The Reality Dysfunction by Peter F. Hamilton

A Second Chance at Eden (coll 2004) comprises stories set in the Night's Dawn universe (some modified since first publication to fit this background) and exploring such devices as the quasitelepathic 'affinity' link between the Confederation's adapted humans and their machinery, including AIs. Through long lines of story, Inventions, Cosmology, Horror in SF and Space Opera tropes jostle massively though the detail work is sometimes so sketchy as to seem exiguous, the scale and romping good humour of the enterprise are unassailable. Larger-scale weapons include the Alchemist of book two, which employs artificial Gravity fields to either detonate or extinguish Suns. Humanity's galactic Confederation is menaced by a fast-expanding army of the returned dead who possess living bodies – Reincarnation via Identity Transfer mediated by Torture – and wield powers equivalent to advanced Confederation hand- Weapons. Hamilton came into his own with the Night's Dawn or Confederation trilogy comprising The Reality Dysfunction ( 1996), The Neutronium Alchemist ( 1997 ) and The Naked God ( 1999 ), where an extremely broad-gauge imagination is freed. Mandel's incursions into the Cyberpunk-flavoured world are violent and jagged. His first series – the Greg Mandel sequence comprising Mindstar Rising ( 1993), A Quantum Murder ( 1994) – both assembled as The Mandel Files, Volume 1 (omni 2011) – and The Nano Flower ( 1995) – features an ex-commando investigator with the power of Telepathy, operating in a Near Future Great Britain altered by global warming (see Climate Change). Though he is best known for his Space Operas – typically massive volumes arrayed in series – he has published several short stories of note, including 'The Suspect Genome' (June 2000 Interzone) which won a BSFA Award.

His first sale had actually been to Fear but this story, 'Deathday', did not appear until the February 1991 issue. (1960- ) UK author who began to publish work of genre interest with 'Bodywork' for Dream Magazine in September 1990.

The Reality Dysfunction by Peter F. Hamilton