Hi all,
      I was really excited when I discovered Peter F. Hamilton, a new
(to me) author who wrote hard SF. His FALLEN DRAGON was magnificent,
and when I saw his latest, MISSPENT YOUTH I grabbed it without even
reading the blurb.

 What a let-down!

 It's rubbish.

 I actually checked the name of the author on the book's cover... I
can't believe this crap was written by the one who wrote FALLEN DRAGON
which was was clever, suspenseful, inventive, detailed, cleverly
plotted... this one is awful. I read twenty pages, then speed-read
another forty, lost all hope and threw it out the window.

 I begin to wonder if it was written by Hamilton at the age of
sixteen. How else can he go from a mature clever author to a childish
idiot? Are they cloning authors yet? Maybe Dolly the Sheep wrote it.

 Anyway, if you see MISSPENT YOUTH by Peter F. Hamilton, run away.
It's well-named...

 For me, it was a misspent hour... and most of that spent skipping
pages hoping for some sort of a story, or a character that resembled a
human being rather than a silly kid, or even a plot. Anything.

 Nope. It's rubbish.

 The only SF idea that struck any resonance in me was a future-world
once the Internet had totally destroyed copyright. I liked that idea,
when writers and artists no longer bothered to create, so all that
remains is amateurs writing rubbish, or live shows meant to be shown
just once (they call it reality TV and infotainment)... but of course
this silly kid pretending to be Peter Hamilton did not develop the
idea.

 It's a great idea. Without copyright and with instant dissemination
of ideas, it is not only music, books and video games that would
die... *all* invention would die. The world would stagnate except for
dickheads writing freeware and reinventing the wheel, as they do.

 Soon, there would be no need for art, science or engineers. Anything
that required a big investment that had to be recovered over time,
would end. Quick fixes, cheap copies and innovation would proliferate.
Secrecy would rule okay... as the only way to protect invention.


Regards,
Bob
 

--- BQWK Alpha 0.5