A Second Chance at Eden

This is Hamilton's first collection of short stories (including one novella), set in the same universe as the bestselling Night's Dawn trilogy. Actually, as Hamilton himself admits, the original versions of these stories had nothing to do with Night's Dawn, but he has used the opportunity of this collection to tweak (or almost completely rewrite) all his earlier works and bring them in line. This process seems to affect most sci-fi novelists at some point in their careers and is probably a cathartic milestone in the transition from new SF author to bestselling author.

The collection is chronological in sequence, starting with the early days when affinity is a cutting edge technology and taking the reader through it's rapid development as it forms a fundamental part of civilisation. For die-hard enthusiasts of Night's Dawn, "Escape Route" tells the intriguing story of the last flight of Joshua Calvert's father and his spacecraft, Lady Macbeth. And the novella "A Second Chance at Eden" is Hamilton's attempt at revenge; apparently when he wrote his second novel A Quantum Murder, too many of his friends solved the mystery and identified the murderer--this time he throws down the gauntlet to stunning effect. For fans or novices, this collection offers a diverse selection, all under-pinned by Hamilton's attention to detail and skill in storytelling. --Dave Mutton

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A must for Nights Dawn fans - Rated
This book has several short stories in it and a Novella, which carries the title of the book. The Novella is essentially a crime story which explains the origins of affinity and the habitat Eden. It gives more detail of the technology and helps explain the universe of the Nights Dawn trilogy. It certainly stands on its own, but for those that enjoyed Nights Dawn, you love this.

An Essential To The 'Night's Dawn Trilogy' - Rated
As I write this, I have owned 'Second Chance At Eden' for a while, and have read it several times. The book is a collection of short stories which preceed 'Night's Dawn', and gives the reader a hint as to what has gone before. All of the stories fall into some section of the timeline, the last story been closed to the events of 'Reality Dysfunction'.
The stories themselves are good and well written, enjoyable, and essential to any Hamilton Fan.

Pick and Mix - Rated
There is not really a lot to add to what other reviewers have written - the stories are great and well written, (although perhaps not quite as well polished as Night's Dawn) and the characterisation is generally good: this is true of both those we might term heroes and those who could be villains, although in many places this becomes blurred. This is one of the best points, all the characters are human, with a mix of traits not just virtuously angelic or evilly demonic. Another good feature of this anthology, is that each story is truly distinct and individual. There are one or two links to the main work (Night's Dawn) but each story in Second Chance is written in slightly different styles and focuses on slightly different things, giving a full range between "Alien" at one extreme and "Caves of Steel" at the other.

A goodly tale - Rated
The nights dawn trilogy was an absolute stunner. Normally you would expect a flash of genius like that to peeter out, (like the attempts to make F. Herberts Dune more than a trilogy, or Asimovs Foundation, ) but rest assured the quality continues unabatted in this one. Sadly I can't remember it so it only gets four stars but if you've read the first 3 you still need this.

A WIDE RANGING READER'S REVIEW - Rated
Not only is this good science-fiction, but as short stories Hamilton's tales are well crafted and structurally attractive. The book is chronologically arranged so that each short-story explains some aspect of the development of the technology of Hamilton's universe. The detective-story genre science-fiction short-story is a masterpiece.