The Naked God

The Naked God is a science fiction novel by the British writer Peter F. Hamilton, published in 1999 and the third book of The Night's Dawn Trilogy after The Reality Dysfunction and The Neutronium Alchemist.

The trilogy's premise is that death is not the end for everyone: personalities from beyond return and possess the living, which turns the military problem of the war into a religious and legal one as well. Hamilton follows a very large cast across many systems, and this volume is the one in which the different threads are drawn together, with fleets, colonies and governments making arrangements for survival that they know will doom other people. The scale is the book's chief characteristic, and its publication history reflects it: the first American edition was split into two paperbacks, Flight and Faith, and the British paperback only fitted into one volume by reducing the type size. Beyond the action, the series is interested in what societies are willing to do when an explanation for suffering appears, since possession gives everyone a reason to think about the dead as neighbours rather than as history.