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A Second Chance at Eden
by Peter F. Hamilton
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Aspect (1999-01-01)
ISBN: 0446606715
EAN: 9780446606714
Dewy Decimal #: 823.914
Mass Market Paperback: 432 pages
SKU: GD08062632s
Condition: Used: Good
Comments: Exactly as shown, spine is creased. Text clean with NO marks.
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Editorial Reviews
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Amazon.com
This is a superb collection of stories from Peter Hamilton, set in the same universe as his excellent, bestselling epics Reality Dysfunction (Emergence and Expansion) and The Neutronium Alchemist (Consolidation and Conflict). It's hard to pick favorites here, because every one of the stories is superbly plotted, exciting, and full of fresh ideas. The novella "A Second Chance at Eden" is a classic detective story with unpredictable twists and turns. "Escape Route," which also appeared in The Year's Best Science Fiction, marks the reappearance of the starship Lady Macbeth and her crew, who must figure out a xenoc relic before they run afoul of some heavies. Hamilton favorites like bitek, affinity genes, xenocs, and Edenists are threaded throughout the collection, weaving detail into the epic tapestry of his universe. A Second Chance at Eden is perfect for Hamilton aficionados and novices alike. --Therese Littleton
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Product Description
This is a superb collection of stories from Peter Hamilton, set in the same universe as his excellent, bestselling epics Reality Dysfunction (Emergence and Expansion) and The Neutronium Alchemist (Consolidation and Conflict). It's hard to pick favorites here, because every one of the stories is superbly plotted, exciting, and full of fresh ideas. The novella "A Second Chance at Eden" is a classic detective story with unpredictable twists and turns. "Escape Route," which also appeared in The Year's Best Science Fiction, marks the reappearance of the starship Lady Macbeth and her crew, who must figure out a xenoc relic before they run afoul of some heavies. Hamilton favorites like bitek, affinity genes, xenocs, and Edenists are threaded throughout the collection, weaving detail into the epic tapestry of his universe. A Second Chance at Eden is perfect for Hamilton aficionados and novices alike. --Therese Littleton
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Download Description
For new readers of Peter Hamilton, A Second Chance at Eden is a great introduction into the universe of The Reality Dysfunction. For previous readers of The Reality Dysfunction and The Neutronium Alchemist, these stories will keep them happy and eager as they await the final volume of the trilogy, The Naked God.A Second Chance at Eden contains seven stories chronicling the history of the Confederation leading up to the time of Joshua Calvert and Quinn Dexter. They include an explanation in "Escape Route" of why the ship The Lady MacBeth was so beaten up when first seen in The Reality Dysfunction, and further exploration into the affinity technology and its potential in "Sonnie's Edge." Bestselling writer Peter F. Hamilton covers a lot of ground, from challenging his readers with the whodunit novella "A Second Chance at Eden" to the thoughtful, speculative fiction in "The Lives and Loves of Tiarella Rose."
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Customer Reviews
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Not Free SF Reader
Rating  (5)
Date: 2007-11-20
An excellent collection of stories from Hamilton, all based around the setting of his Night's Dawn (Reality Dysfunction et. al) series, and some of them loosely related by location, if not by time.
In fact, the last story, Escape Route, which is also the best, features Joshua Calvert's father Marcus, and the Lady MacBeth.
Definitely of interest to fans of the Confederation.
Second Chance at Eden : SONNIE'S EDGE - Peter F. Hamilton
Second Chance at Eden : A SECOND CHANCE AT EDEN - Peter F. Hamilton
Second Chance at Eden : NEW DAYS OLD TIMES - Peter F. Hamilton
Second Chance at Eden : CANDY BUDS - Peter F. Hamilton
Second Chance at Eden : DEATHDAY - Peter F. Hamilton
Second Chance at Eden : THE LIVES AND LOVES OF TIARELLA ROSA - Peter F. Hamilton
Second Chance at Eden : ESCAPE ROUTE - Peter F. Hamilton
Beastie baiting.
3.5 out of 5
Habitat personality communication.
4 out of 5
Dumping disagreement.
3 out of 5
Memory entertainment trade.
4 out of 5
Chameleon kill love.
4 out of 5
Getting down to Earth.
3.5 out of 5
Old ship find time shift.
4 out of 5
4.5 out of 5
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The most hard sci-fi bang-for-the-bucks ever seen in one book
Rating (5)
Date: 2006-02-07
1 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
Hi,
[Please excuse my tendency to be a little "obscure" when talking about the content of Hamiltons books, this because I hate "spoilers" myself, and thus try very hard not to mention anything that might be considered as such.]
I completely fail to understand why people tend to give this book such low star-ratings, nor why it achieves such a poor sales-rank on Amazon (unless the latter has to do with the book apparantly being out of print, or at least unavailable through Amazon, for how long I don't know?)
In my humble opinion (slightly backed up by the fact that I own some 200+ sci-fi books, most of which I have read several times, and a similar sized collection of other fictional litterature), this is one of the definitive hard sci-fi works of all time, and definitly THE ultimate, single-author collection of short-stories I've ever read.
Yes, I will admit that Hamilton displays a sad tendency to dwell on the (often rather odd-matched, and always larger-than-life, litterally and otherwise) sexual relationships of his main characters. I remember finding this oddly "refreshing" at first (always interesting to hear a good sci-fi writers imaginative views on future sexual practices and "-technologies", since so many writers default to following the Hollywood tradition of leaving such things merely hinted at or often completely unmentioned), but as the same theme is repeated in so many of his works, it DOES tend to become a little boring (verging on the annoying in some titles, although personally I would not count "A Second Chance at Eden" amongst the worst). On the other hand, I'm male, and getting ever older and grimmer in my outlook, so who am I to protest about Hamilton letting me read about such characters not only being heros and such in a techno-freaks utopia, but even getting their wildest, wettest dreams realised?
However, I consider these side-comments on the sex-life of the main characters a minor inconvinience (if any) at most, after all, it's not as if he spends THAT many words on the subject, certainly not relative to the general length of his tomes of exquisite space-opera. I have certainly had to make bigger "allowances" to get well through a number of other, otherwise excellent and much acclaimed, sci-fi works. Try reading any robot-story by Asimov, for instance - Now there is an excercise in "selective reading" for you, be it due the aged (and long since disproven or surpassed) concepts of the involved technology or just Asimovs rather peculiar view on the human psyche.
I find that this, and whatever other minor "oddities" that Hamilton might exhibit in his authorship, is more than compensated for by his wonderful imagination and descriptive, yet not too technical, style (though personally I can't get enough of the tech-stuff, which is why I enjoy reading Niven and Banks just as much as Hamilton).
Specifically, I consider the title-story of this collection of short-stories, "Return to Eden", to be Hamiltons ultimate masterpiece (at least if you take into account the limited number of words in this short-story, compared to most of his other work), and possibly one of the best specimens of hard sci-fi ever written (at least in this format). Rarely have so many novel and utterly exciting and mesmerising concepts of future technology and human society been so expertly presented in a wrapping of a good oldfashioned "locked room" murder mystery.
As far as I remember, it is only in this story, that Hamilton thoroughly explains the technology behind the living, thinking bio-tech habitats that otherwise feature so prominently in many of his works, as he takes us along for a grand tour of many of the habitats facilities during the course of the storyline. It is also here that we get to learn quite a lot about the "implant technology", used and explored in various forms throughout his books, in particular how it came to be, and with a few "twists" as to how the technology is used, that are unique to (or at least introduced in) this story.
Also the first story in the book, "Sonnys Edge", is one I hold dear, for two simple reasons aside from Hamiltons never failing ability to captivate from page one and throughout: The original (and quite ammusing) main concept on which the entire story builds, and the completely unexpected "twist" at the very end (where we discover just what it is that is "Sonnys", the main characters, "Edge" over her fellow competitors in the wonderful and awsome full-contact sport called "Beastie Baiting").
Even if all the remainding short-stories in this collection were complete junk, which they aren't and far from it, I would still rate this book with 5 stars, as each of the two stories mentioned above deserves 5 stars all by themselves (effectivly making this a 10 star collection!)
I would (and have) STRONGLY recommend(ed) this book to anyone new to (or entering) either the sci-fi scene in general, or to hard sci-fi or Peter F. Hamilton specifically. Start by reading "Return to Eden", then proceed with "Sonnys Edge". If you like it so far, you will LOVE most of the larger books and trilogies he's written, even if you might find the remainder of the stories in this particular book a bit below par.
Together with Iain M. Banks and Larry Niven, and the "great old ones", Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke et.al. I place Peter F. Hamilton among the elite of the hard sci-fi scene.
Anonymous.
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Good Stories With One Great Story (with one caveat)
Rating  (4)
Date: 2005-02-26
3 out of 5 customers found this reveiw helpful
First, the good part.
This is a great collection of stories, some ok, most good, and the novella of the same title as the collection (Second Chance at Eden) being a truly great story.
As you can read from other reviews, these stories are told in the same universe as the _Night's Dawn_ trilogy, but also serve as introduction of various concepts that will be introduced in _Night's Dawn_. So it's a great way to ease yourself info the series, or to try out Peter Hamilton's writing style and see if you like him before you plunge into the massive 6 book "trilogy." If you like this collection, you'll certainly like his later series. This is somewhat different from my reaction to reading Hamilton's _Mindstar_ stories where the writing was very different, with excruciating details of every incident, plodding story line and unlikeable characters. Unlike the _Mindstar_ writing, most of the stories move at a fast pace and great concepts are introduced and explored.
Second, the ok part.
There are some weaker stories in the bunch, like the _New Days Old Times_ which struck me as a social lecture on intolerance rather than being a good story, parts of _Candy Buds_ and _Deathday_ where there was way too much emphasis on getting to the point and exploration of a character that we don't like (sort of like _Mindstar_...), but these are more than made up for the gripping stories and mind-expanding ideas shown in _Sonnie's Edge_, _The Lives and Loves of Tiarella Rose_, _Escape Route_ and finally, clearly the best of the lot, _A Second Chance at Eden_. If anything, you should get the collection just to read that one story which takes up about half the book.
You have to judge Hamilton by the _Second Chance_ story. If you don't like that, you probably won't like the rest of the Hamilton corpus. If you love it, then it's a good sign that you should try out Hamilton's other writings.
Lastly, the not-so-good part (and thus the 4 stars).
One bizarre thing I have noticed with some of his short stories and his novels is that he has a recurring pattern of portraying an oldish man who is tired, world-weary, somewhat cynical, sometimes sarcastic (imagine Humphrey Bogart), meeting a young (sometimes very young) extraordinarily (as Hamilton tells it) beautiful woman who is immediately and unexplicably drawn to him, often leading to instance sex (like in five minutes of meeting him). Sure, this may happen, but it happens concistently, often, and with the same type of characters over and over again. For example, the Greg Mandel character in _Mindstar Rising_ novel, Chief Parfitt and Hoi Yin (Wing-Tsit Chong's assistant) in _A Second Chance at Eden_, Laurus (the main villain) who has a penchant for young women in _Candy Buds_, Eason who uses the interesting plot development to woo the young woman in _The Lives and Loves of Tiarella Rosa_ since her mother is "too old".
What is up with that?
One or two times is ok, or if they're different each time that's ok too. But no, it's the same type of characters, same situation over and over and over again, ad nauseum. It's distracting and verges on disturbing. Even though these aren't major parts of the story or the plot in most cases, and it's more than made up for the rest of the great story line, I still wish I didn't have to get distracted in the middle of the story and think, "huh, this is weird - that's the 100-th time that Hamilton is writing about the old, cynical, world-weary character (or the author himself) having an interest in younger women and the younger woman just inexplicably having sex with him instantly upon meeting him, without having any explanation, motive or attraction."
I wouldn't mind if the relationships were realistic, but they're not, and just bizarre or cardboard at best. Maybe the author needs to grow up or something.
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Required reading for Hamilton fans. 4.5 stars
Rating (4)
Date: 2003-12-29
10 out of 10 customers found this reveiw helpful
This collection, a mix of new and reprint stories, is set in his
"Night's Dawn" universe. The stories collectively form something
of a prequel to the Reality Dysfunction, and Hamilton presents a
detailed future-history timeline as interstitial material.The core of the book is the previously-unpublished title novella, a
twisty murder-mystery/police-procedural set in the first Edenist
bitek habitat, a He(3)-mining outfit in orbit around Jupiter. The
protagonist, a tough, competent corporate cop with a shaky
marriage, is straight out of Greg Egan or Ed McBain. The setting is
nicely-extrapolated nearish-term hard-SF -- not a dead-demonic
possession in sight, thank heavens. I found it cleaner & more
plausible than his "Greg Mandel" sf-mysteries. Highly
recommended. The other stories range from excellent (Tiarella Rosa, Escape Route)
down to a couple Hamilton might better have left in the trunk.
All feature his trademarks: a glossy, hi-tech future, larger-than-life
characters, lots of sex & violence. It's interesting to see Hamilton
working at shorter lengths, and US readers are unlikely to have
seen these stories before, except perhaps "Escape Route", reprinted
in the Dozois Year's Best for 1997 Happy reading!
Pete Tillman
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Terrific Sci Fi Collection
Rating (5)
Date: 2003-11-23
3 out of 3 customers found this reveiw helpful
I'm so pleased that I came across this book. Quite by accident, I've been introduced to Peter F. Hamilton's work, and if the rest of his material is this good, I guarantee I'll be reading it all. I disagree entirely with the reviewers who claim that a reader has to know Hamilton's six volume trilogy (!) Night's Dawn to get maximum pleasure out of the stories--in the foreward Hamilton says that some of these stories predate the concept of the trilogy, and one of them (Candy Buds) even gave rise to it. I certainly had no trouble knowing where I was, thanks to the time lines provided by Hamilton, and each of the stories seemed admirably self-contained in terms of the necessary plot points.To the stories themselves--there's an excellent mix here, some mostly snapshots, others quite long and detailed. Some deal with an individual at a time of personal crisis (Deathday, which owes much to Ray Bradbury's Mars is Heaven), others concern paradigm shifts for the entire Human civilization (A Second Chance at Eden, a truly beautifully written and plotted story). Hamilton is at the gentler side of hard sci-fi. While his stories all contain technology far beyond our current grasp, there's no necessity for a Ph.D. to understand it. He's much less demanding than Greg Bear in his most substantial works. Indeed, the technology is mostly there for the context, and the stories are primarily about human motivations rather than fun sci-fi toys. For the most part this isn't escapest space opera at all, but a keen examination of man's condition. And like the best literature, it's so well written that the reader is mostly unaware that this is the case--the sole exception being New Days Old Times, which is a bit more obvious in its message. Nevertheless, I highly recommend this collection, and I look forward to the delivery of my copy of the first volume of Night's Dawn, which I ordered even before finishing this book!
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