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The Dreaming Void cover art

The Dreaming Void

By: Peter F. Hamilton
Narrated by: Toby Longworth
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Summary

Will they find the utopian dream – or a galactic nightmare? From Peter F. Hamilton, The Dreaming Void is the first in an epic space opera trilogy. Set in his expansive Commonwealth universe, it is perfect for fans of Iain M. Banks and Stephen Baxter.

AD 3580. The Commonwealth has spread its civilization throughout the galaxy. Its citizens are privileged and protected by a powerful navy. And at the galaxy’s centre is the Void, a sealed universe created by aliens billions of years ago. Yet the Void isn’t inert. It’s expanding – and now it wants to make contact.

The Void chooses Inigo as its conduit and he channels dreams of a simpler, better life within its bounds. His visions attract followers – determined to seek this utopia. And they’ll cross the Void’s forbidden boundaries to reach it. However, this act could trigger push it to grow beyond all control . . . destroying everything in its path.

The Dreaming Void is followed by The Temporal Void in this stunning trilogy by Peter F. Hamilton.

©2008 Peter F. Hamilton (P)2008 Macmillan Digital Audio

What listeners say about The Dreaming Void

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Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
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  • 4 Stars
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  • 3 Stars
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  • 2 Stars
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Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    698
  • 4 Stars
    282
  • 3 Stars
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  • 2 Stars
    30
  • 1 Stars
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Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
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  • 3 Stars
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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Listen to this

Do not read this book - listen to Toby Longworth, it is a great performance.
All I wish - is for the rest of the story to be published. Also I would have liked to be informed about the fact that this is part of a series which goes like this:

1. Pandora's Star (2004) Commonwealth Series #1
2. Judas Unchained (2005) Commonwealth Series #2
3. The Dreaming Void (2008) Void Trilogy #1
4. The Temporal Void (to be published in march 2009) Void Trilogy #2

Audible have published book two, Judas Unchained, but not the first. Why in the universe would they do that? I like the whole story - unabridged please.

With sincerety
Audible - are you listening?

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113 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Superb

Peter F Hamilton just gets better and better, this is his first Commonwealth series book available on Audible. It basicaly contains two seperate books, a hard sci-fi book with lots of knowing winks to his previous Starflyer books and a medieval style fantasy tale, although of course somewhere down the line they will connect.

The charcters are excellenty drawn, and the plot is tight yet expansive. I particularly like the details he adds in some of the sub plots that makes the book come alive. Thoroughly recommended and cant wait for the next book (this being the first of a trilogy)

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19 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Niggles

While Toby Longworth is a good narrator and shone in the mindstar series he rather disrupts the congruent flow of this series with his interpretation of character voices, especially Paula Myo, set by John Lee in the commonwealth prequel. The narration returns to John Lee in the subsequent book where even the pronunciation of key character names are changed. Don't the narrators and author talk to each other??

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18 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

Tedious

Never really came to care about any of the (very large ensemble of) characters. Edeard was an engaging character, but even he was predictable. The rest was just ... very long and listening to cardboard-cutout schoolboy-fantasy sex scenes on audiobook was cringe-inducing.

That said, Toby Longworth's narrration was very, very good. There's a huge cast in this book and he manages to come up with a unique, believable voice for each one. He has an amazing repertoire of accents. I'll happily listen to his work again.

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17 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

Great book but not concluded

I really enjoyed this book. Well written and space opera at its best. Be warned the story doesn't conclude in this book. Twenty one hours in and your left at a cliff hanger. Now audible needs the next one!!

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11 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

This audio book got me interested in audio books!

I read the hardback of this novel last year and quite liked it and when I saw the audio book on Amazon I bought it to listen to in the car on the way to work and back. Superb! Absolutly superb. Toby Longworth adds a new dimension to the book, a different voice for each character and a lovely measured tone for the descriptions. I actually prefer it to the hardback and have now downloaded Iain Banks' Matter (from audible.co.uk) as it is also read by Toby Longworth.

As another reviewer said, this novel is part one in a series (book two is out October 2008) and blends space opera with a fantasy tale. It works too.

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8 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars

Is that it...?

This was a long book and had a number of stories running through it. It never seemed as though the stories were related but at the end you 'kind of' recognise a bit of inter-relation. I listen while travelling/commuting etc so occasionally miss a snippet here or there, however, usually i manage to follow most novels pretty well.

This one left me feeling as though a number of the story lines just ended. Thery weren't obviously tied into a central theme and just seemed to stop as though the author got bored, i know i was!

The enjoyable story line was about a guy called Edhard (sic) and it was complete but left me wanting to know more about him.

On the whole quite disappointing really.

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7 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

This book and series is aweful

I don't know what it is about certain modern science fiction authors that makes them think that they can get away with writing books with no plot, no character development, no scene and not investing the reader into the story. Why should I care?

I don't know why this style of writing is becoming popular, perhaps it makes it easier to transform the book into a movie if you simply have stuff happening all the time. You'd think that because things are happening all the time it will be dramatic and exciting but its not, its boring, there's no sense of tension except you praying that the characters will be killed off and something more interesting than what you are listening to will occur.

Its been a while that I read a science fiction book that is actually SCIENCE fiction. Its not good enough to set a book in the future and have advanced tech and call the book science fiction. There has to be some SCIENCE! How does this contraption work, what does it feel like to use it? There is enough science around now that you can have a good go at describing how a not yet possible device might work. Even if you get it wrong part of the fun of SCIENCE fiction is thinking about and discussing with friends whether such a device is possible. But since none of the devices are described in any detail you rob the reader/listener of that valuable imagination or thought process. This also doesn't inspire a young kid to think about science which should be a responsibility of a decent SCIENCE fiction author. What the author does is lazy, they will mention a device X that does Y and no description barely even mentioning what it might look like (and often not at all), why bother if the film producer can do all that for you?

You're in a ship, what does the ship look like? What does it feel like to be there, walk around in it, sit in the pilot's chair fly the ship? - you know, descriptive writing that makes people feel something about your universe. If your universe is destroyed why should I care? You haven't described it to me or made me feel anything for it.

The same thing extends to the characters, there is little or no character development, no development of the motivations behind what the characters do, I don't feel anything for the characters, they could all perish and why should I care?

There also doesn't seem to be a plot to this book, things just simply happen willy-nilly till you get to the end of the book and think so what? There doesn't seem to be any discipline in how this book is written. Jamming ideas, dialogue and events onto pages doesn't make a book.

The book also suffers from a dissociative disorder and I have listened to all the books in this series to the end and it feels like two worlds just jammed together with a poor sticking plaster, simply terrible.

I blame the publishers.

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6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

'Read' them in order

What did you like most about The Dreaming Void?

Follows on in a universe and using characters created in Pandoras Star and Judas Unchained. Epic stuff!

Would you listen to another book narrated by Toby Longworth?

Toby is ok but John read the first two and the next two after this. I would have preferred him there for the entire series. Oliver Monroe may have been from Tennessee but John didn't read it that way and to suddenly have to deal with a character that had apparently acquired the accent of a lesser educated individual from a cotton picking region was strange. Likewise with Paula Myo.

Kudos to Peter F. The story is great!

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Nothing missing.

Having listened to a good few hundred Audio books, I would have to say this series is without any doubt the best of all I have heard, I was so glad to step back into this universe and find some of the great characters from the fist series of books still around. The narration, characters, writing and plot are all superb, utterly addictive listening and each book is so luxuriously long! I listened to the full Dune series and I really thought I would struggle to find something that good again, I was wrong, this series is easily that good. Only very slight issue is the change of narrator for this book, then back to original narrator for second (or fifth - depending on where you start). Both are excellent but obviously it would have been nice for continuity to have just used the same narrator for the full series, overall not a major issue as I am happy to have either one read me this fantastic series of books.

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5 people found this helpful