style and characterizations are polished and modern.”
–SF Site

“Richly satisfying . . . wonderfully imagined.”
–Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“You’re in for quite a ride.”
–The Santa Fe New Mexican

Pandora’s Star

“Should be high on everyone’s reading list . . . You won’t be able to put it down.”
–Nancy Pearl, National Public Radio

“An imaginative and stunning tale of the perfect future threatened . . . a book of epic proportions not unlike Frank Herbert’s Dune or Isaac Asimov’s Foundation trilogy.”
–SFRevu

“Recommended . . . A large cast of characters, each with his own story, brings depth and variety to this far-future saga.”
–Library Journal

“Complex and engaging.”
–Booklist

From the Hardcover edition.

About the Author

Peter F. Hamilton is the author of numerous novels, including A Night Without Stars, Great North Road, The Evolutionary Void, The Temporal Void, The Dreaming Void, Judas Unchained, Pandora's Star, Misspent Youth, Fallen Dragon, and the acclaimed epic Night's Dawn trilogy. He lives with his family in England.

John Lee has read audiobooks in almost every conceivable genre, from Charles Dickens to Patrick O'Brian, and from the very real life of Napoleon to the entirely imagined lives of sorcerers and swashbucklers. An AudioFile Golden Voice narrator, he is the winner of numerous Audie Awards and AudioFile Earphones Awards.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

ONE

Aaron spent the whole day mingling with the faithful of the Living Dream movement in Golden Park’s vast plaza, eavesdropping on their restless talk about the succession, drinking water from the mobile catering stalls, trying to find some shade from the searing sun as the heat and coastal humidity rose relentlessly. He thought he remembered arriving at daybreak; certainly the expanse of marble cobbles had been virtually empty as he had walked across it. The tips of the splendid white metal pillars surrounding the area had been crowned with rose-gold light as the local star rose above the horizon. He had smiled appreciatively at the outline of the replica city, matching the topography surrounding Golden Park with the dreams he had gathered from the gaiafield over the last . . . well, for quite some time. Golden Park had started to fill up rapidly after that, with the faithful arriving from the other districts of Makkathran2 across the canal bridges, ferried in by a fleet of gondolas. By midday there must have been close to a hundred thousand of them. All faced the Orchard Palace, which sprawled possessively like a huddle of high dunes over the Anemone district on the other side of the Outer Circle Canal. There they waited with badly disguised impatience for the Cleric Council to come to a decision—any sort of decision. The Council had been in conclave for three days now. How long could they possibly take to elect a new Conservator?

At one point that morning he had edged his way right up to the Outer Circle Canal, close to the central wire-and-wood bridge that arched over to Anemone. It was closed, of course, as were the other two bridges in that section. Although in ordinary times anyone from the ultradevout to curious tourist could cross over and wander around the vast Orchard Palace, this day it had been sealed off by fit-looking junior Clerics who had undergone a lot of muscle enrichment. Camped out to one side of the temporarily forbidden bridge were hundreds of journalists from all over the Greater Commonwealth, most of them outraged by the stubborn refusal of Living Dream to leak information their way. They were easily identifiable by their chic modern clothes and by faces that obviously were maintained at peak gloss by a membrane of cosmetic scales. Not even Advancer DNA produced complexions that good.

Behind them the bulk of the crowd buzzed about, discussing their favorite candidates. If Aaron was judging the mood correctly, just about ninety-five percent of them were rooting for Ethan. They wanted him because they were done with waiting, with patience, with the status quo preached by all the other lackluster caretakers since the Dreamer himself, Inigo, had slipped away from public life. They wanted someone who would bring their whole movement to that blissful moment of fulfillment they had been promised from the moment they had tasted Inigo’s first dream.

Some time in the afternoon Aaron realized that the woman was watching him. Instinct smoothly clicked his awareness to her location—which was an interesting trait to know he had. From then on he was conscious of her: how she casually wandered in order to keep an easy distance between them, how she never had her eyes in his direction when he glanced at her. She wore a simple short-sleeved rusty-orange top and knee-length blue trousers of some modern fabric. A little different from the faithful—who tended to wear the more primitive rustic clothes of wool, cotton, and leather favored by Makkathran’s citizens, but not contemporary enough to be obvious. Nor did her looks make her stand out, though she had a flattish face and a cute button nose; some of the time her slim copper shades were across her eyes, but often she had them perched in her short dark hair. Her age was unknowable; her appearance was locked into the biological mid-twenties like that of everyone in the Greater Commonwealth. He was certain, with no tangible proof, that she was well past her first couple of centuries.

After they had played the orbiting-satellites game for forty minutes, he walked over, keeping his smile pleasant. There were no pings coming off her that his macrocellular clusters could detect, no active links to the unisphere or any active sensor activity. Electronically, she was as stone age as the city.

“Hello,” he said.

She pushed her shades up with the tip of a finger and gave him a playful grin. “Hello yourself. So what brings you here?”

“This is a historic event.”

“Quite.”

“Do I know you?” His instinct had been right, he saw; she was nothing like the placid faithful shuffling around them. Her body language was all wrong; she could keep tight control of herself, enough to fool anyone without his training—training?—but he could sense the attitude coiled up inside.

“Should you know me?”

He hesitated. There was something familiar about her face, something he should know about her. He could not think what for the simple reason that he did not have any memories to pull up and examine. Not of anything, now that he thought about it. He didn’t seem to have had a life prior to this day. He knew that was all wrong, yet that did not bother him, either. “I don’t recall.”

“How curious. What’s your name?”

“Aaron.”

Her laughter surprised him.

“What?” he asked.

“Number one, eh? How lovely.”

Aaron’s answering grin was forced. “I don’t understand.”

“If you wanted to list terrestrial animals, where would you start?”

“Now you’ve really lost me.”

“You’d start with the aardvark. Double A; it’s the top of the list.”

“Oh,” he mumbled. “Yeah, I get it.”

“Aaron.” She chuckled. “Someone had a sense of humor when they sent you here.”

“Nobody sent me.”

“Really?” She arched a thick eyebrow. “So you just sort of found yourself at this historic event, did you?”

“That’s about it, yes.”

She dropped the copper band back down over her eyes and shook her head in mock dismay. “There are several of us here, you know. I don’t believe that’s an accident, do you?”

“Us?”

Her hand gestured around at the crowd. “You don’t count yourself as one of these sheep, do you? A believer? Someone who thinks they can find a life at the end of these dreams Inigo so generously gifted to the Commonwealth?”

“I suppose not, no.”

“There’s a lot of people watching what happens here. It’s important, after all, and not just for the Greater Commonwealth. If there’s a Pilgrimage into the Void, some species claim it could trigger a devourment phase which will bring about the end of the galaxy. Would you want that to happen, Aaron?”

She was giving him a very intent stare. “That would be a bad thing,” he temporized. “Obviously.” In truth he had no opinion. It was not something he thought about.

“Obvious to some, an opportunity to others.”

“If you say so.”

“I do.” She licked her lips with mischievous amusement. “So, are you going to try for my unisphere code? Ask me out for a drink?”

“Not today.”

She pouted fulsomely. “How about unconditional sex, then, any way you like it?”

“I’ll bank that one, too, thanks.” He laughed.

“You do that.” Her shoulders moved up in a slight shrug. “Goodbye, Aaron.”

“Wait,” he said as she turned away. “What’s your name?”

“You don’t want to know me,” she called out. “I’m bad news.”

“Goodbye, Bad News.”

There was a genuine smile on her face as she looked back at him. A finger wagged. “That’s what I remember best,” she said, and was gone.

He smiled at the rear of her rapidly departing head. She vanished quickly enough amid the throng; after a minute he couldn’t even spot her. He had seen her originally because she had wanted him to, he realized.

Us, she’d said. There are a lot like us here. That didn’t make a lot of sense. But then she’d stirred up a lot of questions. Why am I here? he wondered. There was no solid answer in his mind other than it was the right place for him to be; he wanted to see who was elected. And the memories. Why don’t I have any memories of anything else? It ought to bother him, he knew—memories were the fundamental core of human identity—yet even that emotion was lacking. Strange. Humans were emotionally complex entities, yet he didn’t appear to be. But he could live with that; something deep inside him was sure he would solve the mystery of himself eventually. There was no hurry.

Toward late afternoon the crowd began to thin out as the announcement remained obstinately unforthcoming. Aaron could see disappointment on the faces moving past him, a sentiment echoed by the whispers of emotion within the local gaiafield. He opened his mind to the surrounding thoughts, allowing them to wash in through the gateway that the gaiamotes had germinated inside his cerebellum. It was like walking through a fine mist of specters, bestowing the plaza with flickers of unreal color, images of times long gone yet remembered fondly; sounds were muffled, as if experienced through fog.

His recollection of when he had joined the gaiafield community was as hazy as the rest of his time before this day: it didn’t seem like the kind of thing he would do—too whimsical. Gaiafield was for adolescents who considered the multisharing of dreams and emotions to be deep and profo...

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B000UZJQLE
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Del Rey (March 25, 2008)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ March 25, 2008
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 2629 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 607 pages
Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 034549654X

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Peter F. Hamilton

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Peter F. Hamilton is the author of numerous novels, including The Abyss Beyond Dreams, Great North Road, The Evolutionary Void, The Temporal Void, The Dreaming Void, Judas Unchained, Pandora’s Star, Misspent Youth, Fallen Dragon, and the acclaimed epic Night’s Dawn trilogy (The Reality Dysfunction, The Neutronium Alchemist, and The Naked God). He lives with his family in England.

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John Smith

Potentially Hamilton's best series yet

Reviewed in the United States on April 2, 2008

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The dust jacket proclaims, "The year is 3589, fifteen hundred years after Commonwealth forces barely staved off human extinction in a war against the alien Prime". The arithmetic is flawed ("Judas Unchained" was circa 2380, so about 1200 years have elapsed), but Hamilton's story-telling, character development, and world-building are virtually flawless.

After a prologue introducing Inigo and the mysterious Void, which is being studied by the ancient Raiel race, Commonwealth humans, and a number of alien races at Centurion Station near the galactic center, the story alternates between the main time sequence following various Commonwealth characters, and chapters detailing Inigo's past "dreams" of apparently medieval humans. As the story unfolds, it is soon revealed that Inigo's "dreams", which have been recorded and shared with millions of other humans through the gaiafield (a kind of telepathic network enhancement that many have chosen for themselves), are believed to originate from the Void and to chronicle actual life inside the Void. Millions of humans believe life inside the Void to be idyllic -- a religion, the Living Dream, grows around this belief, culminating in a plan for a mass Pilgrimage into the Void.

In conflict with the Living Dreamers are the Raiel, at least one faction of the human-created non-physical intelligence ANA, and an alien race called the Ocisen Empire. The Raiel have been struggling against the Void for a million years, having seen the Void expand and devour countless inhabited worlds, and they expect that a Pilgrimage could trigger another deadly expansion. The Living Dream Pilgrimage, if not stopped, may cause the destruction of the galaxy. But the Living Dream religion persists, and ANA:Governance, controller of the immensely powerful Navy (a military force which has grown in power since defeating the Prime in "Judas Unchained"), seems inclined to protect the Living Dreamers from outside influence or attack.

A number of characters are introduced, both in Inigo's dream chapters, and in the Commonwealth chapters. Aaron is searching for Inigo (who has disappeared sometime after having his famous dreams), but he does not know why or who sent him, and he seems strangely accepting of the mission script he is following as it is gradually revealed to him. Edeard is an orphan boy from Inigo's dream who is trying to find his place in a world that is both hostile to him and able to be shaped by his telepathic powers. In the Commonwealth where technology can be employed to keep one's body fit and perfect, Troblum is a physicist who is extremely fat, a collector of memorabilia from the Starflyer war, and gifted at creating advanced technology and weapons for whoever is willing to feed his obsessions. Araminta is a young, ambitious first-life woman who is trying to start a property-development business herself after a divorce, but her adventures are just beginning.

Justine, Paula, and Oscar from the Commonwealth Saga also have storylines, and there are appearances by several other characters from the Commonwealth Saga. Commonwealth Saga characters notably absent from "The Dreaming Void" are the alien Silfen, any escaped alien Prime, the SI (sentient intelligence), the Bose motile, and Nigel and Ozzie (although Ozzie has apparently become a common swear word).

There is a timeline at the end of the book that provides a number of helpful historical references to fill in some of the events between the end of the Commonwealth Saga and the events in "The Dreaming Void". For example, "2833--Completion of ANA first stage on Earth; Grand Family members begin memory download into ANA rather than to SI....3001--Ozzie produces uniform neural entanglement effect known as the gaiafield." There are no significant spoilers in the timeline, and since Hamilton does not fill in all the details in the narrative, it may be helpful to read the timeline before beginning the novel.

While there are at least 9 viewpoints running simultaneously in "The Dreaming Void", I did not find myself bored by any of them. In contrast, I frequently skipped over various uninteresting viewpoints in Hamilton's Nightsdawn trilogy. Hamilton has done an excellent job of choosing the viewpoint characters in "The Dreaming Void", balancing the action between them, and keeping all of them relevant and interesting. I appreciate that Hamilton has not spent many words summarizing events from the Commonwealth Saga, since that would merely bore readers who are familiar with those events, and probably not help those who have never read those books. Also, since this is not strictly a sequel (1200 years have passed and the most important characters are new), I suspect that it can stand on its own for someone who has not read the previous books. However, as expected in the first book of a trilogy, "The Dreaming Void" does leave quite a few plot lines hanging at the end. If I had not already read the Commonwealth Saga books, I am sure I would feel compelled to read them while waiting for the next Void Trilogy book to be released.

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watzizname

Dressed in Style

Reviewed in the United States on May 4, 2011

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Altho it is billed as the first volume of the Void Trilogy, this is the third volume set in this universe, the first one being Pandora's Star (PS) and the second, Judas Unchained (JU), and I wish I had read them first. I strongly recommend that you don't begin DV unless and until you have read PS and JU. I found, as have several other reviewers, that not having read them, I was lost amid the multitude of characters and plots in chapters 1 thru 7. Many of the characters in these chapters were introduced in PS-JU.

Despite being so labeled, the Void Trilogy is not science-fiction, but science-fantasy, devoid of any grounding in known science, albeit with pseudo-scientific names thrown in for various magic black boxes. People can be rejuvenated apparently without limit, and if they suffer `bodyloss' (death), they can be `relifed.' After rejuvenation or relifing, the desire for sex is particularly strong and the ability to reproduce is not impaired, but no explanation is offered for the very slow population growth, given the significantly non-zero birth rate and virtually zero final-death rate.

The center of the galaxy is called the Void, which is a misnomer, because a void is the absence of anything, and it soon becomes apparent that there are many stars and at least one human-inhabited planet therein. Following each chapter is `Inigo's Dream' of the same number. The `dreams' turn out to be the result of Inigo's one-way telepathic connection with Edeard, the point-of-view character of the `dreams,' who lives on the aforementioned planet within the `Void.' Like all human dwellers in the `Void,' Edeard has a `third hand' (telekinetic ability). Edeard's third hand is more powerful than most, and he develops other psi powers as the plot requires. With its comparatively small cast of characters, Edeard's story is much easier to follow than the story in the chapters. I found it the more enjoyable of the two. Overall, *** for the chapters, **** for the dreams; pretty close to 3½ stars, so I'll give it the benefit.

Notwithstanding the absence of even pseudo-scientific explanations, and the logical flaws that disqualify it as science-fiction, this is a rather engaging one-third (624 pages) of a very long novel, sufficiently engaging that I am reading The Temporal Void (TV, the middle third, 713 pages) and expect to read The Evolutionary Void (EV, the final third, 704 pages).

watziznayme@gmail.com

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Melanie D

Another classic from Hamilton

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 18, 2023

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Nobody does Space Opera quite like Peter F Hamilton, and I generally find reading his books the literary equivalent of a warm house in winter: comforting, reliable, and good for the soul.

You can rely upon some of the best world-building in fiction, epic character and story arcs, and also a nudge to consider our own relationship with technology and scientific advance.

Tying together two separate timelines, The Dreaming Void is classic Hamilton. It brings back some favourite characters from previous books, who are like old friends popping up in the new trilogy, but who aren’t just there for familiarity, but to signpost some of the themes to come.

This is part one of a trilogy, and I mean this in the truest sense: it isn’t a standalone, so if you’re starting this, you’ll want to commit to the whole series. On the plus side, if you’re a fan, it means you get to spend longer in the universe. Looking forward to the second book.

Kristen

doesn't immediately draw you in like others in the Commonwealth Universe

Reviewed in Canada on August 4, 2018

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Starts off slow, doesn't immediately draw you in like others in the Commonwealth Universe, but stick with it. It builds. Almost done the book and it hasn't amazed me like the Original Commonwealth series did, but I expect good things from the other books in the trilogy.

Chris G

Great writer

Reviewed in Spain on March 23, 2017

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I have just finished this book, I regard Peter Hamilton as one of the best Space Opera writers in the history of the genre.
His scope and detail and the way he brings his characters forward is exemplary.
If you have never read his work , you need to.

Daniel

Amazing

Reviewed in France on February 7, 2013

Verified Purchase

The perfect boys SF Trilogie.
Read the whole thing, amazing mix of action, sex, power, good, bad, spirituality.
Read the whole series, it sticks you to your seat and doesn't let you go.

Carole Peel

Hamilton does it again.

Reviewed in Australia on September 28, 2015

Verified Purchase

Hamilton does it again. A masterful story teller who weaves an intricate plot that keeps the reader engaged to the very last page

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The Dreaming Void (Commonwealth - The Void Trilogy Book 1) Kindle Edition

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