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Read A Second Chance At Eden (1999)

A Second Chance at Eden (1999)

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Rating
3.95 of 5 Votes: 2
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ISBN
0330351826 (ISBN13: 9780330351829)
Language
English
Publisher
pan books

A Second Chance At Eden (1999) - Plot & Excerpts

This is a book of short stories aimed at providing the social and technological background of the The Night's Dawn trilogy. The stories stand well by themselves, although they are at different levels, thus I will provide my ratings for each one separately:Sonnie's Edge: 3/5An introductory story that indirectly describes the initial steps in the development of the bio technologies core to this fictional universe. As in most other stories, Sonnie's Edge applies the current human mentality and social organization to a world with advanced technology with somewhat predictable results.A Second Chance at Eden: 5/5This story is excellent in a number of aspects. The mystery, the human interactions, the moral dilemmas, the social (re-)organization as a result of technology providing emotional communication, the technological ideas and predictions (e.g. what would happen if there is excessive energy use on the planet), etc. This is the crown jewel in the collection and the book is worth buying if only because of it.New Days Old Times: 2/5As the title suggests, the plot line can be summarised simply: people are people, their prejudices remain, even if on another planet. The conclusion became clear immediately after the initial paragraphs and the story was essentially rehashing current social issues like a history novel, but in a future environment. Nevertheless, the story did provide some more background about the exploration and colonization of the universe.Candy Buds: 4/5An interesting story with relatively unexpected and satisfying conclusion. It builds on another favourite theme of the author: memories effectively define who people are. Deathday: 2/5This story also provides background about exploration and colonization of the universe. The plot was not very appealing to me -- the conclusion was again was unfulfilling and expected from the very beginning. The details did not compensate for that.The Lives and Loves of Tiarella Rosa: 4/5Another great story with interesting and unexpected twists. Good interactions and character development. There are several highly entertaining moments (e.g. the Kulu Embassy) and a good conclusion.Escape Route: 3/5This story is probably better viewed in the context of the The Night's Dawn trilogy. While interesting, the deus ex machina resolution leaves something to be desired.

This being the first Confederation book – and, more to the point, the first Peter F. Hamilton book – that I have read, I went into it completely unable to see the significance of particular events, or the references to later stories. I do intend to read The Night's Dawn trilogy at some point in the near future, and it will be interesting to see how these short stories affect my reading experience of that trilogy. One of the things I really like in short stories of this kind is the ability of an author to infuse a sense of historical weightiness to each story as well as simply offering up a good story. Asimov's Robot short stories spring to mind as a great example of this. Some of the stories in this collection did a very good job of this. A Second Chance at Eden, the collection's novella, certainly felt significant, and was referenced in the later short stories. Escape Hatch also had a feeling of importance. Apart from these, there were some stories that were simply clever, well-written narratives – of these, the two set on Tropicana – Candy Buds, and The Lives and Loves of Tiarella Rose were the best. These four stories make the collection worth reading. The other stories are ok, but lack the feeling of significance or the clever stories of those I have mentioned by name. The collection is worth reading just for those four stories, though.

What do You think about A Second Chance At Eden (1999)?

This collection of stories, one of which is a novel by 1960-1970s standards, is set in the universe of the bizarrely popular Night's Dawn Trilogy. All of the stories here are better than any of or all of the volumes in that trilogy. The novel is a murder-mystery, something that Hamilton does well. One of the stories features the crew of the Lady MacBeth,, familiar to all Night's Dawn readers. Other stories have disparate settings and themes and that is what makes this book much better than most of Hamilton's other works; some of these stories are actually about something more than either space operatic adventure or whodunnit. Some of them have a classic sting-in-the-tail SF short story construction. If you liked any Hamilton at all, you should enjoy this collection.
—Robert

This collection is a little uneven, and in keeping with that, it highlights all my most and least favorite things about Hamilton's writing - the sexism is a little more visible, the techno-exposition is a little more random, the world-building is a little more startling. All the stories in Second Chance at Eden are set in the same world as the Night's Dawn trilogy (Reality Dysfunction, Neutronium Alchemist, Naked God), across a wide swathe of the future timeline. The title novella is actually my favorite of the collection, though I don't know if I would've felt the same way if I hadn't read the rest of the series. While it is a perfect introduction to the affinity technology that's central to the Night's Dawn trilogy, I'm not sure I would have been so engrossed immediately in the plot if I hadn't already been interested in Edenism. A couple of the stories - "Sonnie's Edge" and "The Lives and Loves..." - were actively disappointing, not to mention dripping with (different kinds of) sexism. "Deathday" is a really effective horror story about revenge and isolation, but it's also a really interesting SF story about how genuinely other alien life would be. "Candy Buds" is a standout, whether you're familiar with Night's Dawn or not, and the central concept is so damn cool I can barely stand it. "Escape Route" is a solid, engaging action story, even if the final twist is a little deus ex machina and a little ridiculous, and "New Days Old Times" is an engaging slice-of-life story about a normal woman on a normal colony planet, separate from all the macro-political shenanigans going on elsewhere in the collection. I have my issues with Hamilton's "ethnic-streaming" colony concept, but at least with this story he makes a reasonable argument for why it would've been a popular strategy. I just have trouble believing that anti-Semitism and other forms of racism will still be so prevalent in the year 2245 that the kind of harassment portrayed in "New Days..." would be possible.All that being said, if you read and enjoyed Night's Dawn, I would recommend A Second Chance... without reservation, as a gap-filler for the trilogy. If you haven't, I'd still recommend it, but with the annotations noted above.
—Lauren Donoho

Another amazing piece of Hamilton's infinite imagination. Or better said 7 amazing pieces - 3 of them are directly related to the Night's Dawn series (through events or characters), the others are just set in the same universe.Candy Buds was the seed from which emerged Night's Dawn, as Hamilton tells: "During the early nineties I wrote several short stories centered around the affinity technology. They didn’t belong to any particular hard and fast version of future history, I was just interested in the potential of the idea. Then along came David Garnett, who had just bought “Candy Buds” for his New Worlds anthology, and said: You should turn this into a novel. Impossible, I told him. That was back in the days of my foolish youth, before I learned the hard way that the editor is always right. He convinced me to go away and think about it. “Night’s Dawn” was the result. OK, so I didn’t get the last laugh, but at least I managed to frighten him with the size of volume one, The Reality Dysfunction, all 374,000 words of it."A must for fans.
—Claudia

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