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May 27, 2002 - Peter F. Hamilton
The Great Hour 25 Disk Crash of 2002 - An Update
As you can imagine having a hard disk crash that obliterated all of the Hour 25 files has caused us more than a few problems. I've recovered some information from backups that were none too current and other stuff has been directly recovered from the Hour 25 site. {I continue to work digital necromancy on the disk that failed and hope to recover the information trapped there, but there is no guarantee of success in this venture.} The Great Hour 25 Disk Crash of 2002 - An Update
Unfortunately some important information is still missing in action. I have not managed to recover the Hour 25 Newsletter mailing list or the entries for the "Karen Wilson Five Word Challenge". {Also missing in action are some pictures I took of Peter Hamilton when he was here in LA.}
It would be very helpful if subscribers to the Hour 25 Newsletter would send resend your email addresses to me {wwjames@earthlink.net} so I can start to reconstitute the Hour 25 Newsletter mailing list. {This is especially important for subscribers who had previously used "excite@home" for their mail service, since that access provider no longer exists.} I may yet recover the last version of the mailing list, but that could take some time. Resubscribing to the free Newsletter would be the fastest way for us to get back in touch.
In the same vein, if you sent in an entry for the Karen Willson Five Word Challenge, now would be a good time for you to fish around in your "sent mail" folder and resend your entry. I may recover the entry you sent in earlier, but who knows how long that is going to take. {And please put "Five Word Challenge" or some approximation thereof in the subject line of your email to make it easy for me to keep track of your entry.}
In addition to dealing with the lost files, we are also working with all of the issues associated with having a production machine go down. I have other computers, but each one is generally tasked with a specific part of the Hour 25 operation - or it is used for other non-Hour 25 work, such as doing orbital mechanics and trajectory design - and their software configurations have evolved to be very task specific. Thus, there is a certain amount of busy work associated with getting the applications and data together on a new machine. And along with all this I am having to set up another computer with DSL access to the 'net. None of these things take a particularly long time, but when you throw in teaching college, designing launch vehicles and trying to get new shows up.... Wow, has the work ever expanded to fill all of the available time.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled, though delayed, broadcast of Hour 25.
This Week - Peter F. Hamilton
On Monday - May 27th, 2002 - our guest was Peter F. Hamilton, author of Fallen Dragon, one of the best books I've read in a long time.|
There is a short list of SF authors that I have wanted to interview but who, due to issues of schedule or geography, have not yet appeared on Hour 25. Up near the top of that list was Peter F. Hamilton. Why is this, you might ask? Perhaps it is because his stories have an imaginative sweep that matches the best of Golden Age science fiction. {Favorable comparisons with Clarke, Asimov, Heinlein, Hamilton, Niven, Anderson and others come to mind quite easily.} Or perhaps it is because his novels have well crafted characters, dialog that rings true, interesting situations, and that he never takes the easy way out when trying to bring a story to its resolution. Or perhaps it is because his stories have an air of scientific verisimilitude that makes me believe his stories are happening in a real place, not just in his imagination. Or it might be because he cares enough to do the background research needed to get the details about the science and technology correct and never yanks me out of the reality of his story by getting some bit of science stupidly wrong. Well, it could be any of those things... but naw. It's 'cause he writes cracking good stories. Having said that you can imagine how excited I was when I found out that he would be passing through Los Angeles on a book tour a few weeks ago. And you can imagine how frustrated I was when I came down with a killer case of laryngitis not long before he was scheduled to be here. And so I gathered up the Hour 25 portable recording studio, lubricated my voice, prepared to talk softly and went over to his hotel for a delightful chat about his books and writing. I'm pleased to present that interview for you tonight. |
 Cover Copyright © 2002 by Warner Books  Peter Hamilton Copyright © Robin Farquar-Thompson |
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Peter Hamilton started writing science fiction in the late 1980's, selling his short stories to a series of magazines that - as he said - folded as fast as he could send them stories. His first novel, Mindstar Rising, - a science fiction mystery featuring a freelance operative with modest telepathic abilities provided by an implant he received while in the military - was published in 1993. This book combined many of the tropes of cyberpunk while having a technological bent reminiscent of Golden Age science fiction and announced the arrival of a major new talent. He followed this in short order with two more novels featuring Greg Mandel - A Quantum Murder and The Nano Flower. However Peter truly made a name for himself with the publication of the first book in his Night's Dawn trilogy - The Reality Dysfunction. This was a modern interpretation of classic space opera with all the sweep and spectacle associated with galaxy spanning epics, while having the literary qualities required by contemporary science fiction. Here was a story that featured two groups of humanity with very different approaches to technology - both cybernetic and biological - set in a universe with hundreds of populated planets and assorted alien races. From this starting point you discover a number of major characters and numerous minor characters, all tied together with various plots and sub-plots. But this is just the background for the story. For in this story the dead are coming back to life and fighting with the living for the control of the galaxy. As Peter says, this story is about discovering the answer to the ultimate question and finding out that the answer sucks. True to the nature of epic fiction the first book in this series was quite long and when it appeared in paperback it had to be broken into two books - The Reality Dysfunction : Emergence and The Reality Dysfunction: Expansion. Peter continued the Night's Dawn trilogy with The Neutronium Alchemist {appearing in two paperbacks as The Neutronium Alchemist : Consolidation and The Neutronium Alchemist : Conflict} where the stakes of the conflict grow and new characters join the story. He concluded the trilogy in fine form with The Naked God, which appeared in paperback as The Naked God : Flight and The Naked God : Faith. When the series was finished and more than a million words had passed before our eyes there was no question that Peter Hamilton was a major writer and someone who would shape the field of science fiction. These books are most highly recommended. Peter's latest book - Fallen Dragon - lives up to the high standard set by his earlier books. In this book we follow the interlocking stories of Lawrence Newton, Denise Ebourn and Simon Roderick as fate and personal choice bring them into conflict. Peter shows his skill as a writer by mixing multiple viewpoints and stories unfolding decades apart while never leaving the reader confused about what is happening or who is the focus of the story. {And he does this without resorting to starting each chapter with a date and location tag.} This literary technique worked most effectively when we saw Lawrence Newton as the young son of a rich and powerful father falling in love for the first time. The fact that we knew he would lose his love, as well as forfeit his position in society, did nothing to dilute the sadness of his loss. If anything, knowing the inevitability of his loss made it that much sadder. Set in a world where the corporate forces of Earth have turned their back on exploration and turned instead to the plundering of Earth's interstellar colonies, the characters of this book must make choices about how they will make their way through the world they were born into. Lawrence tries to follow his dreams of interstellar exploration and finds them twisted into corporate piracy. Simon Roderick knows the world he's helping to maintain cannot last long and he does what he thinks he must do to hold civilization together, even as he doubts the ultimate morality of what he is doing. And as for Denise Ebourn... lets just say that she too has a dream and she'll do anything to make it come true. The stories of these people twist around each other like strands of a rope, sometimes reinforcing, sometimes cutting, but always connected, always making the whole greater than the sum of its parts. Fallen Dragon is a story not to be missed. It is a tale of worlds strange and wondrous; of questions about what it means to be human; of dreams lost and dreams come true; of finding that getting your dreams is not the same as having those dreams; and of discovering that in a cold universe made colder by human cruelty the one thing that will carry you though life is being willing to give everything you have for the one you love. Most highly recommended. Don't miss this book. |
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| Covers Copyright © 1996-2000 by Warner Books | ||
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A Note About The Skylark of Space, The Lensman and other topics. During this interview Peter and I could not remember exactly when Doc Smith's Lensman series had been written. Peter thought they had come out in the '40s and I thought they had first appeared in the '20s. When Suzanne came across this confusion while editing the show she went off and researched the publication dates for the stories and found that Peter and I were both sort of right and sort of .... er, not right. The Lensman stories were first conceived during the 1920's and the first one - Galactic Patrol - appeared in magazine form in Astounding Science Fiction in 1937. The other stories appeared in science fiction magazines throughout the late 30's and '40s. Triplanetary had first appeared in magazine form in Amazing Stories in 1934 but at that time was not a part of the Lensman Series. When it appeared in book form in 1948 it was revised to fit into the Lensman Universe. The other Lensman stories appeared in book form between 1950 and 1960. The Skylark series was written earlier. The first book - The Skylark of Space - was written between 1915 and 1920 and appeared in Amazing Stories in 1928. The other three Skylark stories appeared in various science fiction magazines with the last one - Skylark DuQuesne - appearing in the early '60s. The Skylark of Space first appeared in book form in 1946 and in revised book form in 1958. The other Skylark books appeared in the '40s and '60s. So there you have it. The Great-Grandfather of all the galaxy spanning Space Operas took form as an idea during World War I and evolved over the next half century of development in science and science fiction. If you haven't read these books, you should. Then you'll know the debt of honor owed by people like George Lucas when they tell their stories of Galactic Empires and conflict between alien races. And they're a fun read too. The entire Lensman series is available as a set of trade paperbacks that duplicate the original Fantasy Press books and is available from Old Earth Books. These books include the original illustrations and have introductions by noted SF historian and critic, John Clute. A very nice trade paperback edition of the 1958 version of The Skylark of Space has been released under the Bison Books imprint of the University of Nebraska Press. This edition also includes the illustrations from the original edition and features an introduction by Vernor Vinge - a man who has had notable success in building galaxy-spanning empires. All of these books are most highly recommended. |
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Peter F. Hamilton
Concerning the Hugos and Nebulas For On-Going Updates on Space News ISS News | |||
Hour 25 Disk Crash
Just as I was getting ready to upload the last files for the May 3 show the computer used to create the Hour 25 web pages had a hard disk crash. {Note: this disk crash does not affect the server used to distribute Hour 25 over the net.} This destroyed the web pages that were in work, the archive of old pages, all current email and the Hour 25 Newsletter distribution list. {It is also playing hob with my internet and email access.} Some data is safe on backups, but like everyone else, my backups are not as current as they should be. I'll be spending the coming days doing disk necromancy to try and recover the lost information from my hard drive. I have managed to recover the files needed for the May 3 show and have uploaded them on April 11. Now I am trying to recover the show's Newsletter Mailing List and other related materials. There won't be a new edition of the Newsletter for a while so please let your friends know that the new show is up. And keep coming back for updates. We will shortly have all of these problems fixed and will be back to normal operations. {I'm also going to come up with a foolproof backup scheme. Backing everything up on mirrored drives or using a RAID now seems like a great idea.}
This Week - Laurell K. HamiltonOn Friday - May 3rd, 2002 - our guest was Laurell K. Hamilton, author of A Caress of Twilight, the latest book in her Meredith Gentry series of novels.Writing fantasy can be quite the challenge because the author has to create a universe, establish the rules for how everything works in that universe, come up with a history for that universe and populate it with interesting characters. And then they have convey this information to the reader without having it get in the way of the story. And when the author tries to write a mystery novel set in that fantasy universe they have an even bigger challenge, because now they have to work within the well established rules for the things you can and cannot do when writing a mystery novel. |
 Laurell Hamilton photo by Lauretta Allen courtesy of Laurell K. Hamilton |
 Cover Copyright © 2002 by Ballantine Books |
You'd think that Laurell Hamilton could have picked something easier to do when she set out to be a novelist. But no, she had to try her hand at this fantasy/mystery/thriller genre. But it's a good thing for us that she did, because she has turned out to be a master of this unique type of story telling. Her books all wrap mysteries in a carefully crafted universe and present us with a cast of characters from both sides of the line that divides the real from the imaginary. {At least you hope that her characters are only imaginary.} Her newest book A Caress of Twilight carries on this fine tradition with another story featuring Meredith Gentry - Faerie Princess and Private Investigator. In this book Meredith must fend off those who seek to kill her, while trying to solve a series of murders and facing down an ancient evil that threatens the very fabric of reality. |
Note : If you are a subscriber to the Hour 25 Newsletter and have been using "excite@home" you will need to send me an email at wwjames@earthlink.net with your new address. Be sure to include your old email address so I can properly update the newsletter mailing list. And if you're not on the mailing list, now would be a good time to sign up.
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