Baxter, Stephen

Fast Forward 1: Future Fiction from the Cutting Edge

Average customer rating:

fine collection forecasting technology vs people
...from the Cutting Edge
Great Anthology...a must for SF readers and writers...

Fast Forward 1: Future Fiction from the Cutting Edge

Manufacturer: Pyr
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1591024862

Book Description

Science Fiction is the genre that looks at the implications of technology on society, which in this age of exponential technological growth makes it the most relevant branch of literature going. This is only the start, and the close of the 21st century will look absolutely nothing like its inception.

It has been said that science fiction is an ongoing dialogue about the future, and the front line of that dialogue is the short story. The field has a long history of producing famous anthologies to showcase its distinguished short fiction, but it has been several years since there has been a prestigious all-original science fiction anthology series.

Fast Forward is offered in the tradition of Damon Knight's prestigious and influential anthology series, Orbit, and Frederik Pohl's landmark Star SF. Fast Forward marks the start of a new hard science fiction anthology series, dedicated to presenting the vanguard of the genre and charting the undiscovered country that is the future.

Contributors scheduled for the first volume include: Paolo Bacigalupi, Kage Baker, Tony Ballantyne, Stephen Baxter, Elizabeth Bear (Sarah B.E. Kindred), A.M. Dellamonica, Paul Di Filippo, Robyn Hitchcock, Louise Marley, Ken MacLeod, Ian McDonald, John Meaney, Larry Niven & Brenda Cooper, Mike Resnick & Nancy Kress, Justina Robson, Pamela Sargent, Mary A. Turzillo, Robert Charles Wilson, Gene Wolfe, George Zebrowski.

Customer Reviews:

fine collection forecasting technology vs people.......2007-03-10

In his introduction to what he plans as being a continual science fiction anthology containing all new stories, Lou Anders explains the premise is "making sense of a changing world" as "the implications of technology on society ... makes it (SF) the most relevant branch of literature". Bias aside, the contributions of nineteen original shorts and two poems (by Robyn Hitchcock) live up to Mr. Anders' prime objective. The tales focus on people struggling with an exponentially changing world that leaves many behind. The contributors are a who's who of Sci Fi or fantasy to include Larry Niven (with Brenda Cooper), Justina Robson, Stephen Baxter and Louise Marley. All the entries are strong with the best being those concentrating on everyday people dealing with commonplace technology like Paul Di Filippo's Wikiworld" and Justina Robson' The Girl Hero's Mirror Says He's Not the One" (in Mappa Mundi world) and those bringing the past into the future such as Tony Ballantyne's "Aristotle OS and Ken McLeod's "Jesus Christ, Reanimator". This is a fun collection that forecasts where technology will take humans including those left behind struggling with yesterday's artifacts.

Harriet Klausner

...from the Cutting Edge.......2007-03-01

Fast Forward 1 once again demonstrates Lou Anders' editing prowess (his Live Without a Net and Futureshocks are also excellent). The tagline identifies the collection as "future fiction from the cutting edge," and almost every story offers up an intriguing view of the future from some of the field's best writers.

Robert Charles Wilson's "YFL 500" opens the anthology with a gripping character tale regarding intellectual property, art, and theft in a post-scarcity world. Paolo Bacigalupi's "Small Offerings" is a chilling tale of sacrifice on an ecologically damned Earth. "Plotters and Shooters," by Kage Baker, is a lighthearted "Lord of the Flies"-esque chronicle of the rise of hackers and geeks as the defenders of mankind in a new age.

Indeed, in a collection of 19 short stories and 2 poems (the latter a refreshing addition courtesy of Robyn Hitchcock), only 4 stories don't seem to belong. Elizabeth Bear's "The Something-Dreaming Game" and Louise Marley's "p dolce," while well-written, deal in concepts already well-traversed throughout the genre. Pamela Sargent's "A Smaller Government," while an entertaining satire, is more of a political fantasy than a work of science fiction. And George Zebrowski's "Settlements" is too trite and rife with tropes to be considered "cutting edge" - a story of mysterious aliens with advanced technology imposing peace on a violent, adolescent humanity.

Where the collection truly shines, though, are in the off-kilter stories. Tony Ballantyne's "Aristotle OS" is a comedic, philosophical view of the world through one of the most pervasive, defining facets of our society: the computer operating system. "Jesus Christ, Reanimator" is Ken MacLeod's rational look at the possible second coming of the Christ - charming in its grounded outlook amidst a momentous religious event. Mary A. Turzillo's "Pride" is the endearing tale of a boy and his sabretooth kitten. Finally, the perfect capstone to the anthology is Paul Di Filippo's "Wikiworld" - one of the most brilliant short stories I've read - an adventure through a foreign but realistic near-future, where political lines are drawn between usergroups and power, prestige, and popularity ebb and flow organically between the real world and the virtual.

While the writing and stories are excellent, it is the variety of worlds and tales that makes the anthology truly compelling. Having enjoyed the majority of the book, I can safely say that Fast Forward holds something for everyone. One can only hope that Fast Forward 2 is future fact.

Great Anthology...a must for SF readers and writers..........2007-02-14

I was able to read the ARC of this book prior to its release, and I was very, very pleased with the selections. I enjoyed 14/21 stories in this, with Robert Charles Wilson's, Paolo Bacigalupi's, Elizabeth Bear's, Louise Marley's, and the Mike Resnick/Nancy Kress piece being my personal faves for their "wow" factor. I recognized some of the stories in this anthology were not to my particular SF taste (and some stories I wished were written a bit differently, but that's me), but most of these pieces had good/fun premises, and it was nice to see a variety of stories in this anthology.

I'd definitely recommend this anthology to anyone reading (or writing) science fiction, and I'm not just saying that because I got the ARC: I think I'll pick up the actual copy myself, when I get the chance. Some of these stories really blew me away, and while I would've bought the anthology solely for Bacigalupi's work, I wouldn't have minded paying for the rest of it either, if that makes sense. In other words, there's something in here for everyone, and there's some really, really good stories here.

Also, an interesting stat that some people won't care about: 9/21 stories are penned by women (though two of those nine are co-written by men). The reason this stat jumps out at me is the fact that I've heard several women complain about how when you pick up an anthology of SF stories, there are few to no women featured. It's something I've noticed myself, so a big shout-out to Lou Anders for both sampling a variety of SF and not limiting anthology slots to the male population of the SF community.

Great anthology. Check it out.

Average customer rating:

Definitely On Clarke's Garden
An Interesting Sequel
Another enjoyable read...
Very Disappointing
OK as a standalone novel, sucks rocks as a sequel

Sunstorm (A Time Odyssey, Book 2)
Arthur C. Clarke , and Stephen Baxter
Manufacturer: Del Rey
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 034545250X
Release Date: 2005-03-29

Book Description

When Sir Arthur C. Clarke, the greatest science fiction writer ever, teams up with award-winning author Stephen Baxter, who shares Clarke’s bold vision of a future where technology and humanism advance hand in hand, the result is bound to be a book of stellar ambition and accomplishment. Such was the case with Time’s Eye. Now, in the highly anticipated sequel, Clarke and Baxter draw their epic to a triumphant conclusion that is as mind-blowing as anything in Clarke’s famous Space Odyssey series.

SUNSTORM

Returned to the Earth of 2037 by the Firstborn, mysterious beings of almost limitless technological prowess, Bisesa Dutt is haunted by the memories of her five years spent on the strange alternate Earth called Mir, a jigsaw-puzzle world made up of lands and people cut out of different eras of Earth’s history. Why did the Firstborn create Mir? Why was Bisesa taken there and then brought back on the day after her original disappearance?

Bisesa’s questions receive a chilling answer when scientists discover an anomaly in the sun’s core–an anomaly that has no natural cause is evidence of alien intervention over two thousand years before. Now plans set in motion millennia ago by inscrutable watchers light-years away are coming to fruition in a sunstorm designed to scour the Earth of all life in a bombardment of deadly radiation.

Thus commences a furious race against a ticking solar time bomb. But even now, as apocalypse looms, cooperation is not easy for the peoples and nations of the Earth. Religious and political differences threaten to undermine every effort.

And all the while, the Firstborn are watching...

Download Description

The second and final novel in the Time Odyssey series, linked to Clarke’s bestselling Space Odyssey series, co–written by the king of science fiction and his hand–picked successor. Time’s Eye was only the beginning!

Customer Reviews:

Definitely On Clarke's Garden.......2007-04-11

Alien intervention to Earth has been Sri Lankan resident Arthur C Clarke's pet topic and he wrote stories such as Childhood's End which may have led to Space Odyssey 2001 or Randevous With Rama and Rama II series later on. Sunstorm was written as the sequel for Time's Eye the story on the jigsaw puzzled time eras with Alexander The Great, Chengis Khan and people from 21st century breathing in the same air. It has the connection of course but this work alone can be enjoyable without knowing the previous book. Many of Clarke's works are staged on not the far-out star systems like Star Wars series or Dune series might be, but on more familiar and close at home areas...our Solar systems and Moon and Mars have been often the topic of Clarke's novels. Yes, this one also has the similar settings previous Clarke's novels had and with updated info. And reading this alone will make you more at home with what current Sun studies have been going on. In a word, very enjoyable and well updated.

Verdict: Definitely more to Clarke's side.
Rating: 88 out of 100
Recommended for: Clarke's fans. Sci-fi fans who love his classic works.

An Interesting Sequel.......2007-03-09

Sunstorm is a nice second book in the Time Odyssey series continuing the story line of The Firstborn and their interference of life on Earth. New characters are introduced that give us a glimpse of a possible future some 30 years from now. The technology rings true in light of recent advances in computer technology, ecology, and space exploration. Clarke once again paints a picture of a future that not only is plausible but is likely.

Another enjoyable read..........2007-01-26

...but for reasons quite different from those that made the first book in the "Time Odyssey" duo enjoyable. This is more classic Clarke than the first, the logical outworking of a BIG technical idea. In this book, those aliens who messed up the world's historical times in the first book are back, having in the normal timeline shot a Jupiter-sized planet into the sun thousands of years ago to cause a major solar eruption and the cleansing of the solar system of human life. As the line in "2001" puts it, "And sometimes, dispassionately, they had to weed". The attempts of humanity to avoid catastrophe with a daring technological innovation are the subject of this book. And, in a delightful twist at the end (the sort of O. Henry-like flourish that Clarke seems to enjoy) the actions of the aliens, instead of destroying humanity to purify the solar system, serve to bring them into contact with humanity in a most unexpected way.

To me, the two books really don't hang together as a series. They have in common only British Army captain Bisela Dutt, who came back from the time-splintered world of the first book via the agency of the mysterious aliens who caused the whole mess and who introduces to the world (or at least the great and good of the world) the idea that the coming sunstorm is not entirely a natural phenomenon. There is really no connection worth speaking of, so one wonders why they bothered. However, independently, they are good reading for all lovers of good science fiction.

Very Disappointing.......2006-10-27

If you are into reading chapter after chapter of pseudo-scientific techno-babble this book is for you. Otherwise, the story is extremely lame and the characters are two dimensional disposable pieces of cardboard. "A Time Odyssey: Book Two" is misleading as there's no time travel or time shifts involved and the part about being Book Two (Book One is the vastly better Time's Eye) is misleading as well - the part played by Bisesa is incidental and left undeveloped and as to the Firstborn: here's a complete summary of their role in the book: it's all their fault. There, you'll find no more about them.
The book is not just bad given who the authors are. It's just plain bad. Really, really bad.

OK as a standalone novel, sucks rocks as a sequel.......2006-09-15

This book is supposed to be a sequel to Time's Eye. This book is flat out NOT a sequel to anything. However, I do recommend this book for those who enjoy a good hard science novel, but don't start reading it expecting resolutions to those problems left dangling at the end of Time's Eye.

One thing I don't understand is why the authors lump this book into the "Time Odyssey" series as the plot has nothing to do with time (except that it flows fast when you're trying to save the earth). Other than the plot perpetrated by the First Born and some dippy references to Bisesa, there is no real connection to the events taking place on Mir in the first book.

One very major complaint I have about this book (which dropped it from a solid 4 to a 3) was the total lack of the reality of human nature. Oh, sure, there was a diversion by a single religious cult but there was no real meat about how different cultures and religious persuasions would handle such an event as the toasting of earth by the sun. The action takes place in 2037 and I highly doubt that the murderous conflicts between Christianity and Islam and Judaism would suddenly be happily resolved in 30 years after over a thousand years of bloodshed. Even within Christianity therre are the "rapture" groups who would be welcoming the end of days by fire, and who would be doing everything they could to disrupt the project that will save the world. I simply can't imagine such a happy optimistic ten billion humans. In addition everyone seems to simply accept that every nation (save China) is breaking its bank supporting this project yet no one seems to care that folks are going hungry or need water. Not a word about this. Heck, if I were thirsty and hungry, I'd go find some water and food. Screw Civilization! I'm either going to die tomorrow from starvation or dehydration, or I'm going to die in a couple of years simply because I stole some food and drink. Hey, I'm all for prolonging my own life. It's a dog eat dog world and the authors didn't even touch upon the tragedy of human suffering that would be the result of this massive program.

Another thing that bothered me was the massive number of heavy lift vehicles being fired into space over such a short period of time. Where on earth did all these vehicles come from? Where did the untold billions of gallons (pounds?) of reaction mass come from? The authors simply didn't approach these problems - did they assume that Chevron would pull up beside each ship on its launchpad and fill it up with hi-test and alcohol? This stuff just isn't sitting in some underground container - it's refined on order.

Finally, once things were taken care of (as they ultimatately must), there are long "feel good" passages. Heck, even within a few years of total privation and suffering and a general retreat into dark ages, there is a space elevator nearing completion. Within a few years? C'mon guys, this is just too much of a fantasy to be anywhere near believable. These poor billions are going to need at least a century to rebuilt, replant, reestablish some sembalance of civilization, not to mention replacing all those circuits that fried due to EMPs. How about the untold cases of cancer due to radiation poisoning? Not a word. I guess these cases were spontaneously cured once the threat was over.

Grammatical note: Why in heck does every British author think it is necessary to insert a gratuitous "needs must" phrase once or twice in their works? It's a phrase that just drives me nuts and you can't easily find its definition in dictionaries. Even a Google on the phrase turns up conflicting definitions.

Average customer rating:

Superb and astonishing SF
Fantastic Journey / Thrill Ride in Sci-Fi
The Time Ships...huh?
Good read, some inconsistencies
Great!

The Time Ships
Stephen Baxter
Manufacturer: Eos
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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ASIN: 0061056480

Amazon.com

What if the time machine from H.G. Wells' classic novel of the same name had fallen into government hands? That's the question that led Stephen Baxter to create this modern-day sequel, which combines a basic Wellsian premise with a Baxteresque universe-spanning epic. The Time Traveller, driven by his failure to save Weena from the Morlocks, sets off again for the future. But this time the future has changed, altered by the very tale of the Traveller's previous journey.

Book Description

<CENTER>There is a secret passage through time</CENTER>

...and it leads all the way to the end of Eternity. But the journey has a terrible cost. It alters not only the future but he "present" in which we live.

A century after the publication of H. G. Wells' immortal The Time Machine, Stephen Baxter, today's most acclaimed new "hard SF" author, and the acknowledged Clarke, returns to the distant conflict between the Eloi and the Morlocks in a story that is at once an exciting expansion, and a radical departure based on the astonishing new understandings of quantum physics.

Customer Reviews:

Superb and astonishing SF.......2007-05-08

Long ago, I gave up hope of reading anything remotely as imaginative as Olaf Stapledon's "First and Last Men" and "Star Maker". Stephen Baxter goes as far and possibly in some ways even beyond these remarkable visions. "Time Ships" is gripping and readable. Baxter even gave me for the first time a glimmer of the geometrical construct that the great Goedel conceived to challenge Einstein's views on time travel. Also, he describes marvelously and believably today's London set in a horrible alternate time. There is much much more!

Fantastic Journey / Thrill Ride in Sci-Fi.......2007-04-05

An outstanding sequel. I remember thinking how great it would be if Wells' had kept his adventure going, to expand on the original great idea, or to go into more technical detail. Well, this is precisely what Stephen Baxter has done with "The Time Ships". I found this book to be engrossing, and well paced throughout. The worlds he creates and the depths of imagination he has displayed are the exact reason I read Sci-Fi in the first place: A challenge of the mind with new and entertaining concepts. I hesitate to give 5 stars, only because I thought there were sections that feel more `human element' than Sci-Fi, namely the second book about a war-torn Britain. I would have loved the story to fly through this (and a few other sections) rather than dwell on the tapestry of the area. A personal feeling, I'm quite sure others could find this one of the highlights of the book. 4.5 stars - highly recommend to anyone who enjoys great imaginative Sci-fi, or fans of the original Time Machine book.

The Time Ships...huh?.......2006-11-10

I seem to be in a minority here, but here goes...I hated this book. I don't *care* that the science stood up to scrutiny, the narrative style was tedious and irritating, the plot was laborious, and the characterisation was shallow. Definitely not a hit for me.

Good read, some inconsistencies.......2006-10-06

This is a very readable book - one I found hard to put down. At first I was wary of a continuation of "The Time Machine", but the author's ability to mimic the style of the original, and the imaginative plot lines proved most enjoyable. As a fan of "hard" sci-fi, I was bothered by some glaring inconsistencies in the portion of the book where the crude "time tank" from 1938 arrives to find the author meeting his younger self. This was all fine to this point, but since the whole point of the story was that time travel moves the traveler(s) into a different of a multiplicity of universes, it was logically inconsistent that the time travelers from 1938 even after abducting the writer and his younger self, arrive back at the same universe they left from. The consequence of interfering with the past and removing the younger time traveler from his universe seem to have no ripple either.

I also found the final scene in the "infinite universe" implausible. Finally we are never told more about the mysterious "watchers". Their story would have been much more interesting than that of the "constructors".

But all in all, a very enjoyable book, although I found the ending a bit abrupt and somewhat senseless.

Great! .......2006-09-25

I've read almost all of Baxter's books, and his career has been a mixed bag. This one is great though! Very good writing, plotting, and world construction.

Average customer rating:

This book should be recognized as a classic
How did I get here?
Science Writing at its Best
Absolute Genius
Absolutely Brilliant!

Evolution
Stephen Baxter
Manufacturer: Del Rey
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 034545782X
Release Date: 2003-02-04

Amazon.com

Following up his cosmic Manifold series, Stephen Baxter peers back on a more prosaic history in the worthy yet uneven Evolution. The book is nothing less than a novelization of human evolution, a mega-Michener treatment of 65 million years starring a host of smart, furry primates representing Homo sapiens's ancestry. Each stage of our ancestry is represented by a character of progressively increasing intelligence, empathy, and brain size, who must survive predation and other perils long enough to keep the natural-selection ball rolling. While Baxter carefully follows some widely accepted theories of evolution--punctuated equilibrium, for instance--he also strays from the known in postulating air whales and sentient, tool-wielding dinosaurs. And why not? There's nothing in the fossil record to contradict his musings about those things, or about the first instances of mammalian altruism and deception, which he also lets us observe. From little Purga, a shrewlike mammal scurrying under the feet of ankylosaurs, all the way through Ultimate, the last human descendant, Baxter adds drama and a strong story arc to our past and future. But he spends too much time on details of the various prehumans' lives, which can become repetitive: fight, mate, die, ad infinitum. And readers eager for a science-fictional adventure will only find satisfaction in the posthuman chapters at the end. Despite these flaws, Evolution grips the attention with an epoch-spanning tale of the random changes that rule our genetic heritage. Recommended. --Therese Littleton

Book Description

It’s the job of a science fiction writer to visualize extrapolations of the future. But there are those who go far beyond, venturing into realms of breathtaking science. That kind of cutting edge talent is as rare as a supernova—and, in its own way, just as powerful. Arthur C. Clarke had it. So did William Gibson. Now, with Evolution, Stephen Baxter delivers what is sure to be one of the most talked-about books of the year—and shows once again why he belongs among the select company of science fiction writers who matter.

Stretching from the distant past into the remote future, from primordial Earth to the stars, Evolution is a soaring symphony of struggle, extinction, and survival, a dazzling epic that combines a dozen scientific disciplines and a cast of unforgettable characters to convey the grand drama of evolution in all its awesome majesty and rigorous beauty.

Sixty-five million years ago, when dinosaurs ruled the Earth, lived a small mammal, a proto-primate of the species Purgatorius. From this humble beginning, Baxter traces the human lineage forward through time. The adventure that unfolds is a gripping odyssey governed by chance and competition, a perilous journey to an uncertain destination along a route beset by sudden and catastrophic upheavals. It is a route that ends, for most species, in stagnation or extinction. Why should humanity escape this fate?

A generation from today, a group of concerned scientists—distant descendants of that primitive Purgatorius—gathers on a remote island to discuss this very question. The ceaseless expansion of human civilization has triggered an urgent environmental crisis that must be solved now if the Earth is to survive as a place hospitable to human life. But just when a peaceful solution seems within reach, two acts of shocking violence set in motion a cataclysmic chain of events that will expose the limitations of human intellect and adaptability in the face of the blind and implacable processes of Darwin’s dangerous idea.

Download Description

It's the job of a science fiction writer to visualize extrapolations of the future. But there are those who go far beyond, venturing into realms of breathtaking science. That kind of cutting edge talent is as rare as a supernova -- and, in its own way, just as powerful. Arthur C. Clarke had it. So did William Gibson. Now, with Evolution, Stephen Baxter delivers what is sure to be one of the most talked-about books of the year -- and shows once again why he belongs among the select company of science fiction writers who matter.

Stretching from the distant past into the remote future, from primordial Earth to the stars, Evolution is a soaring symphony of struggle, extinction, and survival, a dazzling epic that combines a dozen scientific disciplines and a cast of unforgettable characters to convey the grand drama of evolution in all its awesome majesty and rigorous beauty.

Sixty-five million years ago, when dinosaurs ruled the Earth, lived a small mammal, a proto-primate of the species Purgatorius. From this humble beginning, Baxter traces the human lineage forward through time. The adventure that unfolds is a gripping odyssey governed by chance and competition, a perilous journey to an uncertain destination along a route beset by sudden and catastrophic upheavals. It is a route that ends, for most species, in stagnation or extinction. Why should humanity escape this fate?

A generation from today, a group of concerned scientists -- distant descendants of that primitive Purgatorius -- gathers on a remote island to discuss this very question. The ceaseless expansion of human civilization has triggered an urgent environmental crisis that must be solved now if the Earth is to survive as a place hospitable to human life. But just when a peaceful solution seems within reach, two acts of shocking violence set in motion a cataclysmic chain of events that will expose the limitations of human intellect and adaptability in the face of the blind and implacable processes of Darwin's dangerous idea.<hr>

“What is astonishing is how successfully [Baxter] brings to life a wide range of facts and conjectures, and how entertaining as well as informative this book—an episodic novel with evolution as its protagonist—manages to be.”
   THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW<hr>

Customer Reviews:

This book should be recognized as a classic.......2007-06-03

I'm pleased to see that Baxter's book has earned such high ratings. It's little known, but it's one of the most remarkable books of the past decade. It deserves to be read.

It's not a comforting book, which is perhaps why it's not a best seller. On the other hand it's entertaining, even to the very end of the end. It's profoundly educational, without being didactic. If you read this book carefully, you'll understand natural selection and evolution in a new and deep way. If I were teaching an undergraduate class in introductory biology I'd make this a required text.

Like all of Baxter's books it's also a rich source of ideas. Do you think there's only been one self-aware, sentient, animal in all of evolutionary history? Baxter will make you wonder about that. In retrospect, it seems rather unlikely that we're the first to think about past, future and fate -- though we are probably the first and last to drain the earth of fossil fuels. He deals with that too.

Memorable. Educational. Disturbing. Hardly an inviting description, but it is very readable, quite entertaining, and certainly unforgettable. You can read some escapist fiction (escape from what?!) and feel you're being scholarly as well.

How did I get here?.......2007-05-26

Wow! This book really made me consider the enormous amounts of time that have passed to get where we are today and wonder where we will go from here. Each time period is visited and explored through the eyes of a different ancestor along with Earth's constantly changing conditions and what each creature had to overcome to survive. Until man evolves onto the scene it is from the viewpoint of animals but their thought processes and actions are all very believable. Of interest is how the human desire for control over his surroundings leads to the first sparks of religion. A very thought provoking book.

Science Writing at its Best.......2007-05-19

Wow. I am thoroughly impressed by Stephen Baxter's "Evolution." Having always preferred the physical to the life sciences, I had only a bare-bones understanding of the origins of humanity. Now, after reading this book, I feel that I have met my ancestors, seen their worlds, and witnessed the slow process of adaptation that led to our kind. It was a mind-altering experience.

The book is structured as a series of vignettes, describing in personal detail the lives of several of our ancestors at different stages in our evolution. The story begins with "Purga," a tiny mammal who witnessed the destruction of the dinosaurs by the Chixulub impact, down through our tree-dwelling ancestors, early hominids, modern man, and beyond to the eventual extinction of life on Earth. It is an epic sweep of history, and Baxter tells it with breathtaking power.

Though each vignette tells a story, the book is more science than science fiction. It is, in a real sense, a pop-science treatise on evolution nestled within a narrative framework. The stories, such as they are, serve to breath life into the science, to illustrate the pressures and mechanisms that led to our evolution. And to my mind, it succeeds admirably, bringing evolution to life in a way a textbook never could.

One of the things I liked most was Baxter's ability to convey, even dimly, the immense sweep of time involved. It is hard to comprehend time scales much longer than our lives, but after Baxter's patient explanations of the slow processes of evolutionary change, of the tectonic shaping of continents and gradual changes in climate and their inexorable effects on life, you come away with an inkling of how incomprehensibly old life on Earth actually is.

I especially appreciate his speculation on what is to come. In our vanity, we feel we are the final product of evolution, but Baxter brings home the truth that we are but a stage in the story, a species seemingly hell bent on its own destruction, and if so, the processes of life on Earth will have no problem moving past us into more adaptive forms. It is a humbling, but important lesson.

All in all, a great piece of science writing.

Absolute Genius.......2007-05-05

I have always been fascinated by the past. I am a dinosaur nut, a space nut, and a disaster nut.

This book is by far one of best, most entertaining I have ever read. Baxter follows the evolution of species on Earth, centering on primates, from right before the comet impact that killed the dinosaurs 65,000,000 years ago, past caveman times, past modern times, into a bleak future that is, of course, unlikely, but who knows.

The critics of this book like to talk about scientific inaccuracies. But, do we really understand the past? Fossils cannot tell it all. This book is fiction, with its basis in fact. The last few chapters, which seem to be given the worst reviews, were very interesting. Human's de-evolving into not just apes, but new forms. Large, elephantine, small brained "humans" and tiny, ground burrowing "humans."

As a believer in both evolution and God, this book really made me think. Could the intellectual age of humans end one day, so we can go back to our simpler roots? And, did the past happen the way Baxter said it did? Who knows? But, I can dream.

Absolutely Brilliant!.......2007-03-09

"Five stars" is woefully inadequate to rate the quality of this magnificent title about the origin and destiny of the primates. Baxter spins a masterful tale from the end of the Cretaceous Period and the Age of Reptiles to the last descendent of humanity 500 billion years in the future. Along the way, there is much character development--although most of the characters aren't "human"--and Baxter skillfully and playfully entertwines fact and (possible) fancy into a compelling narrative. There is a notably bittersweet quality to this novel as well, and Baxter gives the reader much food for thought and reflection.

Average customer rating:

Time's Eye II
An enjoyable read
Awsome experience
Fantasy, not science fiction
Interesting Ideas, but bad execution.

Time's Eye (A Time Odyssey)
Arthur C. Clarke , and Stephen Baxter
Manufacturer: Del Rey
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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Sunstorm (A Time Odyssey)
The Light of Other Days
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The Time Ships
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ASIN: 034545247X
Release Date: 2005-03-01

Amazon.com

Sir Arthur C. Clarke may be the greatest science fiction writer in the world; certainly, he's the best-known, not least because he wrote the novel and coauthored the screenplay of 2001: A Space Odyssey. He's also the only SF writer to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize or to be knighted by Her Majesty Elizabeth II. This god of SF has twice collaborated with one of the best SF writers to emerge in the 1990s, Stephen Baxter, winner of the British SF Award, the Locus Award, and the Philip K. Dick Award. Their first collaboration is the novel The Light of Other Days. Their second is the novel Time's Eye: Book One of a Time Odyssey.

As the subtitle indicates, Time's Eye is the first book of a series intended to do for time what 2001 did for space. Does Time's Eye succeed in this goal? No. In 2001, humanity discovers a mysterious monolith on the moon, triggering a signal that astronauts pursue to one of the moons of Jupiter. In Time's Eye, mysterious satellites appear all around the Earth and scramble time, bringing together an ape-woman; twenty- first-century soldiers and astronauts; nineteenth-century British and Indian soldiers; and the armies of Genghis Khan and Alexander the Great. The characters march around in search of other survivors, then clash in epic battle. It's not until the end that the novel returns to the mystery of the tiny, eye-like satellites (and doesn't solve it). In other words, the plot of Time's Eye is a nearly 300-page digression, and 2001 fans expecting exploration of the scientific enigma and examination of the meaning of existence will be disappointed. However, fans of rousing and well-written transtemporal adventure in the tradition of S.M. Stirling's novel Island in the Sea of Time will enjoy Time's Eye. --Cynthia Ward

Book Description

Sir Arthur C. Clarke is a living legend, a writer whose name has been synonymous with science fiction for more than fifty years. An indomitable believer in human and scientific potential, Clarke is a genuine visionary. If Clarke has an heir among today’s science fiction writers, it is award-winning author Stephen Baxter. In each of his acclaimed novels, Baxter has demonstrated dazzling gifts of imagination and intellect, along with a rare ability to bring the most cerebral science dramatically to life. Now these two champions of humanism and scientific speculation have combined their talents in a novel sure to be one of the most talked-about of the year, a 2001 for the new millennium. TIME’S EYE For eons, Earth has been under observation by the Firstborn, beings almost as old as the universe itself. The Firstborn are unknown to humankind— until they act. In an instant, Earth is carved up and reassembled like a huge jigsaw puzzle. Suddenly the planet and every living thing on it no longer exist in a single timeline. Instead, the world becomes a patchwork of eras, from prehistory to 2037, each with its own indigenous inhabitants. Scattered across the planet are floating silver orbs impervious to all weapons and impossible to communicate with. Are these technologically advanced devices responsible for creating and sustaining the rifts in time? Are they cameras through which inscrutable alien eyes are watching? Or are they something stranger and more terrifying still? The answer may lie in the ancient city of Babylon, where two groups of refugees from 2037—three cosmonauts returning to Earth from the International Space Station, and three United Nations peacekeepers on a mission in Afghanistan—have detected radio signals: the only such signals on the planet, apart from their own. The peacekeepers find allies in nineteenth-century British troops and in the armies of Alexander the Great. The astronauts, crash-landed in the steppes of Asia, join forces with the Mongol horde led by Genghis Khan. The two sides set out for Babylon, each determined to win the race for knowledge . . . and the power that lies within. Yet the real power is beyond human control, perhaps even human understanding. As two great armies face off before the gates of Babylon, it watches, waiting. . . .

From the Hardcover edition.

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TIME’S EYE

For eons, Earth has been under observation by the Firstborn, beings almost as old as the universe itself. The Firstborn are unknown to humankind—until they act. In an instant, Earth is carved up and reassembled like a huge jigsaw puzzle. Suddenly the planet and every living thing on it no longer exist in a single timeline. Instead, the world becomes a patchwork of eras, from prehistory to 2037, each with its own indigenous inhabitants.

Scattered across the planet are floating silver orbs impervious to all weapons and impossible to communicate with. Are these technologically advanced devices responsible for creating and sustaining the rifts in time? Are they cameras through which inscrutable alien eyes are watching? Or are they something stranger and more terrifying still?

The answer may lie in the ancient city of Babylon, where two groups of refugees from 2037—three cosmonauts returning to Earth from the International Space Station and three United Nations peacekeepers on a mission in Afghanistan—have detected radio signals: the only such signals on the planet, apart from their own. The peacekeepers find allies in nineteenth-century British troops and in the armies of Alexander the Great. The astronauts, crash-landed in the steppes of Asia, join forces with the Mongol horde led by Genghis Khan. The two sides set out for Babylon, each determined to win the race for knowledge... and the power that lies within.

Yet the real power is beyond human control, perhaps even human understanding. As two great armies face off before the gates of Babylon, it watches, waiting....

Customer Reviews:

Time's Eye II.......2007-03-08

Not nearly as fun and entertaining as the first in this series. The story is an almost decent read. Read "A Time Odyssey" I again instead.

An enjoyable read.......2007-01-26

I have long been a big fan of Arthur C. Clarke, one of the greats of science fiction. He is a master of that genre of sci-fi in which one takes A Big Concept and works through the consequences. This is such a novel, but with an odd twist - you get a historical drama as well. In this story, an alien race, whom we never actually meet, messes around with earth such that bits of the planet from different time periods suddenly find themselves coexisting - a prehistoric humanoid finds herself abruptly in the same world as a British fort on the Northwest Frontier in the times of the Raj and they are startled by the arrival of a military helicopter from the early 21st century. Simultaneously, some astronauts due to re-enter the atmosphere find that the world they knew has ceased to exist.

What Happens Next makes for fascinating reading. Attached to that British garrison is Rudyard Kipling. And at the climax, the greatest captain the world has ever seen, Alexander the Great, faces off against the most ruthless conqueror the world has ever seen, Genghis Khan. All a bit contrived, to be sure (the manner in which Genghis gets his comeuppance is especially hard to believe, but then I am a devout coward by religion, so what would I know?). However, it's all good fun. And all of this is observed by aliens in the form of shiny spheres, which hover around, observing what happens.

In a way, this book is a rerun of themes explored in the Clarke classic "2001; a space odyssey", and those who have read "2001" will enjoy the quotes and references to it in this book.

Awsome experience.......2006-11-10

For all the people that have enjoyed the fiction of Sir Arthur C. Clarke from other books and all of us that enjoy the smart action adventures, this book (and its sequel) is a very good example of novel, sci-fi and adventure

Stephen Baxter has a long trajectory (I reccomend the trilogy of Time, Space and Evolution) on time traveling and along with the experience and creativity that Sir Arthur has shown and captivated audiences for a long time, the collaboration has paid off with a very intelligent novel

This one (and for me was both) will keep you wanting to know what comes next and not allowing you to sleep for many nights untill you finish it, and after that, your friends also know that you're reading this book, because you will want to share the concepts and the plots with someone else

Definetly something we also would want to see at some other point, another collaboration of this calibre; you will put these books along with the other good stuff like all the trekkies and space oddities and the foundations

Fantasy, not science fiction.......2006-10-31

This entertaining offering from Arthur Clarke and Stephen Baxter basically asks, `What would happen if the armies of Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan fought each other?' Unfortunately, the involvement of a few soldiers from the 19th century and even fewer from our own near future complicates interpretation of the answer. It is clear that the authors have brushed up on their history. Nevertheless, Alexander and Genghis were such unique men that there is really no historical precedent for knowing what they would have done in this strange situation. Other reviewers have called this book hard science fiction. That it most certainly is not. Alien forces rearrange the earth into a patchwork of different times from the last 2 million years, bringing into contact flora, fauna and people from different eras. No explanation of how or why this was done is offered. Instead, we are presented with hovering spheres, in the typically enigmatic style of the mysterious monoliths in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Actually, the book reminds me more of Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama series, by virtue of the strong central female character and the sense of being castaways from home. As fantasy, it's not bad. Incidentally, the book does have a sequel, but apparently it does not deal with the world described in this book.

Interesting Ideas, but bad execution........2006-10-16

The book Time's Eye by Author C. Clark and Stephen Baxter has some interesting ideas, but poor execution of them. The book is about time getting mixed up, where parts of the Earth from different timer periods get patched together. This creates a world where people and objects that historically never existed at the same time together, could exist and interact. Among those mixed up in the new world, are prehistoric man-apes, an ancient British army, Alexander the Great with the Macedonians, Genghis Khan with the Mongols, soldiers monitoring the Middle East, and astronauts from the future. Some of the groups join together to survive and look for a way home.

The book is written horribly. The authors often describe things in painfully excessive detail, even when it has little effect on the story, such as the effect of the weather on the planet's crust, or the unusual geometry of a peculiar sphere. Most of the characters are rather simple and take the obvious choice in all situations, making it easy to predict what will happen. Most of the book works up to one main event, the encounter of Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan, which miserably fails its expectations. The ending is lame and reminds me of The Wizard of Oz's "You could have gone home the whole time," ending. The way it was written ruins the ideas behind it.

I would not recommend this book. The idea of putting different important figures from history together could be interesting, but the way it was written destroys it. I think that it had a lot of potential, but failed to make use of it. Overall the book is dull, and most questions like how this happened, are left unanswered, leaving massive holes in the story. Find a different book to read.

Emperor: Time's Tapestry #1 (Time's Tapestry)

Average customer rating:

Good read for history sci/fi fans
Could be an interesting start
Great Writing!
More rubbish from this formerly promising novelist
ingenious and lovely poem, but awkward implementation of plot

Emperor: Time's Tapestry #1 (Time's Tapestry)
Stephen Baxter
Manufacturer: Ace Hardcover
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Conqueror: Time's Tapestry Book Two (Time's Tapestry)
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ASIN: 0441014666

Book Description

Inscribed in Latin, The Prophecy has resided in the hands of a single family for generations, revealing secrets about the world that is to come, and guiding them to wealth and power... It begins when a Celtic noble betrays his people at the behest of his mother's belief in The Prophecy and sides with the conquering Roman legions. For the next 400 years, Britannia thrives-as does the family that contributed to Rome's reign over the island with the construction of Emperor Hadrian's Wall and the protection of Emperor Constantine from a coup d'Žtat. And even when the sun begins to set on the Roman Empire, The Prophecy remains. For those capable of deciphering its signs and portents, the future of Earth is in their hands

Customer Reviews:

Good read for history sci/fi fans.......2007-03-30

I enjoyed this recent addition to the "alternate history" genre. Despite some of the adverse comments by other reviewers I found this book a great read.

One criticism - when an author chooses to include a prophecy written in another language he/she should make certain that that language is used correctly. The Prophecy is written in appallingly bad Latin - a first-year Latin scholar could correct the errors of grammar. I was extremely surprised, and very irritated, by this flaw which could so easily have been corrected. What made it worse is that Claudius describes the prophecy as written in "quite good Latin"!

Could be an interesting start .......2007-03-24

Baxter has obviously read the non-SciFi author Edward Rutherford's books Sarum and London. The similarities on nearly all levels are too coincidental. Injecting a Sci-Fi dimension into a Rutherford model could actually be a lot of entertainment, but that remains to be seen as there's not much of a SciFi component developed in this first installment. I like the story approach well enough to try the next Baxter episode.

I'll buy book #2

Great Writing!.......2007-01-25

It's the first new hard cover novel I've bought from a physical bookstore in about 8 years! But for some reason, I was overcome by the need to read this book now and it's been worth every penny and then some!

If you are in to Celtic and/or Roman history and how these peoples survived one another, and enjoy grand fiction and historical-based epics... this is a book on a grand scheme for sure!!

It's a page turner, and the author is absolutely brilliant in creating many unforgettable scenes and fictional characters who operate within a realm of historical facts and interact with real historical figures - as if rewriting history. You will love one or more of his characters - if not, at least be moved by them.

I think that the plot of the prophecy was a good way to move the two families of characters through time, bringing them back together generation after generation, rewriting history again and again, as if they were cursed.

There are some parts of the book where Baxter tends to go on and on with description, but I can't see the book moving forward without some of those passages, and without them, we couldn't see what the characters saw. There was a couple times within the last 70 pages where I thought he might lose me, but I held on. The book is fast-paced, moves very quickly. I can't believe how adequately he moved through several generations of Romans and Brigantians (& British) in just 300 pages, without losing a step.

The second book is supposed to be coming out in July, 2007. I'll be looking forward to that.

Happy Reading to you all!

More rubbish from this formerly promising novelist.......2007-01-17

I have completely turned 180 degrees from being a fan of Baxtor to absolutely loathing the garbage he's been writing in recent years. He had a good run early on, but has totally lost touch with his base. I loved Ring, The Time Ships, Flux, all the way up to Vacuum Diagrams, which seems to have been a turning point in his career--for the worst. This novel, like all of his recent work, suffers from very weak character development, a highly suspect plot, way too many personal motivations injected into the story, questionable and outdated physics (such as his refusal to give up the preposterous multiverse theory, which Hawking refutes), and his obsession with explicit sexual scenes (a sure sign of a writer's demise). I will never read another ridiculous novel by this former author again.

ingenious and lovely poem, but awkward implementation of plot.......2007-01-08

For originality, Baxter's novel strikes well. A nice twist suggesting time travel and the possibility of multiple universes. With a very poetic prophecy as the core of the plot. The poem makes for compelling and repeated reading, harnessing a cadence echoing Shakespeare or Homer. I never knew that Baxter could write poetry, and here he does it well. While Steven Stirling's recommendation on the back cover certainly adds to the allure, as Stirling has made his name with alternate history, whereas this book seems to be Baxter's first try in this field.

Sadly, the actual implementation in the plot falls somewhat short of expectations. The centuries-long duration necessitates characters truncated to a few chapters each. An awkwardness also seen in the historical novels by Michener and Rutherfurd. You start getting interested in a character, and then it is a century later and that person is long dead.

Another problem is related to the Stirling endorsement. Stirling is also renowned for his skill in writing character dialog and military science fiction. People who pick up the book and see his endorsement might assume that this book also contains action scenes. Plus, the plot outline in the dustjacket also suggests this. But the action descriptions are very rudimentary, compared to Stirling's novels, or those of Pournelle, Drake or Weber. If you have read Baxter's earlier novels, this is also consistent. Baxter's forte [at this time] does not extend to action scenes.

Who gave the prophecy is unresolved. For example, is there something akin to the scenarios in Anderson's Time Patrol series, that is sitting uptime in the multiverse, attempting these changes? There will be a sequel to the book, which promises, maybe, to resolve this dangling thread. Or perhaps the intent is for this never to clarified? The latter is certainly fair enough, if done properly. As in Stirling's Nantucket series.

Average customer rating:

On a friend's recommendation
A really dumb idea
What happened to Baxter?
Disappointing Trilogy Opener from Author of Moonseed
Who'd a thunk squids be so much fun

Manifold: Time
Stephen Baxter
Manufacturer: Del Rey
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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Manifold: Space (Manifold)
Manifold: Origin
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ASIN: 034543076X
Release Date: 2000-11-28

Amazon.com

Leave it to the consistently clever Stephen Baxter to pull the old bait and switch. A story that begins as a hoary asteroid-mining tale, set in 2010 against the by-now familiar spiel of fulfilling humanity's pan-galactic Manifest Destiny, instead takes a bold, delightful ascent into a trajectory far more ambitious. To ensure its survival, humankind need not merely master the galaxy but also the flow of time itself.

Manifold: Time's would-be asteroid-miner-in-chief is bootstrap space entrepreneur Reid Malenfant, a media-savvy firebrand who's showed those crotchety NASA folks what's what with his ready-to-fly Big Dumb Booster, piloted by a genetically enhanced super-squid. But Malenfant's near-term plans to exploit the asteroids get diverted when he crosses paths with creepy mathematician and eschatologist Cornelius Taine. Applying Bayes's theorem and a series of other statistical do-si-dos, Taine convinces Malenfant that an inescapable extinction event--the "Carter catastrophe"--is nigh, and that even working to colonize the galaxy might not be enough to save humanity. The answer: build a Feynman "radio" to listen to the future and, by detecting coded quantum waves traveling back through time, divine the fate of human "downstreamers" and find the key to their survival. Space flight, time travel, and even squid negotiations ensue, while Earth is gripped in Last Days madness.

Once again, the award-spangled Baxter gives us sci-fi at its beard-stroking best, with an imaginative, audacious plot line that's firmly grounded in good science, reminiscent of Baxter's own excellent Vacuum Diagrams. --Paul Hughes

Book Description

The year is 2010. More than a century of ecological damage, industrial and technological expansion, and unchecked population growth has left the Earth on the brink of devastation. As the world's governments turn inward, one man dares to envision a bolder, brighter future. That man, Reid Malenfant, has a very different solution to the problems plaguing the planet: the exploration and colonization of space. Now Malenfant gambles the very existence of time on a single desperate throw of the dice. Battling national sabotage and international outcry, as apocalyptic riots sweep the globe, he builds a spacecraft and launches it into deep space. The odds are a trillion to one against him. Or are they?

Download Description

Now Malenfant gambles the very existence of time on a single desperate throw of the dice. Battling national sabotage and international outcry, as apocalyptic riots sweep the globe, he builds a spacecraft and launches it into deep space. The odds are a trillion to one against him. Or are they?

<HR>

"A staggering novel! If you ever thought you understood time, you'll be quickly disillusioned when you read Manifold: Time."    <A HREF="/author/detail/3808">SIR ARTHUR C. CLARKE</A>

"A joy to read -- an exuberant and involving exploration of time."    <A HREF="/author/detail/1011">GREG BEAR</A>

"Reading Manifold: Time is like sending your mind to the gym for a brisk workout. If you don't feel both exhausted and exhilarated when you're done, you haven't been working hard enough."    THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

<HR>

Customer Reviews:

On a friend's recommendation.......2007-04-06

Recently a friend and I were talking about science fiction over coffee, and he said that I needed to check out Baxter's work. I usually don't look for new fiction, I let it get suggested to me--that way I have some feeling of why it will appeal to me.

I picked Manifold: Time because its title suggested time travel, and I'm a sucker for time travel stories. Straight up time travel, science thrown to the side. I also love hard sci-fi. And Baxter delivered both.

When he talked about squid and their communication, I turned the page. I wanted more. He talked about going into space as a commercially viable enterprise, and I thought I was going to read a Heinlein book. Which would have been very good indeed.

Then Baxter threw his curve. He introduced an eccentric charater from an organization called Eschatology. At first I thought with a name like Eschatology, I might have stumbled in to Philip K. Dick, but was I wrong.

The man from Eschatology introduced the time element; which as I said, I was looking for. The time thread of the book begins, for all purposes, at Fermilab, which is home to the Tevatron. And Baxter painted a picture so accurate that it meshed with my memory--I grew up very near Fermilab. The deal was sealed.

He made good on the deal with his use of advance and retarded signals to advance the story. The quantum science of time. Oooo. And what's better than the science being right? Having it all get paid off the right way. No garbage. No deus ex machina. Just honest story telling while trying to unravel and explain the mysteries of our universe.

I would wholeheartely recommend this book to anyone who likes hard sci-fi. I'd peg Baxter as somewhere between Philip K. Dick, whose work Baxter has obviously read, and Robert Heinlein.

A really dumb idea.......2007-02-22

Caution, Spoilers Ahead

This is a really awful book--one of the few truly laughable works of recent so-called "hard"science fiction. While there are a lot of unrelated sub plots (with some admittedly interesting scientific "what if's,") the real plot line is simplistic, preposterous, muddle-headed and just downright offensive. In Baxter's hypothetical near future, people of the future somehow reach back in time to create a bunch of super intelligent children whose mission (we find in the end, after countless red herrings) is...wait for it...to destroy the universe! But, these kids are not the bad guys, because (in Baxter's view) the "heat death" of the universe is somehow intolerable to the human spirit. Thus, by destroying the universe ("It's the wrong universe!" exclaims one of the children) a new one with different physical laws will be created in its place; and even though everybody in the old universe dies a terrible death, it's ok because the new universe will somehow recreate the human mind and we will all live happily ever after in a universe that is eternal, set free of the horrible laws of thermodynamics.

This is about the loopiest idea for a science fiction story I've ever heard. It also puts Baxter squarely in the camp of the "we-are-the-only-intelligent-life-in-the-universe" crowd. As you may know, there are two lines of thought on extraterrestrial intelligence: "we are alone" is one; and "we are not alone" is the other. The math and statistics of each is camp points, not to a right or wrong analysis of the data, but rather insufficient data. It's an argument tantamount to the existence of God, with both sides stridently arguing their obvious correctness.

In any case, this novel is pure drivel, with an idiotic premise, and an idiotic conclusion.

What happened to Baxter?.......2007-02-18

Baxter was a super airplane read with Timeships, Vacuum Diagrams and Ring ... this Time, Space, Origin series lacks whatever it was that made his earlier work fun. I'll try his newest, Time's Tapestry. If there's not significant improvement, syonara Stephen.

Disappointing Trilogy Opener from Author of Moonseed.......2007-01-16

Stephen Baxter is an award-winning author who obviously takes great care in writing his carefully researched science-fiction novels. Manifold Time is book one in a trilogy about what happens to the world when people discover that the end is in sight. It's not your standard doomsday story, however, for a number of reasons, foremost among them being the painstaking care with which Baxter presents his central thesis: that the earth is doomed not because of an iminent threat such as a comet or global nuclear war but simply because of probability.

The book starts out confusing, levels out into understandable and exciting, builds to suspenseful, and then makes a disappointing decline into a long section of bewildering fluxation before finally going out with a fizzle. Hopefully books two and three in the trilogy will pick up a bit; I felt let down by the end of Manifold Time.

Who'd a thunk squids be so much fun.......2006-09-11

Manifold: Time is absolutely bursting with amazing science. Anyone interested in cosmology and the physics of time will love this book. Stephen Baxter early on provides a mind-blowing ride from the beginning of the universe through the end of time. After jangling our gray matter about with this whirlwind tour, he then zooms through ever deeper arguments about time and how it fits into our universe. The book encompasses cosmologically huge timescales (bigger than I imagined would be possible), and gives the reader at least a chance to comprehend the universe's huge extent in space and time.

Manifold: Time has some other very interesting scientifically based arguments to make concerning the short-term survivability of humanity on earth. A look at the bibliography at the end of the book demonstrates how strongly hard-science based this book really is. Less hard science, but a lot of fun, is Baxter's use of augmented squids to "man" space flights.

For all these positives, Manifold: Time unfortunately also has some major faults. Baxter asks a lot of big questions, and the various outcomes he envisions might be correct. But the people that populate Manifold: Time are not up to the task: they never have enough depth in character or in numbers to match the questions posed. And Baxter is too secular with the story; religion and faith might not have the answers, but humanity would force them to have a much bigger part (both positive and negative) than portrayed in this book. Baxter's presentation feels incomplete and somewhat sterile.

The key to Manifold: Time and whether you might enjoy it is cosmology and time. For many, the science may go overboard, and the flawed character development and negatively sterile view of humanity might disappoint. But if you are intrigued by scifi extrapolations about the beginning and end of the universe, and find time paradoxes fun to contemplate, then you will surely enjoy Manifold: Time.

Average customer rating:

Phase Space
Stephen Baxter
Manufacturer: Voyager
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0006511856

Average customer rating:

techno-novel lacking soul
Fantastic
Ring Review
a poor attempt at hard sci-fi
Science Fiction the way it's meant to be

Ring
Stephen Baxter
Manufacturer: Eos
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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The Time Ships
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Manifold: Space (Manifold)

ASIN: 0061056944

Book Description

Michael Poole's wormholes constructed in the orbit of Jupiter had opened the galaxy to humankind. Then Poole tried looping a wormhole back on itself, tying a knot in space and ripping a hole in time.

<CENTER>It worked. Too well.</CENTER>

Poole was never seen again. Then from far in the future, from a time so distant that the stars themselves were dying embers, came an urgent SOS--and a promise. The universe was doomed, but humankind was not. Poole had stumbled upon an immense artifact, light-years across, fabricated from the very string of the cosmos.

<CENTER>The universe had a door. And it was open...</CENTER>

Customer Reviews:

techno-novel lacking soul.......2007-04-24

This was an award winner, which beat out The Algebraist. I disagree with the outcome. Ring is definitely full of goopy science (particles, strings, quantum mechanics, etc.) - all things the geeks love. I'd prefer a better science-based story over the profusion of hard-science.

Only a few things got me interested in this book. The situations the characters faced were kind of dry. I wanted something more juicy, epic and humorous. Don't get me wrong, the sun burning out and the universe coming to an end is epic (duh), but it doesn't feel epic in his writing.

This is more of a technical work than an opera. Regardless, fine read.

Fantastic.......2007-01-17

I loved this novel, absolutely fantastic sci-fi.

It's a shame this was his last good novel because all of his recent work has been garbage.

Ring Review.......2006-07-13

Classic Stephen Baxter, definitely not his best work, but makes for some good entertainment, has a younger reader feel to it.

a poor attempt at hard sci-fi.......2006-04-08

A truly horrible book. It claims to be "very, very hard SF", but almost all important features of the plot are completely implausible. A lot of buzzwords are thrown around, and basic understanding of certain principles is demonstrated, but real understanding of the fundamentals is completely lacking. The characters are completely flat and have no depth or complexity. The dialogue is easy to read, but not realistic at all. Most aspects of the book simply didn't make sense. I'm still not sure why I forced myself to read the whole thing.

Science Fiction the way it's meant to be.......2006-03-19

Steven Baxter has a very good knowledge of the physics he writes about and being able to incorporate these into a good story, he captures the essence of Science Fiction. The story is well placed, one feels this really could happen in the future. The technology he describes is truly amazing, and he is so adept in portraying both characters and science that it' like stepping into a movie. All in all a very well written, highly recommended for hard core Sci-Fi fans. The narrative and story receives a 4 star rating on my behalf, but for the significant knowledge of physics and future science with the ability to elegantly explain it as to make it understood, this is clearly a 5 star novel.

Average customer rating:

A good introduction to a Great witer
A Superior but still Mixed Bag of Stephen Baxter Stories

Traces
Stephen Baxter
Manufacturer: Voyager
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

Short Stories | Science Fiction | Science Fiction & Fantasy | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0006498140

Book Description

Feeling secure in our everyday here-and-now? Then let Stephen Baxter reveal to you disturbing traces of other worlds: traces of other pasts, other presents, other futures. Here are vestiges of civilizations lost, long-gone, footprints of passing life-forms, visions of histories that differ from our own, some in small ways, some through a fundamental difference in physical laws. Here are twenty-one extraordinary stories from the best science fiction writer of his generation.

Customer Reviews:

A good introduction to a Great witer.......2004-03-28

I had just about given up on contemporary science fiction. Then i picked up "traces". Stephen Baxter offers hard science fiction with excellent characterization. I haven't read any missteps in his work, although his sense of narrative is more experimental than some readers may accept.

A Superior but still Mixed Bag of Stephen Baxter Stories.......2000-03-27

In collected stories, there is always the risk of getting nuggets of iron pyrite in with true treasures. Rarely does a collection have a complete slate of hits without a miss. Even the best author can have a few lesser lights mixed in with the best.

Stephen Baxter's collection Traces shows this maxim quite well. Unlike the thematic Vacumn Diagrams, its a pretty diverse collection, including probably the best story of the lot, the imaginative "Moon Six". The titular story, on the other hand, is a forgettable tale at best. In between range stories of various strengths and weakness, ranging on sf treatments of subjects from Verne to Gagarin.

American fans of Stephen Baxter like myself will appreciate having the collection, but this is definitely not the place to start with his work if you are new to his brand of idea bursting stories.

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