Book Entry · Science Fiction

Great North Road

by Peter F. Hamilton · 2012

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What is Great North Road about?

Newcastle, 2143: a North clone — one of an industrial dynasty of brothers — is found murdered with the signature of a monster officially dismissed twenty years earlier, when Angela Tramelo was convicted for identical killings on the gateway world St Libra and insisted, throughout, that something alien did it. Detective Sidney Hurst's procedural (HVN-casework, budget meetings, canteen politics — Hamilton does future policing with loving sociological detail) interleaves with a military expedition into St Libra's vast bioluminescent jungle, where Angela, released as bait, waits to be vindicated. A thousand-page standalone that earns the length.

Why it matters

Hamilton's best-regarded standalone: proof the mega-novel could be a murder mystery, and a regular answer to 'where do I start with Hamilton without committing to a trilogy?'

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