The Dreaming Void-Quality Guarantee

Description

Reviewers exhaust superlatives when it comes to the science fiction of Peter . His complex and engaging novels, which span thousands of years–and light-years–areas intellectually stimulating as they are emotionally fulfilling. Now, with The DreamingVoid, the first volume in a trilogy set in the same far-futureas his acclaimed Commonwealth saga, Hamilton has created another ambitious and grippingspace epic.

The year is 3589, fifteen hundred years after Commonwealth forcesbarely staved off human extinction in a war against the alien Prime. Now an evengreater danger has surfaced: a threat to the existence of the universe itself.

Atthe very heart of the galaxy is the Void, a self-contained microuniverse that cannotbe breached, cannot be destroyed, and cannot be stopped as it steadily expands inall directions, consuming everything in its path: planets, stars, Void has existed for untold millions of years. Even the oldest and most technologicallyadvanced 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 dreamingof human beings who live within it. Inigo’s dreams reveal a world in which thoughtsbecome actions and dreams become reality. Inside the Void, Inigo sees paradise. Thanksto the gaiafield, a neural entanglement wired into most humans, Inigo’s dreams areshared by hundreds of millions–and a religion, the Living Dream, is born, with Inigoas its prophet. But then he vanishes.

Suddenly there is a new wave of dreams. Dreamsbroadcast by an unknown Second Dreamer serve as the inspiration for a massive Pilgrimageinto the Void. But there is a chance that by attempting to enter the Void, the pilgrimswill trigger a catastrophic expansion, an accelerated devourment phase that willswallow up thousands of worlds.

And thus begins a desperate race to find Inigoand the mysterious Second Dreamer. Some seek to prevent the Pilgrimage; others tospeed its progress–while within the Void, a supreme entity has turned its gaze, forthe first time, outward. . . .