Future Thoughts

One of the reasons that I enjoy reading science fiction books is the different perspectives the genre gives you on yourself and your perceptions of 'normal'. I remember reading a book that was about a war that took place between humans and an alien race. Since the space ships travelled close to the speed of light many years passed in society while the soldiers were flying around in space. Each time the soldiers returned home home had changed pretty dramatically. One such change was that in order to control over population on Earth the government had encouraged homosexuality, and all births were test tubes. The poor soldier went away when he was normal, and when he came back everyone was horrified at his sexual tendencies. I found that pretty funny for some reason.
Peter Hamilton puts one of those perspective check experiences in Fallen Dragon. The main character is visiting his girlfriend's family when he finds out that he has been fed real meat. Horror of horrors they gave him something that wasn't grown in a protein vat!
Fallen Dragon is a pretty good book. It follows Lawrence Newton in his journey from being a science fiction loving youth to a disenchanted adult when he finds out space travel is not all he thought it would be. Like all of the Peter Hamilton books that I have read there is an undercurrent of today's environmental movement to the book, but it never comes across as 'preachy'. I enjoyed Hamilton's science fiction mystery series more than this book, but they covered pretty different topics. Fallen Dragon dealt with issues of terrorism, planetary exploitation and corporate greed, while the Mindstar series was more just a mystery set in the future.
I wanted a little break from science fiction when I finished this one, so I went to one of my favorite authors, Bernard Cornwell, and his book, Scoundrel.