Fallen Dragon
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- €7.99
Publisher Description
Lawrence Newton always dreamed of adventure amongst the stars. Now the ultimate prize is within his grasp. But what will he risk to get it? Fallen Dragon is a classic standalone novel by science fiction star Peter F. Hamilton. For fans of Iain M. Banks and Alastair Reynolds.
‘The owner of the most powerful imagination in science fiction’ – Ken Follett, author of The Pillars of the Earth
Lawrence is the sergeant of a washed-out platoon, taking part in the bungled invasion of yet another human colony world. The giant corporations call such campaigns ‘asset realization’. In practice, it’s simple piracy.
When he’s on the ground, being shot at and firebombed by resistance forces, he recalls stories of the Temple of the Fallen Dragon. Its priests supposedly guard a treasure hoard large enough to buy lifelong happiness. So Lawrence decides to mount a dangerous private-enterprise operation of his own.
‘Hamilton handles massive ideas with enviable ease’ – Guardian
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This hefty novel of interstellar war and alien contact in the 25th century, a sort of Starship Troopers as if written by Charles Dickens, ranks as one of Hamilton's best. Though he's a mercenary for the Zantiu-Braun corporation, which gets its profits by periodically looting old interstellar colonies, Lawrence Newton has his eye on picking up a treasure trove of alien technology noton his employer's approved list of loot. When the Zantiu-Braun Third Fleet descends on the planet Thrallspring, the invaders unexpectedly find the inhabitants, who have access to some of that lost alien technology, prepared to fight back. After several hundred pages of well-depicted action and intrigue, the technology of the "dragons" makes the war superfluous, a definite victory for all opponents of the corporate pirates. It also makes it possible for Newton himself to travel in both time and space, and to put right the mishandling of a youthful love affair that forced him into exile in the first place. Ignoring conventional wisdom about expository lumps, flashbacks and viewpoint shifts, Hamilton (The Reality Dysfunction) nicely develops character while he also does some fine world building that's as good as it gets in space opera short of Lois McMaster Bujold. Despite the somewhat uneven pacing, the book is undeniably a page-turner and should provide many absorbing hours for the author's existing readers as well as a salutary introduction to a major SF author for a new audience.
