The Reality Dysfunction is a science fiction novel by British writer Peter F. Hamilton, the first book in The Night's Dawn Trilogy. It is followed by The Neutronium Alchemist and The Naked God. It was first published in the United Kingdom by Macmillan Publishers on 26 January 1996. The first US edition, which was broken into two volumes, Emergence and Expansion (the UK paperback is not), followed in July and August 1997 from Time Warner Books. The second US edition, published by Orbit Books in October 2008, is published in a single volume.
In some countries, the paperback editions were split into two (Germany and the United States), three (France) or four volumes (Italy and Portugal) per book. Usually the first volume is a translation of "Emergence".
Background
The novel is set in the 26th and 27th centuries. The opening chapters cover a period of some thirty years, with the bulk of the story set in the years 2610 and 2611 AD.
A timeline in the appendix briskly covers the future history of the human race, from the settling of the Moon and the opening up of space to commercial exploitation to the founding of the Confederation. Humanity is split into two strands, the Adamists and the Edenists.
The Edenists possess the affinity gene, which allows telepathic communication between one another and the construction and use of bio-technological (or 'bitek') constructs, including sentient, living starships (voidhawks) and enormous space habitats. The Edenists inhabit sentient habitats orbiting gas giants, which they mine for helium-3, and they have a much greater standard of living than their Adamist counterparts.
The Adamists, divided into numerous nation-states, are 'classic' humans who employ mechanical and cybernetic technology and use implants to achieve their ends. The Adamists mostly reject bitek for religious and cultural reasons, but it is later revealed that certain individuals working within Earth's government have discouraged the use of bitek for fear of losing their ability to influence the development of mankind. Some Adamists still use bitek, such as 'blackhawks', advanced living spacecraft similar to Edenist voidhawks, with enhanced combat capabilities.
Despite their cultural, ideological and religious differences, the Edenists and Adamists generally work together in a forum known as the Confederation, which seeks to regulate interstellar trade, prevent war and repress the use and spread of antimatter, the most feared weapon of mass destruction at the time of the novels.
Humanity has only encountered three extraterrestrial races: the Jiciro, a race in the stages of an Industrial Revolution that the Confederation is observing discreetly; the Tyrathca, an insectoid species fleeing the destruction of their home world through a nova; and the Kiint, an incredibly advanced, ancient species who adopt a slightly condescending policy of non-interference in human affairs, but occasionally help with scientific research in areas of mutual interest. The Kiint only occupy one planet and do not possess starships, claiming to have passed beyond the need for economics and now exist purely to learn more about the universe. The Confederation has also found the ruins of a race known as the Laymil who, for reasons unknown, committed racial suicide some two thousand years prior to the start of the novels.
Plot summary
The Reality Dysfunction opens in the year 2581 with a war raging between two worlds, Omuta and Garissa, over three hundred and eighty seven mineral-rich asteroids known as the Dorados. The war escalates in a matter of months and it is rumoured that Garissa has developed an ultimate weapon of mass destruction known only as 'The Alchemist'. The Alchemist deployment mission, on the starship Beezling and its two escorts, is intercepted by blackhawk mercenaries. Two of the ships survive, although they are crippled and stranded far from the nearest system. Dr. Alkad Mzu, creator of the Alchemist, survives the attack. Shortly after, the Omutans drop fifteen antimatter planet-busters on Garissa, rendering the planet uninhabitable and killing the majority of the ninety-five million inhabitants. The Confederation imposes a 30-year blockade around Omuta, and executes its government.
Many millions of years earlier, the extremely rare conditions on a moon orbiting a gas giant in a remote galaxy allow for the creation of a lifeform able to 'transcend' to a purely energy-based (later known as energistic) state, the Ly-Cilph. The Ly-cilph become explorers of the universe, determined to know all that can be known about space and time. Over the course of aeons, they explore the universe and, presently, one arrives in the Milky Way galaxy.
An Edenist voidhawk named Iasius returns home to Saturn to die. As is traditional, a mating flight is called, with many voidhawks and even a blackhawk, Udat, joining Iasius on its final voyage into Saturn's atmosphere. As it descends, the other ships energise its bitek eggs, which are taken to nest in Saturn's rings. After several months, when the eggs are large enough, the infant children of Iasius''' captain, Athene, are placed within them, so ship and captain experience infancy together, forming an unbreakable bond of love. The ship that grows from the egg energised by Udat, Oenone, becomes the most notable of the new brood of voidhawks, and its captain, Syrinx, the most wilful. As with many Edenists, Syrinx and Oenone volunteer to serve a tour of duty with the Confederation Navy, but the destruction of their fellow ship Graeae (commanded by Syrinx's brother, Thetis) by an Adamist starship (called the Dymasio) using antimatter causes Syrinx to take a dim view of Adamists in general from that point on. She finishes her service with the Navy and then goes into cargo shipping.
A group of colonists arrive on the frontier world of Lalonde from Earth. Grossly overpopulated, with tens, sometimes hundreds of millions of people crammed into domed cities called arcologies, many people on Earth dream of escaping to virgin worlds with open skies above their heads. However, Lalonde is a typical stage-one colony world, dirty and corrupt with a ridiculously low level of technology. The latest colonists, mostly from Earth's European arcologies, vow to create a peaceful, safe society. They are taken by steamboat up the mighty Juliffe River to found their new township, which they name Aberdale. Among the colonists are the Skibbow family, whose patriarch, Gerald, is excited about the prospect of living as a farmer. His teenage daughter, Marie, is less impressed and vows to escape back to Earth at the first opportunity. Also among the colonists are Father Horst Elwes, a Christian priest, and a large number of 'Ivets' (Involuntary Transportees), petty criminals from Earth sentenced to work on the colony worlds to repay their debt to society. Unbeknown to the authorities, one of the Ivets, Quinn Dexter, is a member of the Light Brother sect (Satan worshippers) and is armed with highly advanced information implants which have escaped detection. Dexter soon exerts his command over all the other Ivets through the use of satanic rituals, whilst simultaneously ingratiating himself with the colonists. His act does not fool Powel Manani, the town's assigned settlement supervisor. Around this time the Ly-cilph arrives on Lalonde and studies Aberdale. Its curiosity is piqued when Father Elwes manages to see it, since few species are capable of perceiving it.
Joshua Calvert is a resident of Tranquillity, an independent bitek habitat (one of only five such habitats) orbiting the gas giant Mirchusko. Tranquillity was founded to study the Ruin Ring, the remains of some forty thousand alien habitats which apparently self-destructed two thousand years ago. The crown prince of the interplanetary Christian kingdom of Kulu believes that research on this destruction must be launched, notably to preserve humanity. He is implanted with the affinity gene, passed on to his descendants and creates a habitat, Tranquility, which he leads. Upon his death, his son succeeded him and continued the search. Tranquillity was excommunicated by the Kingdom and its leaders disinherited. Since then it has flourished as a tax haven, a trustworthy base for blackhawk mating flights, and an exclusive business locale in its area of the Confederation. Calvert has inherited a trader starship, the Lady MacBeth, from his late father, but the ship was heavily damaged in an unknown incident (Calvert makes up several stories during the course of the novel to explain this incident, all false; the incident is later explained in the short story 'Escape Route' in the short story collection A Second Chance at Eden) and is no longer operational. Calvert dreams of making a big find in the Ruin Ring to finance repairs. Much to his surprise, Calvert indeed strikes lucky, finding a virtually intact memory core with the first-ever images of the reason for the Laymil racial suicide. However, decoding the information will take some time. Calvert sells his find for nearly seven million six hundred thousand fuseodollars, fixes up the Lady MacBeth and begins his life as a trader captain. He also starts a relationship with Ione Saldana, the heir of Michael and current ruler of Tranquillity.
Also on Tranquillity is Dr. Alkad Mzu, who arrived there a little less than thirty years ago and was hired in the Laymils research program. How she escaped the situation at the start of the novel is not explained. Mzu is kept under the watchful eye of half a dozen major Confederation intelligence agencies to ensure that her knowledge of the Alchemist is not revealed to anyone else. From time to time, Mzu asks ship captains for passage off the habitat, knowing that such requests will be vetoed by Ione Saldana. She asks both Calvert and Meyer, the captain of the Udat, for aid but both times they refuse to help after Saldana intervenes.
On Lalonde Dexter encounters a group of people hiding in the jungle, led by the authoritative Laton. Laton is a 'Serpent', an Edenist who has rejected his society and, for lack of a better term, 'gone bad'. More than thirty-five years ago Laton tried to stage a coup to seize control of a habitat called Jantrit, using a proteinic virus to threaten it with destruction. In the resulting chaos the habitat was destroyed (the only Edenist habitat ever lost) with more than a million deaths. The Confederation Navy believed it had killed Laton, but Laton had evaded capture and fled into obscurity in the wilds of Lalonde. Laton, impressed with Dexter's resourcefulness (but disgusted by his religion), offers him a place in his organisation, whose goal is the discovery of true immortality. Dexter pretends to agree, knowing refusal will mean death. Realising that Dexter is faking his interest, Laton arranges for the villagers to discover that the Ivets are satanists. In the resulting chaos most of Dexter's followers are killed. The remaining few take Powel Manani prisoner and sacrifice him in a grisly ceremony. At this moment, the observing Ly-cilph detects a strange energy current streaming from Manani through a quantum fracture in the space-time continuum. The Ly-cilph attempts to investigate by following the energy current, only to find it flooding into an energistic vacuum. Unable to extricate itself, the Ly-cilph goes into hibernation whilst still halfway between the two dimensions. This allows the strange energy forms in the dimension beyond to cross back into our universe.