The Mandel Files, Volume 2: The Nano Flower (Greg Mandel)

My first exposure to Hamilton was his magnum opus, Night’s Dawn trilogy. Initially, I was absolutely blown away. About midway through this 3,500 page door stop, I began to lose interest, primarily because the novelty of many of Hamilton’s brilliant alien and technological constructs simply became second nature. I followed up with Pandora’s Star and Judas Unchained, another 2,000 page monster. Much like Night’s Dawn, it simply carried on too long. The Void trilogy, actually a sequel to Judas Unchained, was another 2,000+ pages, but actually kept my attention throughout.I recently read Fallen Dragon and was very pleased with the shorter, one volume work (only in Hamilton’s world could a 800+ page novel be deemed short). I then read The Great North Road which contained many of the same technologies and constructs as the Void Trilogy and perhaps this lack of originality contributed to my disappointment with this work.Having read roughly 12,000 pages worth of Hamilton “space opera”, I backtracked to some of his earlier work, hence this review of Volume 2 (containing the novel Nano Flower) of the Mandel Files, a collection of the author’s work featuring “gland psychic” Greg Mandel as the chief protagonist. Equal billing should go to Julia Evans, the young trillionaire industrialist who plays a prominent role in the Mandel chronicles.This novel follows up on the first two books, which were contained in volume 1, after a period of about a dozen years. Mandel is called back into the service of Evans in the attempt to rescue a mutual friend, who has disappeared under unusual circumstances. While it is not strictly required that the first two books be read in advance of this one (many items are explained as though the reader has no prior knowledge of them), doing so would certainly be helpful and I would highly recommend it.Hamilton’s subsequent work focuses on far future space opera and he is an unequaled master of the genre in my opinion. The Mandel Files, on the other hand, occur in the near future and are more plot driven than science fiction dominated. In Nano Flower, however, Hamilton demonstrates a skill that has held him in high regard in his later work, his ability to develop and present highly believable and original alien constructs. Too often, science fiction writers present aliens in cliqued forms, such as giant insects, robots or even dog or cat like beings, as if an independently developed life form will somehow neatly fit into our concept of sentient beings.I found this to be a highly entertaining and enjoyable read.

I love the Commonwealth Saga and the Night's Dawn Trilogy. I was disappointed in the pacing and the character development in this effort, however.The characters in this book, Greg, Julia, and almost everyone else, are too good and too aware of how good they are. In Hamilton's other works, we see characters who struggle when self-interest and the interest of loved ones or society conflict. In this work, seemingly everything aligns with Julia's self-interest - both Julia and Greg struggle more with how much of a bother it is to exercise their power than whether to use their powers or not. Additionally, all of the characters spend a mind-boggling amount of time thinking about how great the other characters are. There was so much love and mutual respect, I wanted to drop the book on several occasions. It seems that Hamilton has soft spot for these character I didn't see elsewhere.In other works, Hamilton demonstrates mastery of contrasting portions of action-filled plot development with introspective character development. In Nano Flower, the first several chapters are all introspective, apparently to fill in the events in between the last entry in this series and the present day. This goes on and on, and is only contrasted with other character development chapters. The plot doesn't really get moving until about half-way through this thick novel, and you've had to wade through a lot of mutual respect and admiration to get there.TLDR: Skip it.

Mandel Files-Great future fiction! P. Ham is awesome! These are realistic scenarios made available to all our imaginations....can't wait to read on!

I love all Peter Hamiltons books. He writes intelligently, and actually keeps me entertained. I have read so much in my lifetime, that the average writer, with their average story, and average writing ability bore me to death. Peter F Hamilton always meets or exceeds my expectations. I have read every thing this author has written.

I particularly like that Hamilton keeps the action moving. There is a balanced amount of character background for those that didn't read the earlier Mandel volume, but not enough to slow the story or distract from what the characters are doing currently. The technology and scientific principles were light enough that anybody could understand, or even read past them without ruining the action. I thought the book was tough to put down.

The first two Mandel books were OK at best for me, and this one is slightly worse that the other two. I have times of high interest bogged down by huge gaps of over-described background information and settings.I greatly enjoyed some of the other works by this author (Void Trilogy, Pre-Void Trilogy books) but this one is lacking in many areas. If you're not really into the Mandel Files I would skip this entry.

Peter Hamilton is state of the art and having followed it for over 50 hears, the state of the art has never been better. One can only hope this "trilogy" continues. I am not ready to say goodbye to these characters just yet. Or better still, perhaps they can be banished to the void.

This was an intriguing combination of Sci Fi and a Detective novel, with elements of a Thriller mixed in. I wish that Hamilton had written more Mandel Files!

Amongst the best science fiction novels. Recommend to everybody.