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Manifold Space Stephen Baxter 9780345430786 Books

Download As PDF : Manifold Space Stephen Baxter 9780345430786 Books

Manifold Space Stephen Baxter 9780345430786 Books

Space is a well paced novel based on an intelligent speculation around the Fermi paradox.
One thing I absolutely love about Baxter is the fact that from the beginning of his novels interesting events take place, which immediately make you wonder about what is going to happen next. Most characters are interesting and gripping and you never get tired of seeing the universe through Malenfant's eyes.
I like the balance between action, accurate science (mostly, anyway) and existential reflection. The fact that these Manifold books are not plot driven in the classic sense makes little difference in what concerns the quality of the writing, the pure childish excitement in following the author's speculations and the intensity of the ideas which are presented.
The characters embark on a grand journey and it is purely a matter of personal preference that you are more or less pleased with the fact that Baxter dwells is deriving the existential consequences of the events taking place, rather than delivering a self contained story.
If you are a regular sci-fi reader you will recognise a lot of references in this book, although you will never feel that you are re-reading anything. Baxter's particular blend of ideas is very original.
Personally I profoundly enjoy this type of writing and I rate it well above the level of most of the current sci-fi writers.
This is a worthy sequel to Time (although it is a fully independent story), which looks closer into aspects which were only superficially approached on the first book (such as galactic level engineering).


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Manifold Space Stephen Baxter 9780345430786 Books Reviews

Not what I was expecting.
The author writes about complex and subtle ideas with determination and alacrity. He embarks on audacious arcs of plot and setting with satisfying skill and fluidity. Highly recommended.
Great story. Enjoyed it a lot.
Not being a great writer myself I will let others do the plot summaries and simply state my opinion of the book.

I consider Baxter one of the core group of hard science fiction writers however reading his books often feels too much like work...unlike Banks or Reynolds. Maybe its too much exposition on physics and too little character development. The balance between the two is off.

All in all, a so so book.
As good a hard Science Fiction (emphasis on Science) as you're likely to find. And they are getting harder and harder to find.
I like Baxter a lot, especially the various Xeelee books. Manifold Time was quite good, although certainly not his best work. ManifoldSpace is written as if the same characters and context of the first book had branched off on a different timeline. So, same people, different stuff happens to them.

The first part of M Space is fairly typical Baxter humans encounter aliens, aliens bring some good, some bad, human society changes, loner astronaut launches himself into deep space, yadda yadda yadda. But much of the book is quite...impressionistic. That is, scenes, characters, and plot points sort of ebb and flow. For much of the book, there simply is no clear narrative arc. Things eventually become clear--life emerges everywhere, but somehow the galaxy always wipes it out, forcing it to start again, and man and alien alike wonder how to survive that purge. But the journey to the end of the book is often pretty slow going. A tighter editor might have chopped 100 pages out of this with little loss.

Baxter fans should find it worth a read, but I wouldn't reccommend it otherwise.
(If you're not here for a spoiler, don't read past the spoiler line!)

If you're looking for jarheads in space, egyptian aliens, pod races and feel good endings about humankind's unique humanity you can step away now.

The rest of you can face the bloody harsh wind of Baxter's second attempt at explaining the Fermi paradox if life just happens, why have we only found it on our planet? The book takes a long, descriptive path through the next few thousand years, painting on a grand scale what's going on in our stellar neighborhood. Relatively convincing quasi physics are woven into a surreal picture of space/time travelers, incomprehensible aliens, resource struggles on a ridiculous scale, and ultimately a cold, cold, unfortunately teetering universe.

The payoff for sticking with this very deliberately paced revelation of the universe's mechanical heart is gaining a moment of clarity where you get to pose yourself the question If the universe is "just" the universe, sans the metaphysical we've imagined, if it really is just a big cooling explosion and we're just bizarre knots in the eddies of cooling gasses... do waffles and bacon still taste good?

***** HERE BE SPOILERS *****

For those who'd like a few more details before committing to the book
Malenfant is back, and ends up with a key role again. He isn't the same Malenfant, just as this isn't the same universe as the first Manifold book. The idea here seems to be that Baxter is using each book to explore another answer to the Fermi paradox. Some of the first book's characters make cameos here, but there's a new cast to make room for too.

This time around, the answer to the paradox revolves around the idea that life does happen all over the place, but it gets wiped out all the time. This seems to happen on a period that allows for a sufficiently high degree of sophistication that the relics of those civilizations are incomprehensible to us. Baxter would like us to picture the idea that sufficiently advanced resource plundering is indistinguishable from geology. As with the first book, he also casually tosses star engineering out there as part of his mechanism. Given the nature of the relics, the timescales involved, and the thoroughness of the "reboot" function, he paints a convincing picture of why we aren't seeing any evidence of others in the sky.

As per the first book, we follow our ragged collection of human observers out to the stars to observe all of this first hand en route to the melancholy final reveal. The pacing is slow and Baxter spends what feels like more time describing every nut and bolt compared to the first book. Given that the whole point of the book is to paint you a picture of this tragic universe though, this really is only a bad thing if you have a short attention span.

The punchline, the bit about our part to play, is refreshing. No magic invoked here, no triumph of vague spirit or ill defined virtue. Baxter calls us out for being what we manifestly demonstrate ourselves to be rather than what we'd like to think we are, and finds a use for it!

I very much enjoyed this book. Two thumbs (flecked with maple syrup) up.
Space is a well paced novel based on an intelligent speculation around the Fermi paradox.
One thing I absolutely love about Baxter is the fact that from the beginning of his novels interesting events take place, which immediately make you wonder about what is going to happen next. Most characters are interesting and gripping and you never get tired of seeing the universe through Malenfant's eyes.
I like the balance between action, accurate science (mostly, anyway) and existential reflection. The fact that these Manifold books are not plot driven in the classic sense makes little difference in what concerns the quality of the writing, the pure childish excitement in following the author's speculations and the intensity of the ideas which are presented.
The characters embark on a grand journey and it is purely a matter of personal preference that you are more or less pleased with the fact that Baxter dwells is deriving the existential consequences of the events taking place, rather than delivering a self contained story.
If you are a regular sci-fi reader you will recognise a lot of references in this book, although you will never feel that you are re-reading anything. Baxter's particular blend of ideas is very original.
Personally I profoundly enjoy this type of writing and I rate it well above the level of most of the current sci-fi writers.
This is a worthy sequel to Time (although it is a fully independent story), which looks closer into aspects which were only superficially approached on the first book (such as galactic level engineering).