Great North Road

By: Peter F. Hamilton

Narrated by: Toby Longworth

Length: 36 hrs and 34 mins

Publisher's summary

A century from now, thanks to a technology allowing instantaneous travel across light-years, humanity has solved its energy shortages, cleaned up the environment, and created far-flung colony worlds. The keys to this empire belong to the powerful North family - composed of successive generations of clones. Yet these clones are not identical. For one thing, genetic errors have crept in with each generation. For another, the original three clone "brothers" have gone their separate ways, and the branches of the family are now friendly rivals more than allies.

Or maybe not so friendly. At least that's what the murder of a North clone in the English city of Newcastle suggests to Detective Sidney Hurst. Sid is a solid investigator who'd like nothing better than to hand off this hot potato of a case. The way he figures it, whether he solves the crime or not, he'll make enough enemies to ruin his career. Yet Sid's case is about to take an unexpected turn: Because the circumstances of the murder bear an uncanny resemblance to a killing that took place years ago on the planet St. Libra, where a North clone and his entire household were slaughtered in cold blood.

The convicted slayer, Angela Tramelo, has always claimed her innocence. And now it seems she may have been right. Because only the St. Libra killer could have committed the Newcastle crime. Problem is, Angela also claims that the murderer was an alien monster.

Now Sid must navigate through a Byzantine minefield of competing interests within the police department and the world's political and economic elite...all the while hunting down a brutal killer poised to strike again. And on St. Libra, Angela, newly released from prison, joins a mission to hunt down the elusive alien, only to learn that the line between hunter and hunted is a thin one.

©2012 Peter F. Hamilton (P)2013 Tantor

Critic reviews

"It's a perfect introduction to his gifts for character design, dialogue, and sheer, big-idea-driven storytelling." ( Booklist)

The narrator can't pronounce some words correctly.

Swath or swathe is the same pronunciation in American english and British english.. The narrator says swayth, it took a moment to realize what the heck he was talking about as I had to take into account the rest of the wording to understand he actually meant to say swath.

Much too long

I wanted to love Great North Road. It's a monster of a book, so I wanted to the investment to be worthwhile. But it was too long, much longer than it needed to be, by ~500 pages. And it focused too much on police procedure and odd tangents, instead of exploring and indulging the really intriguing aspects: the Zanth, Angela, the St. Libre creatures.

The novel would introduce a character or subplot with potential, and then ignore it -- literally -- for hundreds of pages. Perhaps this is an editing flaw, or perhaps it's just Hamilton's style. In either case, it didn't work well for me.

As well, the Geordie (Newcastle) dialect was at first charming, but we see only a few colloquialisms, which quickly become tiresome. "Pet" and "crap on it" were overused so much they should have had a drinking game named for them. In a 1000 page book, variety is key.

Good story.

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?
I did recommend it to a friend. The narrator and author were both great.

Any additional comments?
The story literally bounces around in time and space. That's not that bad, as the author has written in dates and times to start the scene, so you know where you are.

Sciencey Science Fiction Goodness

What made the experience of listening to Great North Road the most enjoyable?

I truly love how Peter F. Hamilton builds these awesome characters, in a range of regular joe's who live in an advanced technological age, all the way to personalizing beings who are so alien they would be near impossible to comprehend. All the while, he adds in base human problems, thrilling action, and super-nerd science that is well-researched and truly upholds the rest of the story. All of these things in one novel.... I was absolutely saddened when it was over. This is one hardworking author. And an excellent book.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Ravi. Angela. Hard to pick between the two. Ravi is your basic Sgt. Slaughter super-warrior who is past his salad days but is grounded enough he can still see the forest despite the trees. Angela is just a cool character who has floated through so many lives...

What does Toby Longworth bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

The way this guy distinguishes characters voice is as fun as listening to the story.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes, never got bored or distracted. The execution was so good. Just when you thought you might hit a low dull point where something is re-explained.... whoosh, it didn't happen.

Any additional comments?

I recommend checking out other Peter F. Hamilton books if you like this. The guy can tell a story in any setting. And make it worth every last second of the listen.

Reasonable performance

Disliked all the religious dogma The author tends to put forth, the narrative is unique

Not bad as Syfy goes.

The story line hops around furiously and can be confusing as to the timeline. If you like detail to the storyline...this one is for you.

Better than expected...and highly creative

It's more a 3 1/2, but I'm limited by this system - so, I'll round upward. This book was quite a bit better than I expected. The sci-fi wasn't too overboard, the intrigue/drama level was sufficiently high, and the police-procedural was just the right amount of ballsy - cumulatively, it was a well-done balance. It may have dragged on a little bit at times - but not overly much, and certainly not enough to ding the rating. After all, the main plot was intricate and unique, and it kept me transfixed and interested most of the time. All in all, it was an interesting listen - the audiobook narrator, Toby Longworth, did a wonderful job with the voicing, the inflections, and the overall tone and feel of the characters. This being my first Hamilton novel, I'd be strongly inclined to try another of his works in the future.

Nice book but not as good as the VOID trilogy

I loved Peter Hamilton's Common Wealth Universe. It is simply audacious and I always keep wanting more.

This book is not set in the same universe. There are some similarities, but not on such a grand scale as the previous trilogy. This is mostly a suspense mystery novel set in future. Many of the characters are believable and one can relate to them.

I am waiting for Peter's next book which is supposed to be set in the Common Wealth Universe

Another great by Hamilton

A long and complicated detective story set in the semi-near future--about 300 years ahead. Fun for mystery fans to read about futuristic forensics and see that some things remain the same, such as careful, painstaking work. That's only part of the story, Hamilton flips back and forward to reveal glimpses of the universe, new worlds and dawning colonialism with its troubles and foibles and the ever present bureaucracy. Hamilton, as always, manages to tie up all the loose ends with a more than satisfactory climatic ending. A suspenseful, fun read beautifully narrated with so many intricacies that its worth listening to more than once. Can't help wondering what kind of mind composes masterpieces like this? By the way, this does not seem to be a continued story like the Void Series, but complete in the 36 delightful hours.

Really exciting story that feels new

I really enjoyed this version of interstellar travel through Gates, I found the concept to offer a new take on superluminal flight inside of a sci-fi storyline