Mindstar Rising   by Peter F Hamilton

This is the first Hamilton novel I've read, and it is his debut novel. It is not the expansive space opera that I was expecting, but quite a domestic (very British) action-adventure with lots of imaginative science fiction bits thrown in to twist a quite eclectic yarn.

It is based upon the trope of a modified but second-rate super-soldier cut loose from the army and now operating as a freelance troubleshooter. He is hired by a nationally significant firm to use his enhanced psychopathic abilities to root out moles and agents working to bring the organization down, but ends up chasing after villains behind the campaign to find out that the top man is the ex-Prime Minister of the country--now hanging out in Wisbech of all places, effectively a submerged island after the rising sea drowned the whole of the Cambridgeshire fens--who led the country to financial and administrative ruin. The head of the firm dies, only to re-emerge as a soul encapsulated in a computer, which then gets hacked by the bad guys. In the end it turns into a relatively simple hunt-and-kill thriller, though many characters get thrown into the mix so that the reader must work to keep up.

There are lots of simple predictions about the state of today, such as the corporations becoming bigger than the governments, global warming and rising sea levels, and these are all extrapolated and exaggerated to good effect for a believable but nightmarish medium-term future.

Whilst a lot of this book is in-your-face, there is some lumpy subtlety mixed in. There is good, deep, study of some relationships that the protagonist has, and the environment--both political and ecological--is broad-brush but quite sophisticated, with the implications on society being explored a little. The bio-modifications are also dealt with with some subtlety; their use has implications, inflicts pain and damage on the user, and can only be used sparingly. The long-term psychological effects are also explored.

But fundamentally the book is a series of great action sequences, involving brilliantly eclectic characters, following a very solid story line.

It is a hugely interesting read but in the end feels cheapened by the almost gratuitous violence.