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Fallen Dragon
Peter F Hamilton
Macmillan, hardback, 640 pages, £17.99
Review by Mike Don (2001)

The background of Hamilton’s new novel asks a simple but fundamental question of interstellar colonisation: if it produces viable, self-sufficient societies, how would this work in economic terms? A self-sufficient world would have no great need for off-world trade (Earth has managed well enough!) and in any case transport costs would be prohibitive. Yet the substantial set-up expenses must be recovered. 

In Fallen Dragon the corporate sponsors have resorted to planetary piracy. Raids, hacked by overwhelming military force, seizing whatever high value assets can be easily carried off. To those acquainted with European Imperialist history, this sounds familiar.

The structure of this novel is perhaps more ambitious than his previous – for example, the space opera ‘fiction within fiction’ narrated as a fairy tale for children, which turns out to be far more than it seems. In other respects Fallen Dragon is more typical. Fast moving, sharp in action, its key figures are a strong ‘competent woman’ and a corporate mercenary hero; Lawrence Newton is a near re-run of Greg Mandel from Hamilton’s first three novels. Likewise, the alien revelation climax is fast becoming a trademark ploy; from Neon Flower to Naked God. And like Naked God, a breathtaking roller-coaster of a novel was slightly spoiled by an unconvincing deus ex machina ending, although this time it is little more than an epilogue to the main plot. A good one for all that.