Today, I’m delighted to welcome back one the biggest names in space opera: Peter F Hamilton. To close out the blog tour celebrating the release of The Saints of Salvation, Peter agreed to tackle my favourite SciFiMonth challenge – Six Degrees of SFnal Separation.
The Six Degrees of Separation challenge
You know the saying: no two people in the contacted world are more than six social connections apart (even in 2020). Inspired by Kate at Books Are My Favourite And Best, I like to apply this notion to books – finding interesting ways to hop from one book to the next based on a shared author, theme, award win and so on.
Having had way too much fun exploring this myself, I invited special guest Peter F Hamilton (AAAH) to have a go…
PETER: Anna set me the Six Degrees Of Separation challenge, throwing down the gauntlet for a thread which will lead from the SF I read in my formative years to link up with my own Salvation Sequence trilogy.
End Of Eternity – Isaac Asimov
An organisation of Eternals living just outside reality use time travel to regulate and control humanity from the 27th century all the way up to the 70,000th century. Their technicians change events in history to smooth out conflicts, making life better for everyone who lives in the centuries which Eternity oversees.
Endymion – Dan Simmons
The sequel to the Hyperion cantos sets a youth called Endymion on the quest to rescue a girl, Aenea, from the Technocore, a fully conscious AI which is secretly influencing the human race for its own purpose. Aenea travelled into the time tombs and is about to emerge years in the future, where the AI’s forces are poised to capture her…
Neuromancer – William Gibson
The first book in Gibson’s Sprawl trilogy, where cyberpunks travel to a space habitat at the Earth-Moon L5 point to break an AI out of the Turing lock that restricts its development, allowing it to grow to its full potential.
Colony – Ben Bova
A corporate space habitat at L5 is subject to a takeover by terrorists whose politics are driven by Earth’s energy poverty. The attack is defeated by the colonists led by the first genetically-engineered human, an idealist who confronts the habitat’s owners and forces them to use the colony to help Earth. It ends with interplanetary spaceships setting off to bring the resources of the asteroids back to Earth.
Rendezvous With Rama – Arthur C. Clarke
A vast alien interstellar arkship travels through the solar system. It is intercepted by a human interplanetary spaceship, whose crew explore what they can before the visitor slingshots around the Sun and leaves, heading back out into interstellar space.
Salvation – Peter F. Hamilton
A huge interstellar arkship arrives in the solar system, bringing the alien Olyix who trade their advanced technology in return for energy so they can continue their pilgrim voyage to the God At The End Of Time.
Intrigued? Dive into the Salvation sequence: SALVATION, SALVATION LOST, and THE SAINTS OF SALVATION are out now from Pan MacMillan.
Many thanks to Peter for being an excellent sport as always, and to Bethan James of ED PR for giving me the chance to host him for SciFiMonth.
This is the last stop on the THE SAINTS OF SALVATION blog tour – swing by and check out the fun with my fellow bloggers:
onemore.org 