Great North Road - BookWyrm

Coffee reviewed Great North Road by Peter F. Hamilton

A solid sci-fi whodunit

4 stars

If you can find it in you to overlook the fact that Hamilton is very clearly a conservative white English man, and subsequently ignore everything that stems from that fact, this book can be highly enjoyable. I stumbled across this book right around the time I watched Knives Out for the Nth time and got a sudden craving for a space whodunit. I had already read Sundiver by that time so that ship had sailed, and this was the next in the list of recommendations. This book absolutely delivered on that specific front (of being a space whodunit; there was space, and somebody dun did it), and boy did it take me a while to get through on account of the astonishing 1000 pages of non-stop worldbuilding. Speaking of worldbuilding, it's on the more detailed side. Locations, technology, little slice-of-life scenes help this world appear more grounded, and the 50-something …

If you can find it in you to overlook the fact that Hamilton is very clearly a conservative white English man, and subsequently ignore everything that stems from that fact, this book can be highly enjoyable. I stumbled across this book right around the time I watched Knives Out for the Nth time and got a sudden craving for a space whodunit. I had already read Sundiver by that time so that ship had sailed, and this was the next in the list of recommendations. This book absolutely delivered on that specific front (of being a space whodunit; there was space, and somebody dun did it), and boy did it take me a while to get through on account of the astonishing 1000 pages of non-stop worldbuilding. Speaking of worldbuilding, it's on the more detailed side. Locations, technology, little slice-of-life scenes help this world appear more grounded, and the 50-something characters that Hamilton pushes around mostly act consistently with their described personality and make use of the information that is available to them.

Shepy reviewed Great North Road by Peter F. Hamilton

Review of 'Great North Road' on 'Storygraph'

1 star

Painfully slow and dreary, and the author has some strange need to name everywhere in the North East. One paragraph named like 5 roads on Team Valley. I get naming some local places to anchor it with the reader, but this goes way beyond that. Read the Tyne And Wear A-Z very slowly and you'll have more fun.

DepressedDragon reviewed Great North Road by Peter F. Hamilton

Review of 'Great North Road' on 'Goodreads'

2 stars

DNF. Dull characters makes it a chore to read. I could not care less about any of them. The world is boring, lacking any kind of originality.

n-gons reviewed Great North Road by Peter F. Hamilton

Review of 'Great North Road' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

I loved it. Nice that it was not part one of X either.

OrangutansLibrary reviewed Great North Road by Peter F. Hamilton

Review of 'Great North Road' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

I came into this book having enjoyed Hamilton's Commenwealth series. Great North Road doesn't disappoint, giving a well realised future world with plausible future technologies and the societal dilemmas that come from them.

The overall story is enjoyable, but it is a little over-long. As with his previous books, there are multiple story arcs at play that reveal the whole story over time. In this book my favourite arc was (by far) the future-tech detective story on earth. Unfortunately the other arc set off-world was less successful; it ended up being over-long and there were too many moments where the inability of the characters to put 1 and 1 together to make 2 became very frustrating; it almost seemed like excuses to help pad the story out further for a few more action packed scenes.

Despite mild reservations, overall the book is a success and enjoyable; I would still definitely …

I came into this book having enjoyed Hamilton's Commenwealth series. Great North Road doesn't disappoint, giving a well realised future world with plausible future technologies and the societal dilemmas that come from them.

The overall story is enjoyable, but it is a little over-long. As with his previous books, there are multiple story arcs at play that reveal the whole story over time. In this book my favourite arc was (by far) the future-tech detective story on earth. Unfortunately the other arc set off-world was less successful; it ended up being over-long and there were too many moments where the inability of the characters to put 1 and 1 together to make 2 became very frustrating; it almost seemed like excuses to help pad the story out further for a few more action packed scenes.

Despite mild reservations, overall the book is a success and enjoyable; I would still definitely recommend it. The story and characters are great, it's just that the story could have been cut down in places in a way that would have actually improved it overall.