Review of Stephen Baxter’s Galaxias

Galaxias

Stephen Baxter

London: Gollancz, 2022

ISBN: 9-781473-228870

532 pp.

It is the year 2057 and humanity has suffered a great deal in overcoming the challenges of the climate emergency, which has been achieved it seems but not without a degree of deglobalization that has been very damaging. There appear to be only three countries of any substance left, England (the UK has dissolved), the USA and China. Mainland Europe seems to have more or less disappeared altogether as a viable place to live (there is an early joke about refugees fleeing France) and the world is governed either by rightist populists or the inscrutable hive mind of the Chinese Communist Party. The weather has remained difficult and there is little left to eat. It is a world in which pandemics strike. Unfortunately, things are going to get a lot worse since (and this appears on the back cover and so is not a spoiler) an alien power has noted Earth’s scientific progress and has sent a message to its people by making the sun disappear. This is, of course, disastrous and it looks like being the end of the world. That does not happen, of course or else this would have been a much shorter book than we are accustomed to seeing from Stephen Baxter. Instead, we follow the efforts of scientists, astronauts and what decent politicians still walk the planet’s streets as they struggle to find out what has happened and why and what they might be able to do about it.

The result is a highly accomplished novel, as we have come to expect from Baxter, with more improvements, I think, in how he presents his cast of characters. There seem to be fewer of these than usual and each is given a little more time and space to develop. It is unlikely that many people will be reading this book because of the characterization but this better treatment does make the book more enjoyable to read. However, it is the ideas and the science that will appeal to readers (like me) and the book does not disappoint. The characters travel to the Moon and back and there is something very peculiar that the Chinese seem to be doing on Mercury – one of the principal forms of tension in the plot concerns the relations between the west and China. Baxter has used this idea before. That the Chinese government is thinking on a hitherto unimagined scale is a little bit cliched but it does represent an alternative to the openness of the west – assuming that the private sector interests represented can in fact be claimed to be open. In a deglobalized world, even with virtual connectivity, there are not the transnational forums available to be able to engage with Chinese technocrats to try to work out what the implications for the rest of the world will be as a result of the engineering mega-projects that they are bringing to fruition. Is this a situation that can be avoided?

A meta-question that comes to me as I approach the end of the first hundred pages of novels of science fiction and fantasy that I enjoy is ‘how far along the plot will be at the end of this book?’ It appears to be almost impossible these days for authors to tell their tales within one reasonably sized book and instead will spread the action out over a multi-volume series. In this case, my guess turned out to be quite accurate and I can imagine some contours of the plot that the next episode will bring. That might suggest a degree of predictability which I think would be a bit unfair. It is rather the case that there is a logical progression along the plot from understanding to the regaining of some measure of agency. Since the laws of physics apply, the alien entity – the eponymous Galaxias – can only use materials or information that travels at no more than the speed of light. Space being as big as it is, it takes quite some time before Galaxias can respond to whatever the humans have been up to. This places even more pressure on those charged with enabling Earth’s response as the deadline to when the alien response is due to arrives clicks down towards zero and helps drive the plot along.

Baxter is well-known for the attention he pays to the genuine research conducted about the subjects he addresses, although he must necessarily have an artist’s eye for which parts should be ended. He has continued this practice here and makes his customary intervention as an afterword which identifies some of the works he has consulted in helping to create this new view of the world. I look forward to what, I am guessing here, will be the concluding second part of the story.

John Walsh, Krirk University, August 2022

Review of Baxter’s World Engines Creator

World Engines Creator

Stephen Baxter

London: Gollancz, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-473-223240

549 pp.

Stephen Baxter has become nothing if not one of the most imaginative thinkers about the universe as a totality and mankind’s place in it. In this book, he completes a two-novel series begun by World Engines Destroyer. In the first part, we are introduced to a diverse set of characters gathered together from across space and time to investigate anomalies and the eponymous destroyer – a huge item hurtling in from the edge of the solar system apparently arrowing in on either the Earth or perhaps Venus. In the second part, we witness the continuing adventures of our little band (supplemented here and there by others, trimmed here and there by tragedy or reconciliation to circumstances) as they try to make sense of the universe around them. It is a surprising universe, even more surprising than our own universe, which is already famously stranger than we can possibly imagine. Their universe appears to have been replicated, perhaps many times (this is evident from the first book and not a spoiler – it would be a struggle for a reader who has not read that part to make sense of this one, despite Baxter’s evident improvement as an author in tying the two parts together more or less unobtrusively). Planets and moons appear and disappear and they are blessed with different arrays of life.

Baxter is at his best, in my opinion, when thinking about the big themes of the creation and destination of the universe; he has become better at being able to describe this in plots of complexity which nevertheless now hold together reasonably well, although it does make me wonder about the extent to which he fully plans out the work before writing it. I was not really convinced by the resolution of the series which, while cheering in nature, nevertheless relies on a technological coup which I do no think could really exist (although what do I know?). The result is reminiscent to a resolution that he has used before but reached by a different means. However, his characterization is still not that good. I cannot remember how many times we have travelled through the void with Malenfant but I still do not know much about the way he thinks beyond the obvious, what motivates him or how he views politics, literature and society more generally. Indeed, the most interesting character in the book remains the emotion-free robot doctor, which or who comes to a spectacular and satisfying end. Still, readers who come to Stephen Baxter for the characterization are on a hiding to nothing.

I have read nearly all of Baxter’s books and I will be happy to go on reading them if I am spared. As I have said, I think his story-telling is improving and his imagination shows no sign of running out of ideas. One characteristic of his work is the seriousness with which he treats the scientific literature and he is well-known for attending academic conferences on subjects which interest him and inform his work. Here, as usual, he includes an afterword in which he highlights some of the papers which he has used in constructing this narrative. Of course, the plot must come first but the work is as faithful to contemporary understanding of the universe as anyone might reasonably expect. Fortunately, more missions are being launched into space by NASA in the USA, by China, by the European Space Agency, the Japanese Space Agency and new ventures from India and the UAE, while exciting possibilities of data and knowledge generation are being made possible by telescopes of various types. Planetary science is one of the beneficiaries of these ventures and awareness of the presence and nature of exo-planets is particularly important in overall understanding of the universe. I am aware of the powerful arguments that the money being spent on this science would be better spent on resolving social and economic problems here on Earth but, frankly, those problems are not going to be fixed without the kind of radical political change which the vested interests of capitalism are dead set against. Let us at least try to understand the universe while we still can.

John Walsh, Krirk University, March 2022

Review of Baxter’s Ultima

Ultima

Stephen Baxter

London: Gollancz, 2014

ISBN: 978-0-575-11689-4

549 pp.

I have read maybe 20 or more books by Stephen Baxter, enough to have caused me to pause, as I read this conclusion to a short series beginning with Proxima, and wonder whether I had not already read this one before. Consequently, it rather made me smile to note that the front cover included the note: “An SF epic from Terry Pratchett’s co-author on The Long Earth books.” Well, I suppose there are people who know Pratchett but not Baxter but it nevertheless struck me as odd. In any case, this is, as noted, a (presumably) conclusion to the book which introduced the most recent bout of planet hopping assisted by faster than light travel through hatches, which are portals to other places provided by the engineering of kernels, which are in turn alien artifacts provided at various locations that a space-faring species might find them – or on earth itself if the space-faring element needed a little bit of a push. The previous book also introduced the motif of travelling, mostly involuntarily, into parallel universes which may differ from our own to a greater or lesser degree. This allows Baxter to reintroduce a trope he has employed before, which is to posit a world dominated by the Romans and the Incas, albeit with the plucky Britanki having maintained a maritime Anglo-Viking independent state. This world principally differs from our own by having the principal powers discover kernels while scarcely having reached what we might consider to be a medieval stage and, hence, have taken to zipping around the solar system in ships which also feature human sacrifice, legionary discipline and so forth. So the stage is set for a jolly romp across the stars for a small but diverse group of characters, including an advanced AI and a robot initially prepared to help establish a new colony in not too unfriendly an environment.

Baxter has got better with his characterisation but this is science fiction, after all and an afterword lists some of the academic and technical papers that he has read in the effort to make sure that his science reflects the most current thinking, as far as possible – he is a well-known attender of academic conferences where physics of space issues are concerned. As a result, his characters tend to be defined principally by their familial relationships with each other and a single characteristic – the one-armed legionary, the daughter of the one-armed legionary who will miss her own chance to go campaigning, the slave and then former slave and so on. However, worrying about the way the characters interact with each other is rather to miss the point. Most of them are, after all, mostly fairly indifferent to their own fate in the face of the overwhelming power of the universe. Instead, the focus really should be on the ideas and trying to work out what is going on and why. In this respect, the conclusion to the book is a little disappointing because of the nature of the mysterious protagonists who have provided the kernels in the first place and their reason for doing so – although there is a reasonable amount of information about this in Proxima, which was as I recall a rather richer reading experience. Nevertheless, this is still an enjoyable space-based adventure with more than enough going on to keep the imagination and intellect stimulated.

Shakespeare returned to the same plots and themes on occasion and it seems churlish to accuse anyone else of doing the same thing, especially when it is an author as prolific as Baxter. However, I intend to continue reading new books by him and I hope he moves in a slightly different direction the next time around.

John Walsh, RMIT Vietnam, February 2020

Review of Baxter’s Xeelee: Redemption

Xeelee: Redemption

Stephen Baxter

ISBN: 9-781473-21732

422 pp.

Stephen Baxter has been writing about the alien race Xeelee (Ch’ee-lee) since 1987 at least, when he first had a short story published called ‘The Xeelee Flower.’ Since then, a significant number of stories and novels has charted the interactions between humans and the aliens in a universe in which other alien species such as the Qax and the Sinkhole Ghosts also exist. The overall atmosphere is not quite as nihilistic as in the vision expressed by Liu Cixin in his Dark Forest trilogy but war has been widespread and apparently inevitable nevertheless. Advanced technology has enabled either side to move faster than light, obtain access to other dimensions and universe and, consequently, change what has happened to what is going to happen – over the course of more than 40 years, like the description of a fight in ‘Top Cat,’ “He’s up, I’m down, I’m up, he’s down.” In the penultimate novel of the series, Xeelee: Vengeance, an alien ship emerged at the inauguration of a wormhole with a view to extinguishing humanity once and for all and, in this final volume, three human ships pursue the alien to exact humanity’s revenge. These events are detailed in the text in such a way that it would be possible, just about, for a reader to tackle this book without knowing what has gone before but that would be to miss so much of the history of the universe that weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living; it is recommended to read at least the Vengeance book first and, preferably, both its predecessor Xeelee: Endurance and, before that, the Xeelee: Omnibus compendium. However, I am aware I have just recommended two thousand pages of text and that will not appeal to everyone.

As for the book itself, we have several lengthy flights with people entering and then exiting deep freeze hibernation with the exploration of a universe in which the flotsam and jetsam of various iterations of history have led to pockets of humanity being scattered here and there. This is succeeded by the discovery of a giant alien artefact similar to that in the Ringworld of Larry Niven and the ultimate resolution of the inter-species rivalry. Relativistic effects apply which mean the bold adventurers live lifetimes measuring millions of years for observers. There will, surely, be no coming back from this one.

Baxter seems to improve with experience – he notes in an afterword that this book was written during a period of personal tribulation (which seems to include the death of his mother) and perhaps that inspired him to add some more effort into the characterisation and dialogue, in addition to the plotting and marshalling of recent breakthroughs in the understanding of physics with which his work has long been associated. He manages to overcome the woodenness of the central figure by having a hologram double emerge who is the same person but, despite not being real in the conventional sense, exhibiting more emotional depth than the relatively few other characters which we meet. This works quite well and the other characters rely on a single trait to define their thoughts and actions but that too is manageable because enough of them are aliens of different kinds and that provides variety. The action moves along at a good pace – Baxter has portrayed a number of interstellar voyages before and so has not seen the need to impose the relentless and crushing boredom of it all upon us. As for the ending, it seems to be adequate rather than startling or deeply satisfying but it is hard to imagine how any ending could really live up to the quiddities and reversals of this multi-decade series.

Baxter is a remarkably prolific writer and it is perhaps forgivable, therefore, if similar tropes and ideas re-emerge from time to time, especially when they are being re-interpreted according to some new ideas about how the universe works. Ideas in this book, include speculation about whether our universe could survive a Big Rip (which would be a complementary event to the Big Bang), astroengineering and the evolution of octopus and octopus-like rains that has influenced the portrayal of the Xeelee themselves. To incorporate all of this and more while telling a compelling story requires a great deal of skill and, like most instances of science fiction, it is this which should be appreciated.

John Walsh, RMIT Vietnam, August 2019

Review of Baxter’s Obelisk

Obelisk

Stephen Baxter

London: Gollancz, 2016

ISBN: 9-781473-212763

326 pp.

This collection of short stories by the prolific Stephen Baxter is related to his two novel sequence Proxima and Ultima. The blurb suggests that two of the stories are new but, in fact, they were all new to me. The premise of this series is, as the names suggest, the expansion of humanity to the stars in the wake of a world ruined by environmental collapse. The technology is largely of the steam punk style of advanced Victorian imagining, which means that people are able to travel in space but do not have the all-encompassing datasphere that so complicates human relationships, among other things. Baxter is rather a dab hand at this style of science fiction, as his various retellings of the work of H.G. Wells demonstrates. It also suits his preferred manner of dialogue, which is the slightly formal and slightly stilted mode that matches well with stiff upper lip Britishness but not so well with contemporary or future imagined forms of communication. There is also little recognition in the text of modern identity issues as expressed, for example, by gender relations. Sometimes women take leading roles and high-ranking jobs but it does not seem to make any difference to organizational behaviour or culture since they turn out generally to be decent chaps in skirts.

These stories are mostly set on planets rather than spaceships or more exotic locations and represent alternative histories and futures. There are towering Incas with superior technology; people brought back from the dead to meet specific needs or isolated geniuses able to work out the structure of the meta-universe through using a few laptops and the relentless collection of data reflected upon in more or less tranquillity. This has the effect of uniting some advanced and fascinating ideas (Baxter takes this stuff seriously and is capable of presenting ideas at peer-reviewed scientific conferences) with the mundane problems that derive from dealing with the aftermath of environmental disaster. Baxter gets to massacre billions of people again and again in a variety of ways while his protagonists go about their business despoiling the few resources the earth has left to offer. The better stories highlight these contradictions or, at least, contrasts. For example, Starfall, the concluding story, has the premise that a child has been given access to communication with an increasingly distant spaceship AI heading towards a potential new home for humanity but can only send a brief message every ten years. The child becomes a man while the world goes to hell in a handcart and his messages to the AI are just reflections on his own situation. Amusingly, the AI immediately converts any message into a situation report on its own progress. These are two disparate people, enormously far apart in almost every way and neither can see beyond its own nose.

There are other stories which reprise Baxter’s theme of transcendence, such as Vacuum Lad, which posits a new subspecies of people with a high tolerance to the vacuum of space. Indeed, the various themes that long-term readers have come across on various occasions make an appearance here in one way or another, although the hive mind wakening is only lightly explored. These are reliably enjoyable stories from a reliable author and I will be happy to read more of his books in the future. The combination of the reassuringly familiar and the very strange is one that I particularly enjoy.

John Walsh, RMIT Vietnam

Review of Stephen Baxter’s The Massacre of Mankind

The Massacre of Mankind: Sequel to the War of the Worlds

Stephen Baxter

London: Gollancz, 2017

ISBN: 9-781473-205116

455 pp.

As he has demonstrated with his sequel to The Time Machine, the legacy of H.G. Wells, one of the most loved and valued of British science fiction writers (and both fiction and political thought more generally), has been rightfully entrusted to Stephen Baxter. Baxter has established for himself a reputation as not just a prolific, best-selling author but someone who has demonstrated the ability to work in partnership with another author (e.g. Terry Pratchett) and in another writer’s envisioned universe without doing anything to destroy or devalue it. So it is that the front cover proudly notes ‘Authorised by the H.G. Wells estate.’ On the whole, this is a good thing since there is a penchant these days for adding to existing canon in well-respected literature and, plainly, since I ave read and am now reviewing this book, this is something I share to some extent. I imagine that it will not please everyone but, then, nothing ever does.

Presumably, potential readers of this book will be aware of the basic outline of the original, either through the novel, the film, the Orson Welles radio dramatization or just through osmosis via proximity to popular media consumption. The enigmatic Martians prowl the lances and alleyways of southern England in their metal tripods, deploying their murderous heat rays to boil the valiant British resistance. They are halted by the intervention of the common cold but these are creatures who think in the long-term and, a decade later, the two planets reach their conjunction once again and the stars are right for a second round of invasion. The first part of the book shows us some of the original protagonists and how they in real life, so to speak, rather resent the way they were portrayed in the original text. There are a few dozen pages of this and then the dawning realisation that the Martians are going to come back and have another go and then we get what we are waiting for and the monsters reappear on the scene. They have not been idle in the meantime and have come back not just single spies but in battalions sufficient to conquer not just the Home Counties but the entire planet. The action begins around the world and the promised massacre of mankind is made real before our very eyes.

I have read many of Baxter’s books and in none of them has he ever been very good with respect to characterisation and dialogue and, despite doing his best in this case, does it really manage it here. More successful are the attempts to imagine the political and social changes that might have been brought about by the first war (at least to a certain extent: there does not appear to have been any consideration of what might have happened in the numerous European colonies in Africa, Asia and elsewhere and the people living there play next to no part in this text. Not the least of these is the fact that the principal protagonist is a woman who would have found it previously quite difficult to have such ability to move around the plot in the militarised, fascistic society to which Britain has declined. To be honest, it is just as well that we are reminded of her gender from time to time because there is precious little of an intellectual hinterland or consciousness that would jog the reader’s attention.

Stephen Baxter has developed a well-earned reputation as one of Britain’s leading science fiction writers and one who has an interest in long-term social and the long-term of historical evolution. This extensive vision has had to be compromised to some extent because of the nature of this particular project. Nevertheless, there is still much to enjoy here.

 

 

Review of Stephen Baxter’s Xeelee: Vengeance

Xeelee: Vengeance

Stephen Baxter

London: Gollancz, 2018

ISBN: 9-781473-217195

345 pp.

I first began reading Stephen Baxter’s books a number of years ago when he began producing stories about an implacable alien enemy, the Xeelee (we are prompted to pronounce this as Ch-e-lee). Now they have returned with two novels to complete the earlier sequence, which has been republished in omnibus volumes. The overall mood has become even darker as it appears that even the possibility of a rival must (as in the case of Liu Cixin’s novels) provoke a civilisation to undergo determination to eliminate any threat in its entirety. The creation of faster than light wormhole technology, furthermore, has brought about the possibility of destroying history and replacing it with one more amenable to the last mover. However, this is a very dangerous business because it depends on always having another branch of the universe in time that can be used to destroy the most recent recreation of reality brought about by the enemy. Since we evidently live in a gunslinger universe, therefore, it seems inevitable that there will always be another bunch of marauding bug-eyed monsters with an extra ace up their time travelling sleeve.

Anyway, this situation provides Baxter with perhaps one of the favourite tasks of the science fiction author: killing millions and millions of people and anticipating the extinction of mankind (this is suggested on the back page blurb and the promise of a final novel, Xeelee: Redemption indicates that the good guys will get a final chance to put things right). This he does with gusto and that provides the main enjoyment of reading this novel. There are, of course, human characters (Although I sometimes suspect that these would be removed if possible) and they are mostly related to Michael Poole, the non-diverse protagonist who has led the human resistance and has a mile-high statue of himself created on a distant planet (then again, so did Arthur Dent and look what good it did him). His job is to highlight human ingenuity and then see it fail to prevail in the face of the superior physics of the invading enemy with the sense of inevitability we used to associate with the German football team before it started to lose against Mexico and South Korea. There is much to be admired about the relentless enmity of the Xelee as they prosecute their campaign of the absolute extinction of humanity in all phases of the universe. That, as mentioned, there is another book to come should warn the astute reader that this goal is not fully achieved, at least at this stage.

I do enjoy Stephen Baxter’s books but readers interested in explorations of gender, of new social and political struggles and new methods of personal interaction will be disappointed. The characters are very similar to each other and could almost have been drawn from 1950s television. The dialogues and internal monologues exist primarily to propel the plot forward with all speed and to link together the different aspects of the malicious alien force. Not everyone will be happy with this, especially now we have reached a stage of fiction in which much more sophisticated explorations of existence within science fiction has been reached. However, it works for me and I am looking forward to the concluding book in the series.

Review of Stephen Baxter’s The Time Ships

The Time Ships
Stephen Baxter
London: HarperVoyager, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-00-813454-9
499 pp.

The prolific science fiction writer Stephen Baxter has become known not just for his own, numerous creations but, also, for his work in recreating classics of British work. He recently had published an updated version of The War of the Worlds and this, presumably, prompted the reissue of The Time Ships, which first appeared in 1995.

Baxter has produced a sequel to the Wells original which, it is hardly a spoiler to reveal, ends with our time travelling protagonist having to abandon his beloved but quite feckless Weena to the sinister and brutish Morlocks and their (Miltonesque) underground engines. The time traveller subsequently escaped a close shave with those creatures by escaping to the far future, where he witnessed what appears to be the onset of the end of the world or, at least, of the end of humanity before returning to his own time and relating the tale to the nameless Writer. Now, the Traveller prepares to return to the future, so to speak, with a view to rescuing Weena and finding some way of living happily ever after with her in some way. However, as the back cover blurb reveals, his first intervention in the chromosphere has rather upset things and a whole new series of timelines has been introduced The Traveller has the opportunity to travel unimaginable distances in time and to witness the different and mostly unfortunate ways in which his actions have changed humanity and the other creatures encountered along the way.

Baxter does a good job of portraying the Traveller as a stiff upper lip type of chap who would do sterling work in the administration of the Empire. The world is described through his perspective and, so, it appears as a potentially dangerous place which could, nevertheless, be wrestled into submission and put to productive use with a dose of elbow grease:

“… But I knew … that my 1891, that cosy world of Richmond Hill, was lost in the fractured Multiplicity.
Well: if I could not go home, I decided, I would go on: I would follow this road of Changing, until it could take me no further! (p.349)”

It would be a little unkind to observe that there is a gap between perception and reality such as this in nearly all of Baxter’s work – his characterisation has improved over the years and has become functional, although it is hard to imagine future PhD candidates will be probing the psychological makeup and development of his characters.

The class system is deftly deployed in the spirit of the original to display the true nature of society in its various guises and the Traveller’s inherent confidence in dealing with it in the many ages of the world he has the chance to visit.
Since the Traveller was to a significant extent responsible for the new universe of divided timelines and, perhaps more importantly, because through possession of his time machine he retains agency in seeking to affect the external universe, he is kept at the heart of events by the central figures of various eras who might, one might suspect, have reason rather to resent his continued presence. Just like Wells and his ambivalent attitude towards Britain’s place and behaviour in the world, Baxter, through the Traveller, exhibits little doubt that Britain nevertheless has the central role to play in the disposition of global events. It is interesting to compare this belief with those attitudes of the others who comes to us through the prism of the Traveller’s eyes. This is all quite nicely and subtly done.

I cannot help but think that Wells would be somewhat appalled by the world today – mendacity, spiteful divisiveness, the idiocy of Brexit, all of the contemporary phenomena that destroy the sense of solidarity on which he would (class system notwithstanding) have based society. What would he make of this book? Presumably he would have been disappointed that, a century later, it would still be necessary to write it. To write about time travel in the way that he did was to call for changes to the future that he foresaw (among the Eloi and the Morlocks, which one was the bourgeoisie? An argument could be made either way). Since then, the course has been set errantly and now it might be said that we appear to be heading to hell in a handcart. Baxter, characteristically, deploys his big picture technology to address this problem using concepts not available to Wells. The approach is satisfying and the result a worthy tribute to the great man.

Review of The Medusa Chronicles by Baxter and Reynolds

The Medusa Chronicles

Stephen Baxter and Alastair Reynolds

London: Gollancz, 2016

ISBN: 978-1-473-21020-2

327 pp

Two of Britain’s leading science fiction writers have joined together to pay homage to and update the work of one of the greats of the genre, Sir Arthur C. Clarke. Clarke had written a novella published in 1971 entitled ‘A Meeting with Medusa’ that was, characteristically, both revolutionary in terms of scientific understanding and rather conservative in terms of characterization and the portrayal of social and personal relations.

In the original, a single Anglo-Saxon explorer, who has been partly rebuilt as a cyborg as a result of a previous aerial misfortune, pilots a spacecraft into the atmosphere of Jupiter and there encounters a number of strange and mind-expanding alien creatures. He also interacts with his evolved monkey crew and eventually frees them from their enforced servitude on the ship. This is the background to the current book, which envisages the protagonist, Howard Falcon, being progressively upgraded as his mechanical parts reach the ends of their working lives such that his lifespan is enormously extended. As a result, he is able to observe and occasionally participate in the encounters between humanity (both foolish and sensitive) and the machine life whose origin is indicated in the back cover blurb. It becomes a fascinating alternative future history of the type for which Baxter is particularly noted, although the narrative remains somewhat hindered by the deadweight of Falcon himself, who acts as something of an anchor on a book seeking to take flight.

It is tempting, when reading fiction that has been produced by more than one author, to try to guess who has written which section. Tempting but probably ultimately futile because the writing process using contemporary technology can see multiple drafts of different sections being created without difficulty. Even if the authors themselves do not come to create a homogeneous text, then editors exist whose job it is to ensure that a smooth manuscript results. These are, after all, not insignificant figures in the publishing world and it would be expected that a collaboration between them would attract fans of one or both of them and shift, therefore, a lot of units.

This is a very interesting and sometimes even exciting story, particularly with respect to the consideration of how machine intelligences would develop over extended periods of time. One of the problems of such a lengthy timeline is that even though some other characters are allowed to linger in different forms, it becomes difficult to have much emotional engagement with other people who may pop up along the way and, further, the possibility of revealing character development through personal relations is also limited. Still, as I have written before, people who come to a science fiction novel expecting complex personal relationships are likely to be disappointed more often than not. Instead, readers are recommended to sit back and enjoy the ride.

The ending of the book makes it possible that there could be a sequel, although I imagine both Baxter and Reynolds, each of whom is quite prolific in publishing, would find it difficult to schedule more time to do so. I find myself somewhat ambivalent about this since, on the one hand, it would be fun to explore a distant future, on the other hand such a book would seem to be too far removed from the point of this first book while at the same time being hampered by having to retain the existing characters and set-up. Perhaps it will be better to let the authors return to their own imagination and bring forth more marvelous things therefrom.

Review of Stephen Baxter’s Ultima

In Ultima, Stephen Baxter provides one of his trademark epic sweeps through time and space to speculate on the nature of the universe and humanity’s place within it, while also considering the role of the individual as an agent of change.

Read the full review here.