Peter F. Hamilton was born in Rutland in 1960, where he still lives, near Rutland Water.
He began writing late in his forties, in 1987, and his first story was published in 1988.

This will probably remain his most tremendous achievement. A colossus of SF litterature. Three books, a total of more than 3700 pages in the paperback edition (respectiveley, 1220, 1259 and 1244 pages), and a total well over a million of words. Although the trilogy spans 'only' a single century, a timeline of more that 500 years is detailed, and over 140 characters are key actors of the serie.

But it would be poor litterature, indeed, that relies on size alone. In spite of such gigantic proportions, this is a detailed, coherent, psychologically true and scientifically believable (I am a scientist, so I take this point at heart) construction. A creation of a very plausible future, made almost as vivid as real life by a wealth of truth-smelling details.

In 2600, a chance happening involving an utterly alien entity, and a well known human criminal, brings humanity to battle with a very ancient nightmare: the possession of living by the conciousness of the dead. And as simple arithmetics shows, the odds are very much against the living. Nor there is a way to content the dead, as the only thing they want is to feel again... what can only be achieved by giving them a body, thus forcing a dreadful cohabitation between two conciousness in a single body. Now, what of religion, material survival, spirituality? What is the soul, what is conciousness and intelligence? And does the material survival of one's thought processes, in another body, means he will not experience the beyond? (The Reality Dysfunction)

But this is not a singly human problem: an extinct xenoc civilisation seems to have committed mass suicide in front of a similar situation. As the old division between Adamists (wishing material advancement) and Edenists (oriented toward knowledge) must yield in front of this singular menace, quarantine slows down commerce, and old weapons of doom must be prevented from falling in the wrong hands, the possessed newly acquired energistic abilities makes traditional military preparations very ineffective. (The Neutronium Alchemist)

The only known xenoc civilization having successfully overcome this crisis, the Kijnt, are morally very sympathetic... but materially unhelpfull, saying humanity must get over it by its own spiritual progress. But a young and daring space captain, placed at the confluent of Adamist practicality, by his birth, and Edenist spiritual quest, by his love of a lady who, unknown to her subjects, is also a head of state, has vowed to pursue a very tenuous thread. It will lead him to the origins of a civilization that has not evolved for several thousand years and, through its peregrinations in search of a livable planet, has encountered the sleeping god. Lost a long way from old, overpopulated Earth, this very alien construct will utimately provide an original solution to possession. (The Naked God)

The technological environment, and human and social context of the Trilogy, are the result of a very precise and detailed timeline. A Second Chance at Eden is a collection of short stories, set between 2020 and 2500. It progressively builds up the Trilogy universe, and makes it all the more credible, as the result of a reasoned evolution. If this virtue as a scientific explanantion of the Trilogy world makes it worth of interest, it must be said that its literary quality is far from homogenous...