Science fiction books by Peter F. Hamilton, originally from 2004 and 2005. Or, actually, it is one story (occasionally referred to as The Commonwealth Saga) split up into two physical books just to keep things manageable, because the total page count for the paperback edition is around 2400.
As the Publishers Weekly has put it, the book is an "intelligent space opera". If you're looking for science fiction novels that have considerable philosophical depth and explore the essence of the Universe beyond imaginable to an ordinary people, then you might find the Commonwealth Saga not particularly attractive. What it does offer, instead, is an enthralling story of a time period in 24th century when the future existence of human (and some other) societies is put in jeopardy. There is no single main character but many persons whose stories get intertwined at some point or another. In addition, the area of space involved is huge: the Intersolar Commonwealth consists of hundreds of planets interlinked with wormholes. Nevertheless, Hamilton somehow succeeds in creating quite a coherent reading experience, and the grandiosity of the world and the plot is smartly conveyed through personal stories of people whose personalities and ways of thinking are easily understandable to a 21st century reader.
For me, these books were so captivating that it was hard to stop reading and put them down in the evening. I even intentionally delayed starting with the second book because I wanted to get some other things done as well and it would have been very difficult to allocate enough time for other tasks when immersed in such a "space opera" (by the way, in case you're wondering, I do NOT watch soap operas from TV; the "intellingent" in front of "space opera" is exactly ment to draw attention to the fact that it is not a soap opera in space).
So, in conclusion, I highly recommend these books.
More info at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0345479211/ and http://www.amazon.com/dp/0345461673/ .
