According to SFX Blogger Steven Ellis, “Never mind the quality, feel the width.”

I only started reading PFH by accident. I’d often picked up the first two parts of the Night’s Dawn trilogy in book shops – I was attracted by Jim Burns’ art work, but don’t accus💃e me of judging a book by it’s cover, I’ve always had a thing for Mr Burns’ art ever since I got a big book of spaceships when I was younger. No, the coverღs aren’t what put me off.

I’d read the blurb on the back of Mr Hamilton’s Night’s Dawn books. I found them interesting, but I always put them back on the shelf because of how big the books were. These books were huge; they were like bricks and, to be honest, I found them a little bit intimidating. Did I want such a huge tome by an author I’d never read before? What if I didn’t like them? What if reading the book gave me RSI??
I mean these were some hefty books: part one of the trilogy The Reality Dysfunction ran to 1,225 pages; part two had 1,290 pages. That&rs🍸quo;s a lot of pages. I wasn’t the only one scared of the size of these books. In Americ༒a they were each released in two parts to get the page count down; I guess our colonial friends just don’t like big books either…

So, as I said, I started reading PFH by accident. The accident in question had actually happened years before; I’d fallen off my BMX and got a nail stuck in my leg just below the knee. No big problem at the time but years later in mid 1997 I got out of bed one morning and just fell over, finding that my leg wouldn’t support my weight. After a trip to hospital and an x-ray they found some debris lodged behind my kneecap. A little piece of the nail had remained behind and over the years worked its way into a place that interfered with nerves or tendons or something. After a small surgery I found myself on crutches with a four-week recovery period. Back then the internet wasn’t the all encompassing thing it is today, not like in the early noughties when the better part of a year off work (again on crutches) saw me rack up most of the quite ridiculous post count I have on the SFX forum today. So, there I was stuck in the house with very little tꦫoꦓ do… Perfect book reading time!

After one of my many visits to the doctors I hobbled into a nearby second-hand book shop and found a copy of The Reality Dysfunction for £3. For some reason this time I thought, ‘What the hell, I’ve got time and if I don’ꦗt like it it’s only £3.” I bought it and I made my way home, got a cup of tea, propped my damaged leg up on a cushion and started reading my first PFH book. It grabbed me immediately. I spent the whole day reading that book; I finished it in about four days. 1,225 pages gone in less than a week and on day five I went out and picked up the next book in the series. That took me only a week to read too. But part three hadn’t been released yet. I’d have to wait a year and a half for that. Luckily Mr Hamilton had a back catalogue; The Greg Mandel books. There was also a collection of short stories from the Night’s Dawn universe due out soon. All was not lost; after a visit to the book shop I had more PFH books to read.

Since that mad month of Peter F Hamilton book reading – that monumentous time when I got over my fear of the giant books of PFH – he’s released seven more novels and a guide book to one of his fictional universes, most of them were huge bricks too. I’ve lapped up every one of them and I’ve re-read them all many times. I try to read the Night’s Dawn books at least once a year. The characters, the technology, the plotting, the world building, the societies, the stories; all are just top notch and I’ve recommended them to all the geeks I know, I started a thread in the SFX forums singing Mr Hamilton’s praise and found many other lovers of his work. I was even lucky enough to meet and chat with and hear the man himself talk at both SFX Weekenders. (I🌺 didn’t take my books to get them signed though; they’re just too damn heavy.)

So, I guess this is one of those, “If A hadn’t happened I wouldn’t have done B and that wouldn’t have led to C happening” stories. Sure it’s only books, but sometimes stuff happens that gives you the time or the op🥃portunity to do something you wouldn’t have done. And looking back I’m glad that little piece of metal gave me the chance to take a break and get lost in some really good books. And also teach me a lesson;

Big Books! They ain’t that scary after all!