Hamilton's _The Dreaming Void_

In the past I've criticized certain authors for the extreme amounts of
bloat present in their books.  Most notably David Weber, who regularly
padded 350 pages of plot into an 800 page novel, and Tad Williams -
the granddaddy of them all.  His Overland novels are the bloat by
which all other bloat shall be measured.  

Hamilton's latest, _The Dreaming Void_ is set in the same universe as
his _Pandora's Star_/_Judas Unchained_ duology, a thousand plus years
later.  And about a third of the way into it I thought Weber and
Williams had a challenger to contend with.  About two thirds of the
way through the book I was sure we had a new winner.

Now I think "bloat" isn't the right word for what Hamilton has
accomplished.  Williams and Weber have plot in their books; it's just
stretched out over way too many pages.  Hamilton's words (I can't call
it a novel) seems to have forgotten to have a plot.  It's like he
wrote 650 pages of prologue and called it a day.  Does it qualify as
bloat if there isn't any story inside the verbiage?   

I don't think so.

So Weber and Williams are still the undisputed kings of Science
Fictional Bloat, but Hamilton pulled off quite a stunner here.  I
nominate him for the Longest Prologue EVER award.

Peter Hamilton's THE DREAMING VOID: 650 pages of words strung together
in mostly readable sentences and mostly spelled correctly, now
available at a bookstore near year.

Oddly, it is orders of magnitude better than "Saga of the Seven Suns".

-David