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Great North Road
Great North Road
Great North Road
Audiobook36 hours

Great North Road

Written by Peter F. Hamilton

Narrated by Toby Longworth

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

4.5/5

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About this audiobook

A century from now, thanks to a technology allowing instantaneous travel across light-years, humanity has solved its energy shortages, cleaned up the environment, and created far-flung colony worlds. The keys to this empire belong to the powerful North family-composed of successive generations of clones. Yet these clones are not identical. For one thing, genetic errors have crept in with each generation. For another, the original three clone "brothers" have gone their separate ways, and the branches of the family are now friendly rivals more than allies.Or maybe not so friendly. At least that's what the murder of a North clone in the English city of Newcastle suggests to Detective Sidney Hurst. Sid is a solid investigator who'd like nothing better than to hand off this hot potato of a case. The way he figures it, whether he solves the crime or not, he'll make enough enemies to ruin his career.Yet Sid's case is about to take an unexpected turn: because the circumstances of the murder bear an uncanny resemblance to a killing that took place years ago on the planet St. Libra, where a North clone and his entire household were slaughtered in cold blood. The convicted slayer, Angela Tramelo, has always claimed her innocence. And now it seems she may have been right. Because only the St. Libra killer could have committed the Newcastle crime.Problem is, Angela also claims that the murderer was an alien monster.Now Sid must navigate through a Byzantine minefield of competing interests within the police department and the world's political and economic elite...all the while hunting down a brutal killer poised to strike again. And on St. Libra, Angela, newly released from prison, joins a mission to hunt down the elusive alien, only to learn that the line between hunter and hunted is a thin one.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateJan 1, 2013
ISBN9781452680903
Great North Road
Author

Peter F. Hamilton

Peter F. Hamilton was born in Rutland in 1960 and still lives nearby. He began writing in 1987, and sold his first short story to Fear magazine in 1988. He has written many bestselling novels, including the Greg Mandel series, the Night's Dawn trilogy, the Commonwealth Saga, the Void trilogy, short-story collections and several standalone novels including Fallen Dragon and Great North Road.

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Rating: 4.314814814814815 out of 5 stars
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  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Amongst the horde of mere mortals writing science fiction strides a giant. His name? Peter F. Hamilton. Seriously, if I was going to do one of those "greater than" things I've seen on the information superhighway it would be: Peter F. Hamilton>>>>>>>>>>>> Other Science Fiction Writers. This book has a strong police procedural/serial killer vibe to go with the detailed and imaginative sci-fi milieu. It is truly brain bogglingly epic, yet very accessible, and despite its massive size there is not an extraneous word to be found. The writing is smooth and economical, very vividly rendered, and the pace never flags. It was riveting and truly pulse-poundingly suspenseful towards the end. The several lead characters were extremely well drawn, and the details of the big giant mystery at the heart of the novel were doled out with clinical precision, keeping me riveted the whole time. Incidentally, he is one of the few, perhaps the only science fiction writer who does not avoid the topic of sex and who handles it in an adult manner. I need to get me a Peter F. Hamilton t-shirt or something, because having read 3 of his stellar books now, I am a huge fan.

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A very good book. First class world building, no doubt about it. And an intricate world it is. Weird aliens, pervasive technology, and a strange clone family. On that backdrop we have a murder mystery with far-reaching consequences. The protagonists are well-characterized. I would say Hamilton is good at descriptions. He paints a clear picture of the characters and is also good at describing a scene, creating an atmosphere. The language can be poetic, particularly at the descriptions, but also a bit heavy. Whenever I got to the 'action' or interaction parts of the chapters, I had no problem, but I have had to read some of the atmospheric descriptions at the beginning of the chapters a few times before it got through to me what it was saying. I mostly didn't skip over it, as I might have with another book. The descriptions definitely added to the experience. But I did wish they were a bit more accessible. That's what stopped me from giving it 5 stars, but other than that, it was really well done. An intricate story that is well told.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Awesome storyline, really nice ending, solid stuff again, I can't wait for Mr Hamilton's next book !
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is a monumental book in lots of ways, not just its length (1087 pages) or its size (slightly larger than a house brick), but also in the story that he writes here.

    It starts with a murder, and the body that is fished out of the river is a North, a family of genetic clones, and this corpse has had all the identity markers removed. There are five puncture marks on the chest, and the heart has been shredded. The last people to die this way did so 20 years ago, on the colony of St Libra, and the woman who was tried for the murders is still in prison. So begins the most sensitive, and politically charged investigation of Sidney Hurst’s career.

    With the new murder, the HDA decide that they need to go back to St Libra and fully investigate the claim by Angela that the murders were committed by an alien. She is pulled from prison and sent through the gateway, essentially a wormhole, with a crack team of legionnaires and back to St Libra to find this entity.

    And so starts this epic story. It flips between Newcastle, and St Libra and you follow the ebb and flow of the characters in their successes and failures. The people on St Libra start to conclude that the plant they are on is a bioformed planet, and the alien is there as a guardian. St Libra‘s sun suddenly red shifts, sending the planet into a mini ice age, and the alien starts to eliminate the legionnaires in the group. Meanwhile back on earth the investigation into the murder has become a lot more complex and charged, and it starts to look like the fall out between two corporations, and the police are playing catch up.

    Apart from the fact that this is enormous, and took even me a while to read, I really enjoyed it. He has created a pair of believable worlds, alien contact and a murder mystery thrown in for good measure. It doesn’t get five stars as there are parts that I felt were superfluous to the main story, and probably could have been removed.

    Hamilton manages to keep the tech believable, there are e-i systems that people have fitted within their body and are permanently connected to the net. There are lots of smart dust and meshes that the police use to track and monitor citizens. The society is well constructed too, apart from petty crime, most of the serious crime is committed by corporations that have a legitimate side, and a nefarious side.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Over the years, I’ve read an enormous amount of science fiction. I’ve read all of the classics, as well as a goodly number of the more recent works. Having read just about everything he has written, I can safely say that Peter Hamilton is now my favorite science fiction writer.My first exposure to Hamilton was his magnum opus, Night’s Dawn trilogy. Initially, I was absolutely blown away. About midway through this 3,500 page door stop, I began to lose interest, primarily because the novelty of many of Hamilton’s brilliant alien and technological constructs simply became second nature. I followed up with Pandora’s Star and Judas Unchained, another 2,000 page monster. Much like Night’s Dawn, it simply carried on too long. The Void trilogy, actually a sequel to Judas Unchained, was another 2,000+ pages, but actually kept my attention throughout.I recently read Fallen Dragon and was very pleased with the shorter, one volume work (only in Hamilton’s world could a 800+ page novel be deemed short). I had high hopes for this novel of comparable length, but was mildly disappointed. The Great North Road contains many of the same technologies and constructs as the Void Trilogy and perhaps this lack of originality contributed to my disappointment, but I was also not taken with the story itself and some of plot twists were a little too contrived and quite frankly ridiculous. In my opinion, there were too many story threads with only the slightest of relevance to the main action, and even the attempt to tie them together near the end didn’t work for me. Finally, a pet peeve: The silly insistence of many science fiction authors to invent a new expletive which every character must blurt out thousands of times, over and over. In this novel, that word is “crap” (as in “Crap on it!”, “I’ll be crapped on!”, et cetera, ad nauseum) and all its possible permutations. Personally, I’m betting that the “F” word maintains its supremacy far into the future. I certainly don’t see it being dethroned by the word “crap”.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Took me a while to get into it but it got really interesting towards the last third when all the bits came together. Very gritty story in places. I felt I was in Newcastle!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    An excellent stand-alone sci-fi/mystery novel. The title plays out in many ways in this novel - its the name of a road, the name of a family, the critical direction of much of the action. In this not too far future novel, humanity has discovered the secret of opening gates to other solar systems and has started to colonize the galaxy in a limited fashion. Some of this settlement is lead by the North's - a family of identical individuals all descending from 3 clones. Among other things, the Norths control a planet where most of the bio-oil is produced (for some reason the Earth still relies on oil), but this planet has a strange biology of its own. Years ago a group of Norths were murdered and now the body of a dead North family member turns up in Newcastle, England, evidently murdered by the same weapon. A murder mystery and search for a murderous alien presence dominates the rest of the plot of the novel. While this is eseentially a murder mystery, there are enough plots and sub-plots and sub-characters to make this a fascinatingly complex novel. It is huge for a murder mystery at 926 pages, but it was well worth it. Hamilton has woven a complex sci-fi story together with a good mystery.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I wanted to like this book, I really did. Sci-fi serial killer thriller? Sign me up! Unfortunately it's too flabby to be a thriller, too many characters with too much going on and, halfway through, no real idea of how the various plot threads connect. I enjoyed the cop parts - fascinating depiction of how police work would work in a world with almost universal surveillance and a heavily privatized security industry - but they were too few and far between after a while. In the end, I put it down a week ago and can't convince myself to pick it back up.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    After something of a misstep with his Void Trilogy, Hamilton is back in top form.This has almost everything you expect in a Peter F. Hamilton novel: a murder mystery, soldiers, mysterious tech billionaires with ambitious ideas for transforming the world, gazillionaire families, detectives, a sort of technologically mediated telepathy, spies, an astronomical mystery, life extensions, aliens, sex and easy, casual travel between planets.The plot is relatively straightforward. A North turns up dead in Newcastle, UK. Norths are the male clones that fill many of the upper echelons of business in this society. The trouble is not only is it not obvious who killed him but his exact identity is unknown. And the method of death wakes the professional paranoia of the Alien Intelligence Agency. They already have one alien menace to contend with -- the Zanth, who have destroyed one human inhabited world. They don’t need another, but the murder weapon seems possibly related to a 20 year old mass killing done by one Angela Tremelo. The story centers around two main characters: Sid Hurst, the detective heading up the Newcastle murder investigation, and Angela, who is taken out of jail to serve as technical advisor on a mission to the planet St. Libra, the site of her alleged murders – which she has always claimed were done by an unknown alien.Hamilton keeps the pace cranked at full level. At about midway, the story of the St. Libra expedition becomes even more compelling. Its isolation, stalked by an alien force from without and, maybe, from within reminded me a bit of the Alastair Maclean novels I used to read, especially Night Without End. At this point, when he’s got you hooked, Hamilton makes a lot of diversions to backfill the story of his characters’ lives. Some of these may strike the reader as a bit too long, but I didn’t mind all that much.What I did mind, but it didn’t ruin the experience in a major way, was a couple of things at the end. The first was a bit of silly, eco-centered moralizing. The second was a bit of happy talk and improbability about the fate of a minor character.As perhaps a sign of the times, this is not an almost utopian world like Hamilton’s Commonwealth Saga books. There is a note of economic anxiety throughout it. I also liked the air of casual corruption, especially tax evasion, amongst the Newcastle police. I also note that Hamilton, in his depiction of his Grande Europe political alliance, shows some of the Euroskepticism that marked his Misspent Youth.And, yes, this truly is a standalone novel. Everything meaningful is wrapped up, so there’s no reason to wait to start this one whether you’re new to Hamilton or an old fan.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    For a book that weighs in at over 1,000 pages, this was actually quite a fast read, certainly for the first 2/3rds I really enjoyed the multiple world building, the future Newcastle and the various worlds of the North corporation.
    I got a bit bogged down on the expeditions trek through the snowy jungle, and the ending felt a little rushed and unsatisfactory, but overall a good entertaining and absorbing read
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Like a combination of the Greg Mandel and his Commonwealth Saga books. Grand space opera.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Welcome to Newcastle in 2143. Even if the setting is the same as some of the earlier Hamilton novels, this is yet another new possible future, unrelated to any previous world. One family, the Norths, had managed to build their own empire via cloning and interstellar exploration. But as with all big ventures like that, through the years the descendants of the 3 initially cloned brothers had grown apart and the Norths are split into fractions. All descendants are named starting with the first name of their forefather (A, B and C) so knowing which branch they belong to is easy. Unless if they lie - because all of them look the same. Not because next generations are cloned but because the cloning process left the DNA stuck at its form - it keeps all the next generations the same but it also stops the DNA from recovering the broken pieces and mutations keep showing. Which makes the later generation less and less intelligent - to the point where after a few generation, the family makes sure there are no more children being born. But this is not the story - it is just the backdrop. The story starts in one January day when one of the Norths is found dead. The detective, Sidney Hurst, that is sent to investigate is just returning from a suspension - and he still gets the case. And despite his expectations, he is left to lead the case. Being a North, it should be easy to identify who he is. Except that there are no missing Norths - in any of the lines. And the cause of death is unusual. So unusual that it had happened only once before - when Bartram North (one of the original clones) and pretty much everyone staying in his house was killed. Except that it should not be possible - the killer, Angela Tramelo, is in prison. And for the last 20 years, she kept insisting she is innocent. And the chase is on - while the investigation is going on, Hamilton shows us the world - with the planet of St Libra that does not have any native sentient life and all the bio-oil that allowed the world economy to evolve and the other human colonies; with the society that had evolved and changed but had remained human. The novel that starts as a mystery turns into a thriller when everyone ends up on St Libra, chasing the elusive killer. And everything you think you know changes again and again. Until the end where things finally make sense and you reevaluate everything that happened through the prism of what really happened. Just as in real life, noone is all good or all bad - regardless if how it may be looking at some times. Maybe a bit too balanced in places. It is a wonderful novel - with characters that show the maturity that 20 years bring - but also the vulnerabilities that are part of humanity. But it is a Hamilton novel - for most of it the threads of the story look different and unrelated - they start connection and becoming a whole late in the novel. If you do not have the patience for it, Hamilton is just not your author. And it is also an unusual novel - it is closer to the Mandel's novel than to the later space opera series. But it is a more mature novel, with more world details and more grown up and defined characters.I would love to read another novel in this world - too bad that we probably will not see one. Highly recommended if you like long novels, mysteries and science fiction (and maybe a bit of horror).
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This one was going to get a higher rating until the very end. It was an extremely well done blend of high tech/science fiction and crime procedural. Unfortunately, the very end went way too deus ex machina, with a minor character swooping in with private, unfathomable technology that the entire rest of the human race wasn't capable of producing. I would have loved it except for that. Hamilton did a great job of keeping things close to the vest and maintaining suspense until the end.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Is this book too long? Yes. Does it have some areas that should have been edited? Yes. But I wouldn’t change a thing. It is so enjoyable. The characters are so well rounded. The underlying mysteries … very addictive. This is my first Hamilton novel and I find it a good place to get to know this author. It’s not confusing or inconsistent as some have complained. Give this some time and you will be very happy by the end.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Book Info: Genre: Speculative Fiction/Crime Thriller/Murder Mystery/Science FictionReading Level: AdultRecommended for: Fans of Peter F. Hamilton, those who enjoy an epic story, science fiction/speculative fictionTrigger Warnings: murder, torture (mostly by drugs, but some physical)Animal Abuse: people flee and leave behind their cats to fend for themselves, leading to the cats freezing to deathThis is a fairly long review, but then again, it's a really long book. The important stuff is in “My Thoughts”; you can skip the rest if you want.My Thoughts: Call me a hopeless optimist. I've read a number of Peter Hamilton's trilogies, and even a few of his rare stand-alone books (like this one), and been blown away by them up until about the last quarter of the final book (or the very end, as the case may be), where he inevitably pulls out a deus ex machina after painting himself into a corner. However, the stories are always so awesome up to that point that I just keep picking the books up and keep hoping that this time... this time he'll do it right. And, to my delight, he did! While the very last chapter is a bit puzzling, and makes me wonder if we'll ever learn what happened during those 225 years, this story had a great ending.Am I the only one for whom political correctness is a real pain? I don't mean the idea behind it—after all speaking mindfully is a good thing—but the excesses that some people insist upon? For instance: Charmonique Passam, who declared the term “Human Resources” offensive and should be changed to the “Office for Personkind Enablement”. “Human” is fairly easy to understand—after all, it does include “man”—but her reasoning behind the offensiveness of “Resources” is that it makes one think of something one digs from the ground, and since so many minerals and such are rare... Seriously? I'm also thinking of the moment where Sid first sees Vance Elston and describes him internally as Afro-American. Well, the reader knows this is true, that Vance is from Texas, but how does Sid know? Sid is, after all, in England, leading an English crew and expecting someone in from Brussels, not the US. So why Afro-American? That seems to me to be an author desperately wanting to ingratiate himself with a certain demographic. He also tends to carefully point out the race of his characters, which I find troublesome. I've noticed that elsewhere lately there is a trend to avoid the sorts of descriptions that would pinpoint a race; I've read books where I've been almost to the end before reading a specific character is of African or Indian or Asian descent, and I think that sort of “color blindness” is a better way to work things than to so carefully let people know, because honestly? Their race isn't important; their character is. But that's just me. Anyway, for a good example of that sort of non-description, see London Falling by Paul Cornell (review linked here where formatting allowed). While I found the extreme lack of physical description occasionally disorienting, I did appreciate that the author didn't constantly mention the races of his characters.I noticed that some weird things have changed by 2143, 130 years in the future. For instance, the word cafetière is now spelled cafeteer instead of French press. The waters of the Tyne manage to avoid freezing despite a long stretch of sub-zero temperatures (although the waterfall on the North property does freeze). But people apparently still use the term “WTF”. Fascinating.I had a difficult time engaging with this book initially. I was almost a third of the way through it before it really grabbed my attention, and that took me three days. There was no specific fault that caused this, I just kept finding my mind drifting away, finding myself re-reading sections over and over again to try to make them stick. The typical Hamilton approach of throwing huge casts at the reader certainly doesn't help, as it makes it difficult to really connect to any specific person right away. However, the advantage to the length of the book is that even with this method, eventually all the characters are introduced and developed and the reader can begin to understand them.That said, once it caught me, it really caught me, and as I mentioned above, this story probably had the best-done ending of any Peter F. Hamilton book I've read thus far (and I've read a number of them). If you, like me, enjoy his writing style but are continually frustrated by the ending, you'll be pleasantly surprised by this one. I would like to know the meaning and history behind the happenings in the final chapter, but life isn't always tied up in a neat bow, and even the best-told story will leave questions if done properly. Overall I can recommend the story. If you're interested, check it out.Disclosure: I received a paperback ARC from the Amazon Vine program in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.Synopsis: A century from now, thanks to a technology allowing instantaneous travel across light-years, humanity has solved its energy shortages, cleaned up the environment, and created far-flung colony worlds. The keys to this empire belong to the powerful North family—composed of successive generations of clones. Yet these clones are not identical. For one thing, genetic errors have crept in with each generation. For another, the original three clone “brothers” have gone their separate ways, and the branches of the family are now friendly rivals more than allies.Or maybe not so friendly. At least that’s what the murder of a North clone in the English city of Newcastle suggests to Detective Sidney Hurst. Sid is a solid investigator who’d like nothing better than to hand off this hot potato of a case. The way he figures it, whether he solves the crime or not, he’ll make enough enemies to ruin his career.Yet Sid’s case is about to take an unexpected turn: because the circumstances of the murder bear an uncanny resemblance to a killing that took place years ago on the planet St. Libra, where a North clone and his entire household were slaughtered in cold blood. The convicted slayer, Angela Tramelo, has always claimed her innocence. And now it seems she may have been right. Because only the St. Libra killer could have committed the Newcastle crime.Problem is, Angela also claims that the murderer was an alien monster.Now Sid must navigate through a Byzantine minefield of competing interests within the police department and the world’s political and economic elite . . . all the while hunting down a brutal killer poised to strike again. And on St. Libra, Angela, newly released from prison, joins a mission to hunt down the elusive alien, only to learn that the line between hunter and hunted is a thin one.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Amazingly detailed work by Peter. Among the best in hard science fiction writers, Peter Hamilton manages to build a remarkable story around energy, ecology, and space exploration.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Police drama, mystery, military action, aliens, and expansive world building, all packed together in a 900+ page science fiction epic. Peter F. Hamilton just can't do small! And I'm all the happier for it.This is a must read book if you are a fan of science fiction and Peter F. Hamilton proves again why he is among the top ranked current sci-fi writers. As usual, Hamilton goes to great lengths to build a unique world/universe and populate it with aliens very different from the typical sci-fi genre space dwellers. This is a very difficult task, because in reality any aliens we are likely to meet in the real world would have developed along completely independent evolutionary lines and are not going to be like us at all. And to create this in science fiction, to develop something that doesn't even think like humans, is a very hard task indeed. Mr. Hamilton does it better than most, at least for what can be expected from a human brain.I also found the near future police detective work to be absolutely fascinating. It was a real exploration of what it might be like to investigate a crime in a world filled with fancy surveillance equipment and tools, many of which were things that are just now making an appearance in our real world, for example, smart dust. It also explored the possible ways to counter such surveillance as the bad guys sure didn't make it easy for our detectives. And over-all, it was neat to see how this was then worked into the larger story and the military expedition to find an alien who may was implicated in the crime the detectives were investigating.The are several characters to follow in this one and the back-story of many of them is intertwined throughout the book. There was at least one character that I felt was not really necessary to the story, but it didn't hurt anything to include; just seemed a little useless, like it was a character who was underdeveloped, started but never really finished being fleshed out. I'll leave it to you to figure out which one.The ending: it was expansive enough to allow Mr. Hamilton to return to this universe again is he chooses to do so, but final enough that this book can stand on it's own without any further follow-up.I strongly recommend this one and felt it was well worth the time invested; I'm still feeling the after shock of finishing a book where you can't stop feeling like your still in that world.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This is a great book.Sci-fi in that there aliens, other planets, is in the distant future but basically it is a detective/mystery story.The plot is super, characters good, writing great and a hard to put down read.Highly recommend it and plan to read this authors other books.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is a very large door-stopper size book -- something you won't get through in an evening or two. It really had several different story lines that could almost have been split off into separate books. That being said, all of the story lines held my interest and remarkably kept me from putting down such a large tome unfinished. Really should have been called 'Angela vs. the Norths' or something along that line as the book really was about her; even though it starts off being a police investigation headed by Sid Hurst. Very good tech throughout, although it was portrayed as being somewhat unstable and easy to hack which doesn't feel right for the year 2143. Sure, we can pick on some plot flaws, but all and all a solid book.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This is a book about (and almost for) children, and family care. Some of the technology is interesting and the mix of new and old is convincing, if somewhat biased towards the old (chocolate-orange bourbons being passed around on a strange planet, for example). It is overly long. Many scenes are padded with an initial ten pages or so of a character thinking and doing very ordinary things before something happens to move the story along. The story and plot tend to lack dynamism. A (very) long drive through the snow becomes focused on endless worries about supplies. The characters tend to the one-dimensional. They are almost all very concerned with care for children to an obsessive extent - even a planet is concerned with care to an extreme. It feels as if an ordinary book about families in the present is struggling to break out from the tech veneer.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Huge book about a murder mystery with clones, mixed in with interstellar colonization in the near-mid term future. Very interesting ideas and well written with lots of flashback to explain the past.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I will edit this from a larger mobile device soon.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I like science fiction and I like murder mysteries so you can guess where this review is going right away. The whole book was a blast as far as I was concerned, just as if Peter Hamilton had written it to my specifications. In fact I spent the time everyone does trying to anticipate "who done it" knowing it was science fiction, and missed the mark. Not that the ending is unbelievable, by definintion as it is sci-fi, is probably will be, but in good murder mystery fashion, didn't see it coming. It is long, it is complicated; it has lots of characters, all pluses in my opinion. Thoughtfully tied together in a complete package by the last page which in good style makes you wonder if there could be more. Great book!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    It's a sci-fi thriller that is way overstretched and bloated. I found too many plot lines and characters. Having said that the writing is good, main characters are well developed, future world'd description is excellent so it doesn't take much for the reader to feel at home. The mystery is also good - I just wish it wouldn't be so long and sometimes slow.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Book Review - Great North Road by Peter F. HamiltonGreat North Road Peter F. Hamilton Trade Paperback Publisher: Del Rey Publication Date: January 1, 2013 ISBN-13: 978-0345526663 951 pages Advance Reader’s Copy In Great North Road, Peter F. Hamilton’s epic space opera, clones are featured not as slaves or second class citizens, like in Blade-Runner, Gattaca, or The Island, but as the ruling class. The North family is a large corporation of elite and wealthy clones who have built the most powerful interstellar empire ever conceived. When Sid Hurst, a frazzled but competent homicide detective, is called to investigate the brutal murder of an unidentified North he knows he’s in for a sobering ride. Worse yet, two decades ago another North was slain in the exact same manner but the woman convicted and imprisoned for that murder, Angela Tramelo, has spent the past twenty years proclaiming her innocence and could not have committed the most recent crime. The murder investigation moves from Newcastle-upon-Tyne to an expedition into the wilderness of the planet St. Libra, light years away. But St. Libra, a sanctuary for one North clan, has never been fully surveyed and the flora and fauna are not only unusual but dangerous. Could an alien killer be hiding on St. Libra? Why would it kill one of the most powerful family members in the known universe? And just what did Angela Tramelo see on the night of the first North murder? Obvious successor to Arthur C. Clarke, Robert A. Heinlein, and Philip K. Dick, Peter F. Hamilton is hands down the absolute best world-builder and space-opera writer in the business. And, as in most of his other works, the cast of characters and storylines are legion. However, that is not a criticism. On the contrary, Hamilton integrates storylines and subplots with his characters as skillfully as any writer working today and there is little chance of the reader getting lost or losing the flow of the story. As always, Hamilton presents solid science and great speculative technology into this story. Interstellar space travel, a city covered with a virtual computer mesh that can be re-wound and reviewed for criminal activity, and a complex system of habitable planets are just a few of the Science Fiction themes Hamilton employs in this story. Great North Road weighs in at an impressive 951 pages so this is not for the quick read or instant gratification Science Fiction crowd. It is a stand alone novel (for the moment) and finishes without that cliff-hanging, sequel-in-the-wings ending that’s so common in today’s serial-minded world. It is typical well-crafted Peter F. Hamilton so if you are already a fan you’ll enjoy this. If you’re not then I suggest you read Great North Road anyway. When you’re done you will be a fan… File with: Space Opera, Arthur C. Clarke, epic Science Fiction, Robert A. Heinlein, speculative fiction, Jack Chalker, murder mystery, interstellar space travel, Jack McDevitt, speculative technology, planetary expeditions, and clones.4 ½ out of 5 StarsThe Alternative Southeast Wisconsin
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I had high hopes for this book when I saw it was a mystery since I really enjoyed his Greg Mandel books. If you don’t mind tons of flashbacks and how many of the characters end up knowing one another it is a very long but entertaining read. I did get the feeling that several minor plotlines could have been cut out and not hurt the storyline one bit. All in all an enjoyable read even if it was a bit long.

    digital review copy provided by Netgalley
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Great North Road is a sweeping science fiction novel set in the near distant future-- a world remarkably like and unlike our own. It masterfully dances between being a police procedural, a lost patrol, a mystery, a romance, and a hard sci-fi tale. As the novel opens a murder of one of the North family (almost all a series of clones due to their father Kane North’s military injury) launches a police investigation in Newcastle. Similarities tie back to the murder of Bartram North on the planet Saint Libra twenty years prior and soon the government, military, and multiple planets are pulled into investigations both of the murder and of St Libra’s uncharted northern continent. Questions remain about the lush world where the first massacre occurred, and while some of the evidence points to corporate espionage for the current murder, the idea of intelligent life on St. Libra and an alien attack soon gains momentum among various government agencies. Angela Tramelo, convicted of the first murder, joins the exploration group to try to locate the creature she saw kill the household around her. Augustine North in Newcastle is desperately searching for answers as the 2North who died in his city cannot be identified. No Norths are missing. On his Jupiter facility Constantine North begins to launch his own investigation into the mysteries, something he has been preparing for since his brother Bartram’s murder, for he has long been certain of Angela’s innocence and of the likelihood of intelligent life on St. Libra.The main storylines (Sid Hurst’s police arc, Vance Elson’s exploration group with Angela, Saul’s village community in Abellia, and the various A, B, and C Norths) are fascinating and slowly fit together into an incredible picture. The universe is beautifully and thoughtfully constructed, and Hamilton thrusts readers into it trusting them to be smart enough to follow along, slowly learning bits and pieces about the people connected to the investigations now and the massacre twenty years ago as they search for answers and as politicians search for truths that fit their respective paradigms. The Norths are fascinating, both Augustine’s corporate family, Brinkelle’s (Bartram’s daughter’s) medical experts, and Constantine’s technological geniuses who have chosen a life without money focused on knowledge and exploration.Brilliant, exciting, fast paced (even as groups slog through the grueling investigation), and beautifully constructed, Great North Road is a fascinating read. The plot lines are carefully interwoven and the mysteries remain as elusive for the readers as they are for (some of?) the characters. Everything is well thought out, however, and as the story closes things begin to come together for the reader as they do for the characters.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Excellent book, long and detailed but that just makes it more enjoyable. An uncrushed story.

    I liked all the arcs, and alternative views and story lines linking into the whole. I hope there will be a further book linking into the new world and characters / technology.

    Well worth it, and glad I have a kindle. The book must weigh a tonne!
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Hamilton spends nearly 1000 pages telling a fantastic story that could be told in 400. Hamilton's world involves clones, chromosonal fountains of youth, colonization, discovery of aliens, and many other classic tropes. The mystery part of the story is fantastic and the reveal is very well done. The role of the multiple main characters in the story is built little-by-little in a fashion where the reader is left wanting and wondering at the end of each chapter. The problem is that an editor should have helped him pare it down by half. It tended to drag during the middle 50% of the book. All-in-all I am anxious to read more written by this author.