The Dreaming Void

I'd rate this a 4.5 stars if I could. 2 stories in 1. A big scifi story and a fantasy story. Both entertaining. Looking forward to the next in the trilogy.

Executive Summary: A decent story in Mr. Hamilton's Commonwealth universe, but not as satisfying as the original Duology.Audio book: I really enjoy John Lee's reading voice. It seems to fit well with the universe. He doesn't really stick out to me as someone who does a lot of voices and accents for the characters, but at the same time I wouldn't want anyone else to read this series.Full ReviewI really enjoyed [b:Pandora's Star 45252 Pandora's Star (Commonwealth Saga, #1) Peter F. Hamilton https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347952635s/45252.jpg 987015] and [b:Judas Unchained 45244 Judas Unchained (Commonwealth Saga, #2) Peter F. Hamilton https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1316501189s/45244.jpg 44507] when I listened to them last year. I was happy to discover he had a follow-on series. Now that he's got ANOTHER new Commonwealth series coming out this year, I figured I should finally get around to this one.So far this one feels more like a fantasy book than sci-fi in many places, especially Edeard's story. This is set 1200 years after the events of [b:Judas Unchained 45244 Judas Unchained (Commonwealth Saga, #2) Peter F. Hamilton https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1316501189s/45244.jpg 44507], but thanks to technology, we get to revisit some of the characters from that series. That was really awesome for me as the original series had some characters I really liked. Not everyone I was hoping to catch up with show up, but maybe in one of next two books. I did love how some of characters use Ozzie's name all the time as a part of speech.For the most part however, it's a new cast of characters, though some of them are distantly related to characters from the previous series. There seem to be three main story lines, but a bunch of smaller ones.Edeard's started a little slow, but probably was my favorite by the end. “Aaron”'s story was pretty good overall, but there were a few slow parts. Araminta's story on the other hand was more miss than hit. A lot of it felt like self-fulfilling male sexual fantasy that seemed to add little to the overall plot.The book suffers a bit from too many characters/story lines that made it hard to follow at first, especially in audio. Eventually I got my bearings though, but I still was wondering exactly how all the stories are going to tie together.I think maybe if I had read this and could have flipped back to early parts to check names of people/places and confirm some theories, but since I can't I found myself a bit confused at the end to. I expect things to be made more clear in the next book and be spelled out for me, whereas someone more on top of things than I am will have it all figured out already.Overall I thought it was a decent book, and I'll definitely continue on, but I hope he'll focus less on certain aspects from this book in the next one.3.5 Stars rounded down.

Great start to an amazing trilogy.