The Naked God
First edition
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| Author | Peter F. Hamilton |
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| Cover artist | Jim Burns |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Series | The Night's Dawn Trilogy |
| Genre | Science fiction |
| Publisher | Macmillan Publishers |
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Publication date
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8 October 1999 |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
| Pages | 1,174 |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 43070064 |
| Preceded by | The Neutronium Alchemist |
The Naked God is a science fiction novel by Peter F. Hamilton and is the third book in The Night's Dawn Trilogy, following on from The Reality Dysfunction and The Neutronium Alchemist. It was published in the United Kingdom by Macmillan Publishers on 8 October 1999. This was the first novel by Hamilton to be published in hardcover in the United States, on 22 October 1999. As with the first two volumes, the US paperback was split into two volumes, entitled Flight and Faith, published in November and December 2000. In February 2009 Orbit Books issued the first one-volume paperback edition of the novel in the USA.
Even by the standards of the first two books, The Naked God is an extremely large volume. It was only possible to publish the UK paperback in one volume by moderately decreasing the font size compared to the previous novels.
Although the final novel so far in the Night's Dawn Universe, (a 'guidebook' to the setting, The Confederation Handbook, was later published) Hamilton has occasionally hinted at returning to the setting in future books in the form of a sequel series set up to 500 years after the events in the trilogy.
In The Reality Dysfunction, the presence of an energy-based alien lifeform during the death of a human on the colony world of Lalonde somehow 'jammed open' the interface between this universe and 'the beyond', an energistic vacuum where the souls of dead humans (and other races, although they inhabit different areas within that realm) have become trapped after death. They are able to cross back over into this universe and possess the living, gaining tremendous strength, agility and the ability to create and alter matter. They overrun the planet Lalonde in a matter of weeks and spread beyond to many other worlds and asteroid settlements. A failed attempt to conquer the planet Atlantis alerts the Edenists to the threat.
In The Neutronium Alchemist, the Confederation learns of the extent of the danger and imposes a complete shut-down of all interstellar flight to quarantine the possessed on the few planets they have secured a foothold on. However, quarantine-busting flights soon spread the possessed further. The deployment of military forces against the possessed is complicated by the fact that killing the possessor also kills the possessed victim. This depressing fact, creating the greatest hostage situation in human history, threatens to undermine morale. Eventually, the Kulu Kingdom joins forces with their ideological opponents, the Edenists, to retake the peninsula of Mortonridge on their colony world of Ombey from the possessed to provide the Confederation with proof that the possessed can be beaten. Elsewhere, the most infamous 'returnee' of the possessed, Al Capone, uses his organisational skills to conquer the planet New California and turn it into the hub of an expanding empire, 'The Organisation', with the Confederation Navy hard-pressed to deal with checking its advance whilst maintaining the quarantine.
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