The Naked God
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| Author | Peter F. Hamilton |
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| Cover artist | Jim Burns |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Series | The Night's Dawn Trilogy |
| Genre(s) | Science Fiction, Novel |
| Publisher | Pan Books (UK) & Time Warner (USA) |
| Released | 8 October 1999 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 1,174 p. (UK hardback edition), 1,267 p. (UK paperback edition) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-330-35145-1 (UK paperback edition) |
| Preceded by | The Neutronium Alchemist |
The Naked God is a science fiction novel by Peter F. Hamilton and is the third book in The Night's Dawn Trilogy, following on from The Reality Dysfunction and The Neutronium Alchemist. It was published in the United Kingdom by Macmillan Publishers on 8 October 1999. This was the first novel by Hamilton to be published in hardcover in the United States, on 22 October 1999. As with the first two volumes, the US paperback was split into two volumes, entitled Flight and Faith, published in November and December 2000.
Even by the standards of the first two books, The Naked God is an extremely large volume. It was only possible to publish the UK paperback in one volume by moderately decreasing the font size compared to the previous novels.
Although the final novel so far in the Night's Dawn Universe, (a 'guidebook' to the setting, The Confederation Handbook, was later published) Hamilton has occasionally hinted at returning to the setting in future books. He has hinted at a sequel series set up to 500 years after the events in the trilogy.
Contents |
[edit] Background
In The Reality Dyfunction, the presence of an energy-based alien lifeform during the death of a human on the colony world of Lalonde somehow 'jammed open' the interface between this universe and 'the beyond', an energistic vacuum where the souls of dead humans (and possibly other races) have become trapped after death. They are able to cross back over into this universe and possess the living, gaining tremendous strength, agility and the ability to create and alter matter. They overrun the planet Lalonde in a matter of weeks and spread beyond to many other worlds and asteroid settlements. A failed attempt to conquer the planet Atlantis alerts the Edenists to the threat.
In The Neutronium Alchemist, the Confederation learns of the extent of the danger and imposes a complete shutdown of all interstellar flight to quarantine the possessed on the few planets they have secured a foothold on. However, quarantine-busting flights soon spread the possessed further. The deployment of military forces against the possessed is complicated by the fact that killing the possessor also kills the possessed victim. This depressing fact, creating the greatest hostage situation in human history, threatens to undermine morale. Eventually, the Kulu Kingdom joins forces with their ideological opponents, the Edenists, to retake the peninsula of Mortonridge on their colony world of Ombey from the possessed in order to provide the Confederation with proof that the possessed can be beaten. Elsewhere, the most infamous 'returnee' of the possessed, Al Capone, uses his organisational skills to conquer the planet New California and turn it into the hub of an expanding empire, 'The Organisation', with the Confederation Navy hard-pressed to deal with checking its advance whilst maintaining the quarantine.
At the conclusion of The Neutronium Alchemist, the personnel of Tranquillity learned that over a thousand years ago a Tyrathca arkship encountered a space-borne entity known as the 'Sleeping God' which exhibited enormous powers which may be of use against the possessed. Before this information could be passed onto anyone, the habitat came under concerted attack by the Organisation. When Captain Calvert and the crew of the Lady MacBeth arrived back at Tranquillity, they found the habitat missing, presumed possessed and taken out of the universe.
[edit] Plot summary
Jay Hilton, one of the surviving children from Lalonde, is awoken when Tranquillity falls under attack by the Organisation and its hellhawk allies. With the habitat in imminent danger of destruction, the Kiint personnel immediately evacuate by triggering their 'Emergency Exodus Facility', personal wormholes that whisk them to safety. An infant Kiint, Haile, decides that she can't let Jay be killed in the attack and teleports her away from Tranquillity as well, to her parents' displeasure. Jay finds herself on a planet which appears to be just one in a necklace of hundreds orbiting a star in the same orbit. Haile's parents reluctantly confirm that this, the Kiint home system, is actually in another galaxy, and the supposed Kiint homeworld of Jobis was actually just a single scientific outpost. They regretfully announce that Tranquillity has either been destroyed or forced to surrender to the possessed, to Jay's horror.
The Jovian Consensus is placed on an emergency footing when a colossal wormhole far larger than anything they've seen before opens above Jupiter. They are shocked when the habitat Tranquillity appears. Ione Saldana reveals that Tranquillity's founder feared that whatever destroyed the Laymil might return to its system, and gave Tranquillity the means to escape that threat.
The Lady Macbeth journeys to Trafalgar and there reveal the events of their mission to the First Admiral, who is happy that the Alchemist has been destroyed and Alkad Mzu is no longer at large. After thoroughly debriefing the crew, he allows them to travel on to Tranquillity. A meeting is held and Ione proposes that Tranquillity and the Jovian Consensus join forces to track down the Tyrathca Sleeping God and see what use it could be in the fight with the possessed. Syrinx and the voidhawk Oenone volunteer for the mission and Joshua Calvert agrees to take the Lady Macbeth on the mission. The Confederation Navy and the Kulu ESA also agree to support the venture. Because the mission will involve travelling several thousand light-years far outside Confederation territory, Lady Macbeth is authorised to use antimatter on this mission. The Confederation Navy has located the antimatter production facility that is fuelling Capone's Organisation, and destroy it. They allow Lady Macbeth to fuel up first, however. An Organisation hellhawk observing the attack notes that the Lady Macbeth jumped to the Tyrathca prime colony world in Confederation space, and delivers that information to the Organisation. Several Organisation ships are despatched to pursue and investigate.
On Ombey, the Liberation Campaign begins with a massive assault on Mortonridge by tens of thousands of regular troops and Edenist bitek soldiers. Although the campaign is costly, ground is won and thousands of the possessed are forcibly ejected from their hosts. Eventually the possessed fall back on a small patch of land at the tip of the peninsula and by combining their energistic powers are able to teleport the entire patch of land into a strange grey realm. The possessed and the attacking soldiers agree to a truce until they can work out how to survive in this strange place.
The Valisk habitat is also trapped in the same realm. Energistic power is weak in this place, and also the normal laws of physics are different. Valisk's power systems are failing. Even worse, what energy it does manage to generate attracts the attention of predators known as Orgathe, who attack the habitat with enthusiasm to feed on its power. There is a gravitational incline in this dimension which leads to a horrifying place called the Melange, where billions of souls lie rotting in eternal torment. Dariat escapes from Valisk in an escape pod before it hits the Melange and explodes, but it is only a matter of time until the pod dissolves and he joins the tortured beings outside.
The Confederation Navy research team discovers a possible way of killing the possessed, an 'anti-memory' device that will eradicate both the possessed and the possessing soul. The First Admiral is horrified about the weapon and even more horrified when President Haakar, panicking as the possession crisis spreads to more worlds, authorises its development. The scientists hope to create a more powerful version that will obliterate all of the tens of billions of souls in the beyond, which becomes a controversial idea among the Confederation government. Although the first weapon is completed, further research is suspended when a lone Organisation suicide attacker detonates an antimatter bomb right outside the habitat, irradiating it and destroying dozens of ships outside. The internal staff survive, but have to transfer their personnel and equipment to Avon. Furious, the First Admiral orders that the Organisation be taken care of once and for all.
A fleet of over a thousand Confederation warships mobilises and attacks the worlds the Organisation have conquered, forcing them to withdraw back to New California. The other worlds, freed from the need to supply the Organisation with materials, are shifted out of the universe by their possessed populations.
Joshua Calvert and Syrinx begin their search for the Naked God by visiting only know Tyrathca planet in the Confederation, gaining access to the abandoned arkship in orbit around the planet, to determine the origin of the Tyrathca, whose original home planet appears to be on the far side of the Orion Nebula. On the way, however, the Tyrathca break into the arkship as well and pursue the expeditionary team, who also find evidence in the arkship's systems of prior use by the Kiint. The humans manage to escape by duplicating the maneuver of the blackhawk Udat, swallowing into a hollow chamber in the arkship and swallowing out again to extricate the expeditionary team.
The Lady Macbeth and Oenone continue on to the Tyrathca home planet, now a red giant. At first they belive the system is unihabited, until they catch sight of dozens of habitats ringing the Red Giant. They contact the nearest and make contact with the Mosdva, who turn out to have once been the Tyrathca's slaves, being used to mine and build the ships and habitats since they were more versatile in zero gravity. The Lady Macbeths arrival leads to a war breaking out amongst the dominions on the habitat, which ends when they gain a Tyrathca star map, and give the dominions their FTL technology. After a lengthy journey they find the Sleeping God a giant sentient wormhole, supplied by controlling vaccum energy. Joshua Calvert uses this to remove every Confederation planet, moving them up and out of the Galaxy, and also tweaking them to remove the possessed, before altering himself to get affinity and returning to Tranquility, before marrying Louise and settling down to live on Norfolk.
[edit] References
- Hamilton, Peter F. (1999). The Naked God. Pan MacMillan. ISBN 0-333-68791-4.
[edit] External links
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Works by Peter F. Hamilton |
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The Greg Mandel trilogy • Mindstar Rising | A Quantum Murder | The Nano Flower |
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