I'm just starting, for maybe the third or fourth time, to re-read this trilogy (the Night's Dawn trilogy as it seems to be known as) by author Peter F. Hamilton. The Reality Dysfunction is the first book in this series. It's a massively sprawling space opera with great tech, great battles (both spaceborne and ground based) and hundreds of characters.

It has a little bit of a hump to get over as new tech and societies are described, same as a lot of other sci-fi, but after a certain.... "event" in the first third of the first book it's a roller-coaster crazy ride. I have to admit that at least two people I recommended this to didn't like it, but when I asked whether they had got as far as "the event" they said no, so I'm going to assume they'd have found it more interesting if they had.
Everyone else though has loved it.

A few of the main characters I find irritating because of Hamilton's penchant for writing his favourites as infallible, but I think the sheer scale and breadth of the story forgives this. The story takes place in a human future where colonisation and expansion is happening, and has happened for hundreds of years. Societies described range from egalitarian socialist societies, through pastoral almost feudal, through overcrowded inner city riddled and controlled by crime, to independent pioneer families colonising new worlds and scratching an independent living in the mud.

I like Hamilton's detail when writing about the politics of some galaxy changing event, like the idea that they can't afford the war the economy can't bear it, the war they HAVE to win.

And one of the main characters, who doesn't actually appear until the second book, will make a lot of people smile

Interesting book so far, I’m only in 181 pages but I’m liking it.

Nice, I'm glad you're enjoying it even at this stage. It will get pretty crazy later though and all the various threads will start to interact.

Enjoying the book so far, really only just started it. Thank you for the heads up on this series, I thought I had read them already and had skipped past them a few times when they came up on kindle glad I took a second look.

Iasius's mating flight reminds me of Anne McCaffrey's dragon mating flights in Dragonquest

I just finished the series last night, it was pretty hard to put the reader down over the last month! I will say that I didn’t really like the solution, with no spoilers for anyone still reading it.

Glad you enjoyed it and yes I agree with the solution. Pretty crazy ride though.

It's known as a "deus ex machina" ending and I wasn't impressed by it either.

Actually I’d call it a Deus EST Machina ending LOL

If you're interested in a similar read, but more grounded in hard sci-fi (no metaphysics), and also a more satisfying ending then you could try Pandora's Star by the same author. It's a two-parter this time around, although there are a few massive later trilogies that work with the same universe & characters. I was less enamored of those if I'm honest but the first two are a good romp.

Were you referring to AC here, or FC? Or someone else entirely?

AC

Made me smile anyway.

New Peter F Hamilton book coming out in september, woo