Larger	Conflict (Neutronium Alchemist, No 2) Author: Peter F. Hamilton
	Book Information Publisher: Aspect Book Type: Mass Market Paperback Rating: 42 ISBN-13: 9780446605465 - ISBN-10: 0446605468 Publication Date: 5/1/1998 Pages: 592 Book Reviews

The Neutronium Alchemist: Conflict ranges not only across interstellar space but across the boundary between life and death. This book mainly revolves around Dr. Alkad Mzu, creator of a doomsday weapon so powerful it scares even the citizens of this high-tech and heavily beweaponed future. Mzu is on a decades-long quest to take vengeance against the people who destroyed her home planet, and she wields alarming cunning and ruthlessness in the pursuit. But what gives even her pause is the war against the souls of the dead who have returned from a hellish Beyond to possess the living. Both sides want her: the dead want the weapon, the living want to keep the weapon out of the dead's hands. Unfortunately for them, that means they must find and take Mzu alive, while all the dead need to do is kill her, bringing her into their realm.
Rarely has science fiction produced a series as rich, satisfying, and big as this one. In addition to the action, Hamilton continues to beguile us with the greater mystery of the returned dead--new clues are discovered, only to create new enigmas.