The novel “Mindstar Rising” by Peter F. Hamilton was published for the first time in 1993. It’s the first of the Greg Mandel trilogy.

During his time in the British Army, Greg Mandel was part of Mindstar Brigade, where his body was altered to give him psychic powers. After returning to civilian life, he’s using his intuition and emotion detection abilities for an activity as a private detective.

When Event Horizon, a great company state-of-the-art in the technological field, suffers what are suspected to be acts of industrial sabotage, its founder Philip Evans turns to Greg Mandel. The company’s internal security team couldn’t find out the saboteurs so they need external help from someone able to quickly discover if any employees are lying. Mandel’s ability reveals a more situation complex than expected.

After beginning his career as a writer selling short fiction for a few years, Peter F. Hamilton published his first novel “Mindstar Rising”, set in a future rather close in a UK ravaged by years of dictatorship by the Popular Socialist Party. The situation in this future is made worse by global warming which caused serious problems to the territory.

The protagonist Greg Mandel is a war veteran who has been part of a very special brigade called Mindstar whose members were subjected to physiological changes in order to increase their potential psychic abilities. After returning to civilian life, the situation is far from easy and Mandel tries to use his skills as a private detective.

A chance for a good job comes for Greg Mandel when he gests called by Event Horizon to check if certain production problems are due to sabotage. In particular, his ability to understand when a person is lying allows him to identify a possible saboteur during an interrogation through a few focused questions.

This investigation takes more or less the first quarter of the novel and seems to end but in fact little after a short time it’s clear that this is only a part of a larger story. At that point, Greg Mandel’s services are again required by Event Horizon but the situation becomes much more complex than expected.

In the following years, Peter F. Hamilton has become famous especially for his space operas but early in his career he wrote novels set on Earth in the near future. However, since the beginning his works contained a number of very important technological elements that also include biotechnology used to augment human beings.

In “Mindstar Rising”, these biotechnologies were used for groped to create better soldiers but the results weren’t quite perfect because their psychic abilities are not entirely reliable and have limitations. These applications allow Peter F. Hamilton to give a Greg Mandel a background and also to include ethical and moral aspects of certain scientific and technological developments.

Another positive element that is already clear from his first novel is Peter F. Hamilton’s world-building. The many references to climate change are mixed with the political and social changes that occurred in the first part of the 21st century. Sometimes this can slow down the pace of the narrative but overall I think it reinforces the story giving it more realism.

Technological, social and political elements mix up in the story of a corporate struggle with Greg Mandel who must handle himself in various dangers in a cutthroat environment sometimes as dangerous as a war zone. It’s also a story of personal hatred because Peter F. Hamilton develops the various protagonists and the relationships among the various characters. However, the novel also has its flaws.

There are two elements in particular in “Mindstar Rising” that are not really extraordinary: the fact that a large company seems unable to handle a possible sabotage and the use of various cliches. Greg Mandel himself gest a good impression from Event Horizon’s head of security yet in the course of the novel multiple threats for the company are revealed and no one discovered anything about them. Even Mandel seems to have no problems in revealeing information that should be absolutely top secret to his contacts and even to his girlfriend.

Overall, I think that the merits of “Mindstar Rising” outweigh its flaws, making it a good novel that’s worth reading. It’s the first novel of a trilogy but the story is autonomous so you can read it and then decide if you want to continue with its sequels.