Legacy SF: Night's Dawn Trilogy by Peter F. Hamilton

Weighing in at something like 3000 pages (in three volumes - these are big books) and with a cast of more characters that I can remember, it's a good job that these are real page turners otherwise it would be nigh on impossible to ever reach the end. This is very much the "non-hard" end of SF - full of lots of fun stuff without too much physics to get in the way.

These feel a little like you say to a kid "Hey, let's write some really cool books" and they go "Yeh!" after which it's all shall we have... and "Yeh!" but - and here's the thing - it works. It's not philosophical, it's not good for you but it's fun. Deus Ex ending really didn't do it for me, but overall worth a read.

A little bit of fun can be had from figuring out where PFH is from when reading the place / planet / people names in there. South East Midlands, made famous. Been a long while since I read these (hence "Legacy" above) but .... may be worth a rerun now I think about it.

General: Next by Michael Crichton

Be afraid - be very afraid - the lawyers are out to get you!

Though Crichton can be paranoid and carry it across well, this one goes a bit far. Much talk of ownership of genes and cells and derived control, hung together by what is actually a pretty weak plot by his standards. If you're stuck in an airport with a choice of this and "101 best goals in 20th Century football: an analysis" it's probably a goer. If you've got a choice, however, I'd look for anything else.

Readable, probably worth the 99p I paid for it in Oxfam.