First installment in
Peter F. Hamilton's
Night's Dawn trilogy. Opens up with, let's see:
sentient starships,
telepathic humans, a galaxy-wide
civilization, 2
alien races, oh yes, I forgot to mention the sentient starships actually mate and make little starships.
This book offers more
sense of wonder than you can shake a stick at. It sets up the
story for the following two volumes,
The Neutronium Alchemist and
The Naked God and introduces the reader to some of the main characters, especially the wonderful Joshua "Lagrange" Calvert.
If you enjoy
science fiction, I cannot urge you enough to run, not walk, to the nearest purveyor of books, and READ IT.