Manifold: Space

I think I would really enjoy a physics class taught by Mr Baxter, since the man clearly knows his science, knows which sources to go to and is able to synthesize them in ways that he can explain them without your head exploding. Also, he's able to extrapolate those ideas into some interesting scenarios that suggest some fun possibilities and open the mind up for more speculation. Alas, he's not able to translate that yet into novels with real emotional heft and the bigger his ideas get, the more the story tends to leave you behind. This book is the follow-up to Manifold: Time and as the title implies, while this book still requires great leaps in time, this time out we're more about moving outward than jumping forward. Jumping off the conclusions set by the last novel, Baxter essentially hits the reboot button and drops us in a totally different universe, although some of the characters are still the same. The most notable is our hero Reid Malenfant, who is older than the first book but just as obsessed with mankind securing their destiny beyond the stars. Instead of wondering how we're going to survive, however, he's more interested in why they aren't any other intelligent races in the galaxy, or at least why it seems that way. Meanwhile, an intelligent race does apparently decide to move into the solar system from far away and that's where the fun starts. Always willing to boldly go (split infinitive and everything), Reid disappears into a portal that was left by some prior alien race and the voyage of discovery begins. As I mentioned before, Baxter is fiend when it comes to idea and everything is well thought out. From the weird robot-like Gajin that show up, to all the other aliens that pop in every so often, to the effects of time and history when extrapolated thousands upon thousands of years into the future, it's like he's taking you through an exhibit hall in his mind, showcasing all the fun science-based ideas he has and dressing them up as science-fiction. However, it doesn't take long before the reader quickly starts to lose the plot and everything begins to drown in a sea of glorious information. There are gates that allow people to travel but since it's lights-speed, time dilation still applies and when they come back to Earth, it's hundreds of years in the future each time, leading to effects that aren't much different from what the soldier suffered in Joe Haldemann's famous The Forever War, namely culture shock and the sense of dissociation and alienation. Things progress and Baxter shows us people on the moon, people on different planets, different aliens in other star systems, the galaxy, the picture keeps blowing up bigger and bigger until you almost can't contain it. But we don't really ever find out what it all means. The cover copy on the back of the book suggests that the main thrust of the plot has something to do with the reasons why intelligent life flares up and then dies out, leaving artifacts scattered a

Baxter's Space is the Gulliver's Travels of modern science fiction. I mean this not only in terms of narrative convention (hapless traveler is propelled from one tableaux to the next to showcase the author's agenda, in this case, a grab-bag of the myriad forms life might take in various environments), but of repute, as well: with Time as his launching point, Baxter takes cyclopean strides, earning the hallmark "classic" and instantly vaulting into my Top Ten Greatest Sci-Fi Novels of All Time. Baxter has come a long way from what I label the "pajama sci-fi" of his Xeelee sequence: cheeseball crews running around in their jammy-jams like something from Star Trek: the Motion Picture or Invaders from Plan 9. Baxter's ideas were always there, but his Michael Crichton School of bland prose was a great detraction. No more - he's battened down the hatches on sloppy writing, his characters have distinct voices, and the greatest improvement of all, his dialogue has gone from Vaudevillian melodrama to the downright profound. Baxter refreshingly skips hashing out the trials of his characters and gets to the nitty gritty: one sentence, Malefant is reasoning out how he can get to a deep space "Saddle Point," the next sentence, he's there, and who cares how he swung it?All this, and the ideas are still there; each chapter bursts with an astonishing new Big Idea that forces one to pause and give a Keanu Reeves "whoah." The final onslaught of the Cracker fleet and Nemoto's soliloquy is the most deliciously bleak scene I have read in sci-fi since the end of Orwell's 1984. Here's hoping Baxter's Darwinian vision of space colonization is totally wrong. I, for one, am still waiting for enlightened beings to descend from the heavens and help us save us from ourselves. Space is not perfect - the micronized space-ship with no plausible explanation from a race that Baxter repeatedly stresses has comparatively primitive technology is particularly irksome, and Baxter can sometimes hit you over the head to make his point (there's no need to use "Darwinian" as an adjective twice on the same page - I get it already), but these are minor annoyances. It's the power to make you cower like an insignificant mote against the howling void, to go slack-jawed with wonder and awe as you gaze out over alien vistas, to make you still ask after witnessing 10,000 years of human evolution, "Is that all there is?" Baxter dishes it up in droves and he's unlikely to pull it off again, so if you're going to read only one, this is it.Finally, my glib answer to the Fermi Paradox: we exist, but we're not there...Fudo MyoGeneva, Switzerland

I was astounded by Stephen Baxter's first novel in the Manifold duo, Manifold: Time. Honestly, I enjoyed Time more than Space, but Manifold: Space is truly just as fascinating.Baxter has a wonderful job with his ability to flawlessly write true hard science fiction that incorporates real science into the story. He has done a beautiful job with Space.I would also like to note that if you are expecting to read Manifold: Time in this book, you will be disappointed. Space is a totally new story with new characters, and even a new Malenfant, for we also have a new universe (and NO, that is NOT a spoiler)! I will say that Space's plot unfolds similarly stylistically, but the story is a totally original and new sci fi experience that is equally magnificent to that of Time.This is truly a book for all science fiction lovers. I guarantee it! Enjoy!-Taylor

I really looked forward to reading this book after having read Manifold Time ! I haven't been disappointed ! This is absolutely great, this books drives you everywhere in the universe on an immense time scale, it's breath-taking from the beginning to the end ! Manifold Time was based on the Carter catastrophe, here it's based on Fermi's Paradox, and explores every detail of the question. So well written. Stephen Baxter is really talented, i can't wait the the third book of the Manifold series !! BUY IT NOW !

Absolutley loved this novel. The shear depth of Baxters' ideas and his firm grasp of the latest cutting edge physics, is a joy to read. I loved Mainifold: Time, but this one I couldn't put down. What I love most about this novel is that you realise your learning something while enjoying every page. Personally, I have no problems with Baxters' characterizations and writing style, I think he's one of the best in hard SF ( generally better than Egan or Bear, in my opinion). To summarize what this novel is about, while not giving too much away- imagine a thought experiment concerning the Fermi Paradox, e.g if aliens exist, why aren't they here? This paradox could have lots of solutions, e.g life is very,very rare, or perhaps life is common but it gets wiped out or wipes itself out in a relatively short time scale... This novel seems to take the latter angle, space is brimming with life, yet none of it every really gets the chance to advance beyond a certain point. What's behind all this is the crux of the story. Loved the ending as well.Highly recommended.