• Fallen Dragon

  • By: Peter F. Hamilton
  • Narrated by: John Lee
  • Length: 26 hrs and 31 mins
  • 4.4 out of 5 stars (2,133 ratings)

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Fallen Dragon  By  cover art

Fallen Dragon

By: Peter F. Hamilton
Narrated by: John Lee
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Publisher's summary

In the distant future, corporations have become sustainable communities with their own militaries, and corporate goals have essentially replaced political ideology. On a youthful, rebellious impulse, Lawrence joined the military of a corporation that he now recognizes to be ruthless and exploitative. His only hope for escape is to earn enough money to buy his place in a better corporation. When his platoon is sent to a distant colony to quell a local resistance effort, it seems like a stroke of amazing fortune, and Lawrence plans to rob the colony of their fabled gemstone, the Fallen Dragon, to get the money he needs. However, he soon discovers that the Fallen Dragon is not a gemstone at all but an alien life form that the local colonists have been protecting since it crashed in their area. Now Lawrence has to decide if he will steal the alien to exploit the use of its inherent biotechnical processes - which far exceed anything humans are capable of - or if he will help the Resistance get the alien home.

©2002 Peter F. Hamilton (P)2016 Tantor

Critic reviews

"A fascinating, compulsively readable clash of hardware and ideals." ( Kirkus)

What listeners say about Fallen Dragon

Average customer ratings
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Possibly my new favorite Hamilton novel

I looked into this simply because I have enjoyed Hamilton's work immensely in the past. I recently read the Nights Dawn trilogy, and while it was interesting, it left me feeling a bit let down compared to his other work.

However, this book was simply fantastic. It's like an evil mirror world of his Commonwealth Universe, and as a result has a certain allure to it that I was not expecting. I would highly recommend this to any fan of science fiction.

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27 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Economically non-viable colonization universe

Fallen Dragon is a stand-alone Peter F Hamilton novel that relates a universe where space colonization is economically non-viable. The corporations that funded the initial efforts periodically conduct "asset realization" escapades which is a "nice" way of saying looting and plundering. The main plot concerns one such adventure where one mercenary plans for some extracurricular activity while a nascent rebel movement has been preparing to resist the invaders. At the same time, the mercenary's backstory unfolds to provides context for his actions as well as detailing the various societal evolutions of different humans that sometimes border on the alien.

The sci-fi elements are an interesting mix of military space weaponry and alien biota which complicates the establishment of human colonies. At the same time, Hamilton introduces truly alien life forms that almost defy engagement or interactions with humanity. Hamilton is exploring potential societal evolution that begins to glimpse the possible likely range of life and intelligence across the galaxy. If planetary colonization were economically unworkable as described, then the divergence of humanity would likely be a consequence.

John Lee delivers another superb narration especially given the range of characters as well as alien and post-human forms that are encountered. With the overlapping timelines, some close attention is required to correctly place events.

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22 people found this helpful

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    2 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

Boring!

The concept was good but between the Asimov type writing and the uninvolved narration (not bad narration, just boring) I never got involved with the characters nor did I care to listen to the entire story to finish the book. I'm sure there are fans who would enjoy this book but I just didn't care enough to even keep track of the characters and the storyline. Enh, just not my cuppa sci-fi.

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13 people found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Great sci-fi concepts!

Great book with great Sci-Fi concepts. The story is quite slow to start with and I found that sometimes the viewpoint changed a bit too frequently with plot points being wrapped up quickly and without much explanation. This caused me to be a bit confused early on but I got the hang of it.

The Sci-Fi concepts are top notch, good for pondering post read. My favorite types of Sci-Fi are the ones that keep me thinking long after I've finished reading and Fallen Dragon definitely hit the mark. I found it to be a refreshing take on Sci-Fi with more of a grim, realist adaptation of regular tropes.

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12 people found this helpful

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    2 out of 5 stars
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so so very boring!

Absolutely not a good pick for me. I only listened to about 6hr of this book. and if I were asked what happened in that time, u remember nothing, absolutely nothing. the characters were so bland and uninspiring, I didn't care about any of them; and the narration is just the nail to the coffin. the voices were all the same dry and lacking any personality what so ever. I would hive zero star to narration if I could.

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    1 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Terrible narrator.

The story written by Peter F. Hamilton is fantastic. I initially had read the book and wanted a version I could "read", so to speak, on the go. When I started listening to this audiobook I was initially put off by the narrator's bizarre accent and seeming inability to pronounce certain words correctly despite English being, presumably, his native language. I looked past this at first due to his apparent ability to convincingly ape some distinct national and regional accents which seemed to be worth listening for. However, as the story continued the narrator's choice of accent frequently changed for a number of main characters, and more importantly, he failed on Many occasions to actually read the lines as the book describes them. Most irritating was his tendency to whisper lines that were explicitly described as being either spoken normally or shouted, but he would also read other lines in tones that completely failed to convey the previously described attitude of the characters. While this would be easy to overlook if the narrator were consistently letting the description of the line do the work, the fact that he did actually try to put the correct emotive cues into his reading made the regular mistakes all the more jarring and unpleasant.

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10 people found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

A very disjointed story.

Story line was very hard to follow. Very poor transition between time lines. Story would suddenly be at a different location or world without any connecting activity. I finally gave up and didn’t finish the book. Very unusual for me to not see a story to the end.

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8 people found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars
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I found, The changes in venue and timeline disorienting

The story seemed much longer than necessary and did not benefit from much of the gratuitous detail.

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7 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

one of my favorites

After over four decades avidly consuming science fiction novels, this one is one of my all-time favorites. This was my second time reading it. It is the one that made Peter F. Hamilton my favorite modern science fiction author, a decade or so ago.

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6 people found this helpful

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Excellent

I really enjoyed this book. Having served in Iraq, the irony of the ethically justified "Asset Realization" really struck a chord. Hamilton creates a fascinating social scenario by developing the moral arguments that logically make sense, but produce a twisted reality. About 3/4 through the book, I thought there was way to much to work out, and that this must be the first book in a series. But the book rapidly wraps up in a dramatic crescendo that is very satisfying.

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6 people found this helpful