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Misspent Youth

by Peter F. Hamilton

3.16 · rating details · 455 ratings · 48 reviews

Readers have learned to expect the unexpected from Peter F. Hamilton. Now the master of space opera focuses on near-future Earth and one most unusual family. The result is a coming-of-age tale like no other. By turns comic, erotic, and tragic, Misspent Youth is a profound and timely exploration of all that divides and unites fathers and sons, men and women, the young and t...moreReaders have learned to expect the unexpected from Peter F. Hamilton. Now the master of space opera focuses on near-future Earth and one most unusual family. The result is a coming-of-age tale like no other. By turns comic, erotic, and tragic, Misspent Youth is a profound and timely exploration of all that divides and unites fathers and sons, men and women, the young and the old.

2040. After decades of concentrated research and experimentation in the field of genetic engineering, scientists of the European Union believe they have at last conquered humankind’s most pernicious foe: old age. For the first time, technology holds out the promise of not merely slowing the aging process but actually reversing it. The ancient dream of the Fountain of Youth seems at hand.

The first subject for treatment is seventy-eight-year-old philanthropist Jeff Baker. After eighteen months in a rejuvenation tank, Jeff emerges looking like a twenty-year-old. And the change is more than skin deep. From his hair cells down to his DNA, Jeff is twenty–with a breadth of life experience.

But while possessing the wisdom of a septuagenarian at age twenty is one thing, raging testosterone is another, as Jeff discovers when he attempts to pick up his life where he left off. Suddenly his oldest friends seem, well, old. Jeff’s trophy wife looks better than she ever did. His teenage son, Tim, is more like a younger brother. And Tim’s nubile girlfriend is a conquest too tempting to resist.

Jeff’s rejuvenated libido wreaks havoc on the lives of his friends and family, straining his relationship with Tim to the breaking point. It’s as if youth is a drug and Jeff is wasted on it. But if so, it’s an addiction he has no interest in kicking.

As Jeff’s personal life spirals out of control, the European Union undergoes a parallel meltdown, attacked by shadowy separatist groups whose violent actions earn both condemnation and applause. Now, in one terrifying instant, the personal and the political will intersect, and neither Jeff nor Tim–or the Union itself–will ever be the same again.

From the Hardcover edition.(less)

Hardcover, 416 pages

Published September 16th 2008 by Del Rey

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Aug 19, 2011

Luke rated it

· review of another edition

Set in 2040, Misspent Youth portrays a fairly bleak future. It centers on Jeff Baker, inventor of the ultimate data storage system and thus chosen as the worlds first recipitent of Rejuvination.

Jeff returns to his wife and teenage son as a 25 year old man. Understandably this causes breakdowns in his marriage and relationship with his son Tim, particularly after Jeff takes an interest in his son's attractive girlfriend Annabel.

Jeff and Annabel begin a torrid affair, then later after being cau...more

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Jan 08, 2012

Steve rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: science, fiction

Jeff Baker, founder of the datasphere, is the first person to be chosen for a new and highly expensive rejuvenation treatment, which completely reverses the aging process in almost every way. 78 years old, and after the treatment he looks, feels and effectively is, 20 again. He just has more memories. Misspent Youth follows the effect his has on him, his wife and son, and society at large.[return][return]This book is a great concept, has a lot of potential, and in the hands of Peter F. Hamilton,...more

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Nov 19, 2011

Neil rated it

I'm a fan of Peter Hamilton's epic s-f, but this prequel is just bad. Hamilton is not someone who makes real characters. He is a traditional ideas writer. The characters in his novels are two-dimensional and meant to reflect or demonstrate an aspect of the the incredibly deep universe he creates. In "Misspent Youth" Hamilton seems to almost be writing a YA book, trying to be about "character development" and some kind of youthful coming of age... and it simply doesn't work. I...more

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Jun 21, 2011

Roger rated it

· review of another edition

I was almost scared away by the 2 star review this book seems to carry with it, but I'm glad I picked it up anyway.

Misspent Youth was a departure(albeit a pleasant one)from the space operas I expect from Hamilton. A core group of three or four characters all interacting to form a fairly dysfunctional family experience character development and individual changes that his stories don't usually get the opportunity to delve too deeply into considering how much is always going on with as ...more

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Jul 22, 2010

Isaac rated it

· review of another edition

I thought this was a good book. To be fair, I haven't read any Peter Hamilton before but I doubt I'll change my rating once I've read The Commonwealth Saga and the Void trilogy etc (we'll see anyway).

The pacing is very good and Hamilton's prose is very readable. Something happens in every single chapter with virtually no slowdown. The characters are vivid (though many readers have found them unlikeable) and I found the near future sci-fi setting (especially the politics involving th...more

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Jun 15, 2009

Forrest rated it

Shelves: library-read

This book is one I borrowed from my local library, but is one that I will be adding to my personal collection very soon.

That said, this book is fantastic, which to be candid is what I have come to expect from Mr. Hamilton. I have read and enjoyed most of the other works he is known for such as the Commonwealth Saga and the Night's Dawn trilogy. His work tends to be like George RR Martin's work in that it is long (without being long-winded) and full of rich detail, big doings, and m...moreThis book is one I borrowed from my local library, but is one that I will be adding to my personal collection very soon.

That said, this book is fantastic, which to be candid is what I have come to expect from Mr. Hamilton. I have read and enjoyed most of the other works he is known for such as the Commonwealth Saga and the Night's Dawn trilogy. His work tends to be like George RR Martin's work in that it is long (without being long-winded) and full of rich detail, big doings, and many, many characters. In fact, if Robert Jordan had had the skill these two authors possess, the Wheel of Time wouldn't have been so horrible, causing many people to drop out after the third or fourth book.

I digress.

Misspent Youth is a coming of age tale set against the backdrop of sometime in the fairly near future. Characters ride around on electric motorbikes, and European society has changed somewhat drastically, politically speaking. The two main characters in the story are Tim, and his father Jeff. Jeff undergoes a brand new technological breakthrough that renders him young again. He is stuck in a machine that basically "de-ages" him from an elderly man back to his early twenties. The rest of the book following Jeff's emergence from the technological cocoon focuses on how he and his son (now only physically a few years younger than he is) Tim interact, as well as how Jeff has to learn to see the world differently now that he is vastly younger than the friends he had before when he was an old man. Trouble invariably erupts as his newly-minted hormones have him chasing every young woman around him, to include a girl that Tim had been very much in love with. Tim's reaction to their relationship forces him to do some growing and maturing of his own as he's forced to come to terms with everything that's happened to his family as a result of Jeff undergoing this procedure. To some extent, the idea of a young man with an older man's wealth, knowledge, and experience exploring a new lust for life (among other things) is the main overall plot.

I am thirty two years old this month myself, and reading this book, and in the way it was written, really made me consider how I might feel if my own father were suddenly my age again, and we were peers instead of the normal close father and son relationship we have. How might that be different, or similar to what happens in this book?

In closing, this book is only somewhat like Hamilton's other works, because technology plays more of a backdrop rather than this overall fabric the story is weaved onto. Yes, things like computers with limitless storage capacity, electric cars, and house computers you speak to are very much in evidence. But the real story is a sort of parallel coming of age (and in Jeff's stance, a "re" coming of age) story that is very poignant and compelling.

I highly recommend this book. (less)

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Dec 15, 2009

Robert rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: scifi

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. A commonplace of recent "hard" SF is the idea of very long lifespans and rejuvenation of the body. Hamilton has used it himself in his space-opera series. Here he decides to make it the focus of a stand-alone novel, examining the impact on the very first recipient and his family.

My usual complaint about Hamilton is that his stories have no subtext at all but that cannot be said of this novel of loose morals and really bad behaviour. Unfortunately the message seems rather...more

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Apr 23, 2011

Kate Savage rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi

Jeff Baker, inventor who gave the world, free of charge, a revolutionary storage device, undergoes a taxpayer-funded procedure that remakes his 77-year old body into that of a 25 year-old.

The story is about what the rejuvenation does to Jeff and his family. Jeff's son Tim, is just about to go to university. His wife Sue, is part of the family under contract. These people are rich. Super rich. They have lots of gadgets, money, fame, sex, and a fairly interesting dynamic. Jeff's new bo...more

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Feb 21, 2010

Linda rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: civil-war, fiction, science-fiction

I've really enjoyed Hamilton's novels so when I discovered that I'd missed this one, I picked it up and eagerly started to read.

Unfortunately, it wasn't up to the standards of his other works. Set in the same universe as Pandora's Star, Judas Unchained and the Void series it is a story of the start of the rejuvenation process. It is set in the not too distant future and I was looking forward to seeing the steps that Hamilton envisioned between our world today and the world of Pandora...more

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Dec 23, 2009

Michael Davies rated it

· review of another edition

S/F the idea of long lifespans or rejuvenation. This idea is the begining of the Void Series although in itself its a stand alone Novel.

The book examining the impact on the very first recipient and his family, and the impact that rejuvenation can have on a family.

The book is an ok read and gives you some background to the folowing books: -
Pandora’s Star by Peter F Hamilton
Judas Unchained by Peter F Hamilton
The Dreaming Void by Peter F Hamilton
The...more

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Feb 27, 2011

Terry Cook rated it

· review of another edition

The things I like about Peter F Hamilton are his soaring imagination, the depth of his characters and plot and of course his strong political philosophy.

The thing I dislike about this book is that very few of these characteristics are evident. The plot is one dimensional - elderly man gets given body of 20 year old goes on sex spree shock. None of the characters are particularly likable and the politics is weak.

I suppose every author is allowed one bad book and as long as it ...more

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May 27, 2011

Mieneke rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: 2011, science-fiction

As I've often stated I'm not that well-read on the SF side of speculative fiction. Not having a hard science bone in my body, made me think I wouldn't understand the science in Science Fiction, so I stayed safely on the Fantasy side of things. After discovering last year that actually I rather liked military SF and that not all SF equals scientific equations, I decided I was going to broaden my scope. Misspent Youth, the first book set in Hamilton's Commonwealth Universe, is another step on that...moreAs I've often stated I'm not that well-read on the SF side of speculative fiction. Not having a hard science bone in my body, made me think I wouldn't understand the science in Science Fiction, so I stayed safely on the Fantasy side of things. After discovering last year that actually I rather liked military SF and that not all SF equals scientific equations, I decided I was going to broaden my scope. Misspent Youth, the first book set in Hamilton's Commonwealth Universe, is another step on that path. And I have to say, I thoroughly enjoyed this jaunt down Science Fiction Road!

While there is most definitely an SF setting - the overarcing story of the EU, the separatists, and the development of technology which sets up for the rest of the Commonwealth Universe - this book is a human tale at heart. Its core plot deals with a father and a son and their struggle to connect again afer the intrusion of advanced (medical) technology in their lives. It's about the psychological fall-out of the complete transformation that Jeff undergoes, not just physically, but mentally as well. And it's also a classic story of growing up and gaining independence.

As might be surmised from the above description, Misspent Youth is largely character-driven and as such has a strong cast of protagonists. The four main viewpoints we get are Tim, Jeff, Annabelle and Sue, with here and there interspersed chapters from the viewpoints of secondary characters. Despite this, the characters at the heart of the book are Tim and Jeff. I liked Tim, he was just the right mix of sullen teen and adolescent with a good head on his shoulders. Though in my opinion, he got over some things perhaps a little too easily or at least he's more forgiving than I would have been. One thing is certain though, Tim is required to grow up in record time and while he messes up at times, he ends up well. And seemingly even at peace with his father and what he has become. I, on the other hand, didn't know what to make of Jeff. Perhaps following along the same path that Tim's feelings run, I liked him at the start, but he just did so much wrong things, as Tim's friends would say, it was really hard to keep liking him. Then again, it must be severely disturbing to go from old and physically creaking, back to the bloom of youth, while still remembering most of the eighty-odd years you'd lived before, so perhaps he should be cut some slack. It's not just Tim who has growing up to do in this novel, his father has to regain his maturity as well.

On an ideas level, as a librarian, there was a lot that spoke to me. The idea of the Datasphere, the freely available information, is at once what we strive for, but it is also frightening to contemplate. As it is, with the advent of digitalisation of most academic journals and a lot of monographs, our work is slowly moving from providing access to information to more of a filtering and curating sort of position. We need to help our patrons sift through the information deluge and help them judge which information is relevant and trustworthy and which information is better discarded. Information literacy, including transliteracy, is becoming a larger and larger part of a librarian's job, whether they actually teach it in a classroom or not. The Datasphere would increase this information deluge to an almost unnavigable torrent. Added to this is the far more explicitly expressed consequence (and perhaps danger) to the Arts: the deprofessionalization of the artist, be they writer, musician or visual artist, to the point that originality and quality are rare. It's taking piracy to extreme, or rather it's piracy legalised and accepted by society and content creators being forced to accept it as well. In a way it is today's situation extrapolated, as even today musicians share their music online for free under a creative commons license and more and more self-published authors find their way to the public with the advent of ebooks. On the other hand, the free availability of information also provides opportunity of incredible scientific advancement, as the free sharing of research data allows scientists to cooperate and elaborate on each other's results. Advocacy for Open Access publication of scientific publications and data sets in institutional repositories and the implementation of linked data are items that are on the agenda of many academic libraries today. The way Hamilton casually mentions things happening today, blew my mind, especially since the book was first published almost a decade ago.

Sue grinned. 'It means you can avoid the mistakes which Tim and his friends are about to spend the next fifteen years making. You'll enjoy yourself a hell of a lot more this time around.' (p. 141)

In the end, Misspent Youth is a book that will stay with me both for the human story it tells and the barrage of ideas it launched at me and the questions it made me ask myself, not just regarding the world at large, but regarding the development of my professional field in particular. Whether Jeff is able to avoid the mistakes we all make growing up, as Sue suggests in the passage above, is doubtful, one thing that is sure is that he makes a whole bunch of new ones no one would have thought of before. How much fun he has this time around, is also debatable. What isn't up for debate, however, is how much I enjoyed reading this thought-provoking book. The story is great and makes for a remarkably fast read. If you are looking for an accessible novel to get started in reading SF and don't mind being challenged, I can't recommend Misspent Youth enough. Look out for reviews of Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained in the near future, as they're already to be found on my TBR-pile and have moved up quite a bit after reading Misspent Youth. Maybe there is an SF reader hiding inside me after all...(less)

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Sep 20, 2008

Servius Heiner rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: anyone who has read and liked judas Unchained and Pandoras star series.

Shelves: sci-fi

Misspent youth, is a very different story then what I usually expect from Hamilton. It was a well written story and in truth good. Just different then what I was expecting.

I find that I hold Hamilton to a higher standard then I do most authors, mainly because I know the quality he is capable of. What made this prequel interesting was how close to our own time it is. The story takes place just a few decades from now, and he spends a decent amount of time demonstrating the changes and...more

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Oct 21, 2007

Nicholas Whyte added it · review of another edition

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1273054.html[return][return]This book is about a rich old man who gets rejuvenation treatment in a future Britain subordinated to a federal Europe. Hamilton has a pretty good reputation, but I think that must be based on other works than this. It is an odd mixture of bits which work very well and bits which don't, sometimes both at the same time.[return][return]To start with the less political: this is one of the best treatments I have read of rejuvenation. This is ...morehttp://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1273054.html[return][return]This book is about a rich old man who gets rejuvenation treatment in a future Britain subordinated to a federal Europe. Hamilton has a pretty good reputation, but I think that must be based on other works than this. It is an odd mixture of bits which work very well and bits which don't, sometimes both at the same time.[return][return]To start with the less political: this is one of the best treatments I have read of rejuvenation. This is a rather low bar; I am comparing it with Robert J. Sawyer's Rollback and John Scalzi's Old Man's War, and a bunch of recent terrible Hugo nominees mostly in the short fiction categories. But I thought Hamilton's account rang very true: Jeff Baker's newfound youth totally disrupts his existing relationships, makes him even more of a celebrity than he already was, and enables him to shag every woman he wants to, particularly including his teenage son's girlfriend, who ends the book impregnated with their genetically engineered embryo. The biggest narrative flaw - and it is a big one - is that none of the characters is particularly nice. [return][return]On the political front, the book combines impressive forward thinking with a lazy Europhobia. Hamilton's depiction of how the internet might be used for political marketing and grassroots mobilisation is very impressive: this was starting in 2001, when he was writing, but that was still several years before YouTube, never mind Twitter. His description of the organisation of the anti-Europe demonstration at the end of the book is reminiscent of this year's events in Iran and Moldova (and like those, it doesn't actually achieve the desired result).[return][return]Hamilton's depiction of European politics is repugnant. His near-future Britain uses the euro as currency and has a Blair-like prime minister who is running to be president of Europe. But the restive population is chafing under the yoke of Brussels rule, and is finally invaded from the continent by shock troops arriving via Eurostar. The end of the book has the dying Jeff Baker in a live webcast (reminiscent of Princess Diana's famous 1995 interview) blaming Europe per se for his demise, without any apparent challenge from other characters or the author. As I said above, this is lazy stuff, barely more advanced than the paranoid fantasies of Andrew Roberts; it's a shame that Hamilton's interesting thoughts about the internal wiring of future politics are combined with a cardboard concept of the bigger picture.(less)

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Jul 29, 2011

Jason Lawhorn added it · review of another edition

Well, I really enjoy Peter Hamilton's work, but I was dissappointed with this one. This is set in the near future, similar to his Mindstar Rising series, where the protagonist's invention of a high density digital memory material has revolutionized the world. The Euopean Union's reward? Rejuvination, a brand new youth, that becomes the youth that is misspent.

The ending is obvious, and quite honestly it couldn't come fast enough. Skip it.

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Jul 30, 2011

Joel Sassone rated it

· review of another edition

Interesting premise that meanders to a dull and predictable conclusion. I'm a big fan of Hamilton's other stuff, but I can't really recommend this one. None of the characters are remotely likeable, and none of the developments come as much of a surprise.

For a better series covering similar ground (biotech haves and have-nots), try Nancy Kress's "Beggars" series, which was excellent.

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Jul 08, 2011

Vicky rated it

· review of another edition

This book was ok, but I didn't like it as much as his other series. For a start, you just kept wishing someone would smack Jeff around a bit like he really deserved. It had some interesting questions to ask the characters, but didn't really do much in the way of answering them. Jeff didn't grow at all as a character and I think the ending was a bit of a cop out really.

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Jan 18, 2012

Nathan rated it

· review of another edition

In which Hamilton asks the question "if I was an old man given back the gift of youth, what would I do?" and answers with "shag lots of teenage girls." Oh, and there is some political trouble brewing in the near-future EU. Not Hamilton's best work. Rated MA15+ for frequent strong sex scenes, coarse language, violence, drug taking, nudity and adult themes. 2/5

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Jul 01, 2009

Natasha rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction

Painfully subpar Hamilton. I really think this story would have worked best as a short story. I really disliked the characters. I thought Jeff with a dick, Tim was a whiny kid, and Annabella was a complete bitch. Also, I disliked how the political situation was hinted at, but never really discussed until near the end and I still had no real idea what was going on. A terrible disappointment.

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May 31, 2011

Andreas rated it

· review of another edition

An idea piece, this book deals with the first person to be rejuvenated, and how this affects the people around him, in particular his son. This is, somewhat incidentally, a prequel to the Commonwealth Saga and Void Trilogy.

Not nearly as good as Hamilton’s other works, for all that it has a very interesting subject.

http://www.books.rosboch.net/?p=796

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Mar 13, 2011

Peter added it · review of another edition

Great new future yarn - with political overtones: Not a typical Hamilton book. Set in the very near future in a UK locked into the sort of tyranical European Union nation that looks all too likely if you take a long hard look at modern politics. Give it a go..

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Sep 26, 2010

Sharkcrow rated it

· review of another edition

I had no idea what to expect from this novel, and was pleasantly surprised. Futuristic, but not so far into the future that the events and technology are beyond the realm of possibility. Flawed characters, good pace and easy to read. I couldn't put it down, finished it in a day!

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Aug 11, 2011

Ketan Shah added it · review of another edition

Some interesting ideas ,but Peter Hamilton doesn't really seem to examine all the implications of rejuvenation(other than having sex with anything that moves :-) .Readable ,but not fantastic.

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Jul 27, 2011

Toby Andersen added it · review of another edition

great priliminary novel to the commonwealth saga. nowhere near hamilton's best - but an okay book. it is full of sex and the premise is an age old taboo - your dad stealing your girlfriend!!!

6/10

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Jan 12, 2012

Jeanne Boyarsky rated it

· review of another edition

Well. I liked the premise. The plot felt a little thing. Maybe because the foreshadowing about Tim was so heavy that when the "big" mystery was revealed, it was a "duh" type reaction.

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Aug 06, 2011

Bryan added it · review of another edition

Begins with a solid premise but descends into a Harlequin / Mills & Boon novel for much of the middle part. Barely worthy to be a prequel to the excellent "Pandora's Star".

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Jan 15, 2011

Martinxo rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: 2011, fiction, sci-fi

Hamilton's later work is excellent but I'm not so impressed with his earlier work. The idea behind this story is interesting but the characters are somewhat wooden and predictable.

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Sep 23, 2009

Tamahome rated it

· review of another edition

Old guy gets youth treatment, and then goes crazy having sex. What's not to like? :) More of a character study than the usual scifi novel.

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Jan 08, 2009

Steve rated it

· review of another edition

Love Hamilton usually and the possible near future depicted here is interesting, but the story itself didn't do a whole lot for me.

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Jan 25, 2011

Cecilia Solis-sublette rated it

To me, this book is a "beach book". It's okay but it's definitely not great. It's "okay" in that it's a quick read and it reads kind of like a soap opera. Like a soap opera, however, the plot is pretty unbelievable and predictable. And, the erotica gets a little lame after awhile. I mean...for real? One guy? So, "popcorn fiction" does exist in science-fiction too. Oh well, I've read worse. Notice, however, I did finish this one. I just had to find out what...more

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About Peter F. Hamilton

Peter F. Hamilton is a British science fiction author. He is best known for writing space opera. As of the publication of his tenth novel in 2004, his works had sold over two million copies worldwide, making him Britain's biggest-selling science fiction author.

More about Peter F. Hamilton...

Books by Peter F. Hamilton

The Reality Dysfunction (Night's Dawn, #1)

The Neutronium Alchemist (Night's Dawn, #2)

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