''Mindstar Rising'' is a science fiction novel by British writer Peter F. Hamilton, published in 1993. It is the first book in the Greg Mandel trilogy. The novel introduces the major characters in the series, most notably Greg and Julia Evans. The novel combines elements of classic

detective novel Detective fiction is a subgenre of crime fiction and mystery fiction in which an investigator or a detective—whether professional, amateur or retired—investigates a crime, often murder. The detective genre began around the same time as s ...

s with

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...

Plot summary

The focus of the novel is the growth of the company Event Horizon, founded by Julia's grandfather Philip Evans. Beset by industrial saboteurs, the company seeks help in the form of ex–Mindstar Brigade soldier turned

private detective A private investigator (often abbreviated to PI and informally called a private eye), a private detective, or inquiry agent is a person who can be hired by individuals or groups to undertake investigatory law services. Private investigators of ...

Greg Mandel. The company is leading the way in rebuilding a twenty-first-century England after the People's Socialist Party (PSP), a tyrannical communist government, had first crushed the country and then collapsed, leaving it in shambles. Initially hired to solve a mystery involving missing stocks from a

zero-g Weightlessness is the complete or near-complete absence of the sensation of weight. It is also termed zero gravity, zero G-force, or zero-G. Weight is a measurement of the force on an object at rest in a relatively strong gravitational fie ...

satellite A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioi ...

production facility, he is then re-hired to find the source of attacks on a stored personality of Philip Evans after the industrialist's death.

The Event Horizon trilogy

Greg Mandel is the lead character in ''Mindstar Rising'', plus two subsequent novels and a novella by Peter F. Hamilton. All the stories feature Mandel, Julia Evans and the company Event Horizon. The stories are set in a near-future England, centred on Hamilton's own home county of Rutland. Mandel is a former officer of the "English Army", who fought in the "Mindstar Brigade", a tactical

psychic A psychic is a person who claims to use extrasensory perception (ESP) to identify information hidden from the normal senses, particularly involving telepathy or clairvoyance, or who performs acts that are apparently inexplicable by natural laws ...

unit. He was given the psychic powers of

intuition Intuition is the ability to acquire knowledge without recourse to conscious reasoning. Different fields use the word "intuition" in very different ways, including but not limited to: direct access to unconscious knowledge; unconscious cognition; ...

and detecting emotions, skills he uses for his new profession of

psychic detective A psychic detective is a person who investigates crimes by using purported paranormal psychic abilities. Examples have included postcognition (the paranormal perception of the past), psychometry (information psychically gained from objects), ...

. The stories are set in a Britain recovering from the damages suffered during ten years of "Marxist-Maoist" dictatorship under the People's Socialist Party and also the ravages of global warming and collapsing financial markets. After three highly successful novels featuring Mandel had launched his career, Hamilton only briefly returned to him for the novella ''The Suspect Genome''. ''The Suspect Genome'' was published in '' Interzone'' in 2000 and was winner of the British Science Fiction Association Award for best short in 2001. Apart from this, Hamilton otherwise moved on to writing quite different books. The author said in 1996, that "Greg was a very good start for me and people have enjoyed it and I think: "leave it at that".

Release details

* Hamilton, Peter F. ''Mindstar Rising''. London:

Pan Books Pan Books is a publishing imprint that first became active in the 1940s and is now part of the British-based Macmillan Publishers, owned by the Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group of Germany. Pan Books began as an independent publisher, es ...

, 1993. (paperback, first edition).

References

1993 British novels Novels by Peter F. Hamilton 1993 science fiction novels British science fiction novels Debut science fiction novels English-language novels 1993 debut novels Pan Books books {{1990s-sf-novel-stub