[HarryT]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

If you haven't read any of Hamilton's books, there are three sensible places to start:
Mindstar Rising, the first of the Greg Mandel Series
The Reality Dysfunction, the first of the Night's Dawn series
And Pandora's Star, as recommended above, the first of the Commonwealth series, which leads into the Void series, which leads into the Chronicle of the Fallers series.
Personally I think the Night's Dawn series is probably the strongest, but all are good.
Hamilton often tends to blur a little bit of fantasy into what are otherwise quite hard scifi books.

I'd actually suggest reading "Great North Road" if you want a "sample" of Hamilton. It's a great book (IMHO, of course!) and, unlike the books you list above, it's standalone, rather than part of a series.