Misspent Youth
Ratings19
Average rating3.1
Horrible. Not an interesting story in the least. Here's hoping the rest of the Commonwealth Saga is more interesting than this sex-obsessed and repetitive prequel.
Not a good book by any means. Hamilton's writing is weak and a bit unpleasant to read. Compound that with a boring story and not much value can be found. Nevertheless, setting the story only a few decades in the future was interesting, if only the comment on England's role in the European Union was not so clearly forced.
I really have to be more careful about reading such erotic books while traveling...
reviews.metaphorosis.com
3.5 stars
The back-cover blurbs would have you believe that this is a Dune/Foundation-level epic. It's not - there's nothing epic about it. But that doesn't mean it's a bad book.
Peter Hamilton is a somewhat uneven writer - from an interesting but not engaging Fallen Dragon to the generally strong The Dreaming Void. Here, he turns his attention and talent to the use of genetic therapy to regeneration and a second youth.
The writing is smooth, the characters interesting and realistic, the science plausible (well, stretched a bit), and the future environment nicely presented. Hamilton credibly captures a near future society and politics, and even some new slang, without irritating. The motivations of the government in responding to the posited society are not entirely clear, but it doesn't get in the way of the story too much.
This is a nice, short novel, but one does wonder whether it might not have been better off as a novella. It's well done, but there's not quite enough story here to make a novel.