Page Updated: 28/01/2008

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Stephen Baxter - Page 3

Futures Mammoth: Icebones Deep Future The Light of Other Days Space

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First British Edition Gollancz (2001)

Futures
The second Foursight anthology, edited and introduced by Peter Crowther
Four new novellas from the very best of British SF writers
Futures brings together new fiction from four of the very best SF writers working today. It is a snapshot look at why British SF is dominating the world market at the moment.
Whether describing a far future of alien domination, a very different present ruled by Imperial Roman families, the distant moons of the solar system brutally subjugated by Earth or an Africa changed out of all recognition by alien life, Futures presents four crystal clear examples of just why home-grown SF is going through such a boom.
Whether you are looking for the perfect introduction to the genre as a whole or want to pick up a brand new novella from your own personal favourite author Futures is the place to look.
Brought together by leading anthologist and editor Peter Crowther, Futures is an essential showcase of what makes British SF the dominant force in the genre as we enter the third millennium.
Reality Dust by Stephen Baxter
`Space Opera - the grind and the glorious, the truly operatic and infinite, worthy successor to tales of Greek gods and the Norse Sagas - is alive and well, and in very good hands. In short, Stephen Baxter is hard at work keeping and advancing the necessary forms and traditions, expanding the discourse in a way that both gladdens the heart and sends chills up the spines of his fellow writers’ Greg Bear
Watching Trees Grow by Peter F. Hamilton
`Peter Hamilton has written a murder story covering several centuries, in which the solution depends upon the sociology of immortal families evolved during the Roman Empire and upon forensic techniques that change massively during the course of the story. But Watching Trees Grow is a mystery and the surest way to really tell you what Hamilton has accomplished is to blow away all his secrets. You may want to read the story first’ Larry Niven
Making History by Paul McAuley
‘I find it surprisingly difficult to articulate why I so intensely admire Paul McAuley’s work. Perhaps the problem is simply that it is so uniformly excellent. Once I say that I admire his fine, clean, prose, the clarity of his plotting, the originality of his ideas, his understanding of science, and the quality of his characterisation, what else is there to say? To list his good qualities is the same as to list those things I like about science fiction’ Michael Swanwick Tendeleo’s Story by Ian McDonald
‘Ian McDonald’s Chaga stories remind me of J.G.Ballard’s ‘Vermillion Sands’ stories in the way they return repeatedly to a single vividly imagined background but approach it from a different point of view in each visit. What McDonald seems to be doing is reinventing for the new century a whole host of existing science-fictional concepts, transforming them through the power of his prose and the intensity of his vision just as the mysterious Chaga invaders have transformed the Africa of his stories. He leaves us much the richer for his efforts.
'The best SF author in Britain' SFX

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First British Edition Gollancz (2001)

Paperback - Gollancz Millenium (2002)

Mammoth: Icebones
Mammoth Book Three
This Is Not Earth.
There is a flat, sharp, close horizon, a plain of dust and rocks. The rocks are carved by the wind. Everything is stained rust brown, like dried blood, the shadows long and sharp.
This is the Sky Steppe. This is Mars.
The time is three thousand years after the birth of Christ. The rocky land rings to the calls of the mammoths. But no human hears them.
The colony on Mars has failed and the last colonists have returned to Earth. The animals they brought with them as frozen embryos, then raised, have been left to perish on this new world.
But Icebones, daughter of Silverhair, the one adult mammoth taken to Mars, has been released from cryogenic storage by the departing humans.
Icebones alone carries the accumulated knowledge of the great story cycle learnt from her mother. Icebones alone can teach the mammoths to survive and flourish without their human keepers. Icebones alone can lead the mammoths to inherit the fabled Sky Steppe.
`The species is spectacularly realised, complete with religion and culture tackled with impressive creativity’ SFX
`Convincing . . . vivid . . . a rich and very rewarding read’ Infinity Plus
'Stephen Baxter proves what a cosmic thinker he is, and that his mastery of technical detail is only a tool for thoughtful meditation about the nature of life itself, its origins, and where it must ultimately go. In the grand tradition of H.G.Wells and Olaf Stapledon' Washington Post Book World
‘Anthropomorphic fantasy can so easily go wrong, often risibly, but here it works . . . an interesting departure from Baxter’s usual hard SF, this retains his clean, accessible prose and talent for compelling narrative.’ Time Out
`Big-hearted, plausible, stately - and recommended’ Interzone
`No other Baxter has been written with the same cool distance, achieved, in part, by the brevity of the paragraphs and the simplicity of the sentences. There is something; majestic, something stately, in the effect achieved; in other words, the author has managed to reach a range that is creditably and plausibly that of a mammoth.’ Foundation

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Paperback - Gollancz (2002)

First British Edition Gollancz (2001)

Deep Future
What does the future really hold?
How different will life he at the end of the 21st century? Can technology save us from ecological disaster?
What is to be learnt from the abortive Apollo and Shuttle programmes that will help us escape the bounds of Earth in the future?
And if we do escape Earth can we make a home on the harsh planets and moons of our solar system?
Or must we travel further, defying the limitations of physics, and colonies the whole galaxy and beyond?
And who or what shall we meet when we get there?
And what, in the end, long after the stars have expended their energy and the universe has gone dark, can we do to survive the end of time itself?
Deep Future takes you on a dazzling ride to the limits of time and space. Along the way Stephen Baxter looks at our place in the universe, considers the possibility that we are in fact alone – and wonders whether that fact gives us the right to inherit everything, as we strive to overcome the limitations of the physical universe and win the deepest future.
Stephen Baxter has brought his trademark narrative flair and imaginative brilliance to the latest ideas in physics and cosmology and produced a breathtaking guide to our possible futures.
'A thoroughly engrossing read!' Starburst
‘Gripping - but more than a little disturbing - essays and speculative writing. Stephen Baxter has been hailed as the natural successor to Clarke, Asimov and Heinlein for the hard science in his novels . . . Read, be awed and amazed at our deep future, but be prepared to lose sleep.’ SFX
‘It’s smart, thought-provoking stuff, surfing the outer edges of physics and making a plea for colonisation of the planets . . . One of his more interesting notions is that there might not be other intelligent life in the universe. Somehow he manages to make this bleak, somewhat depressing thought seem like a wonderful opportunity for our species.’ Stan Nicholls, Time Out
‘Baxter’s academic background in physics affords telling insights into what might be possible in the future, while the gift for lush narrative and enthusiasm for the natural world that inspired the Mammoth trilogy makes this an exhilarating read . . . a surprisingly beautiful and haunting vision.’ Mike Woods, Waterstones Online
‘Like his mentor Arthur C. Clarke, Baxter coins evocative phrases . . . Deep Future is a lively though often chilling tour of possible futures, looking afresh at classic speculations (from Freeman Dyson, Carl Sagan and many others) and updating them for our new millennium.’ David Langford, Amazon.co.uk
‘Baxter’s creative writing has long been held in esteem by readers of science fiction . . . Baxter’s ability to use present day metaphors to illustrate his projections lend an extra dimension to his work, forcing the reader to consider aspects of the future they may previously have taken for granted’ Dreamwatch

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First British Edition Voyager (2000)

Paperback - Voyager (2001)

The Light of Other Days
In the most exciting sf collaboration ever, Arthur C. Clarke and his acknowledged heir Stephen Baxter pool cosmic insights and page turning plotting skills to produce the most powerful novel of the future since 2001: A Space Odyssey. The Light Of Other Days tells of a time, not so far in the future, when the walls of time and distance have suddenly turned to glass.
‘Space is what keeps everything from being in the same place. Right?’
Hiram Patterson, head of the giant media corporation OurWorld, is launching the greatest communications revolution in history. By manipulating wormholes in space, his WormCams can connect any point to any other, faster than the speed of light. Realtime television coverage is here: earthquakes and wars, murders and disasters can be watched, exactly as they occur, anywhere on the planet. And that’s just the beginning!
The New Past When WormCams are made to work across time as well as space, humanity encounters itself in the light of other days. We witness the life of Jesus, go to the premiere of Hamlet, solve the enigmas that have baffled generations.
Blood spilled centuries ago flows vividly once more.
And privacy, of course, is a thing of the past. No personal treachery or shame can be concealed.
Mutual Assured Surveillance Fuming inwardly about decadent technology and excess wealth, journalist Kate Manzoni goes to work for Hiram, who has his own reasons for hiring her Hiram wants her close so that he can the more easily destroy her – to bring to an end her affair with Bobby Patterson, his son. Hiram seeks to keep his deadly schemes secret - but even he, its creator, cannot anticipate the power of the all-seeing WormCam.

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First British Edition Voyager (2000)

Space
In the second volume of Stephen Baxter's epic Manifold series Reid Malenfant inhabits a mirror-image universe to that of Time ('Time is pacy, visionary, extravagantly imagined' The Times). In Space life is everywhere!
'If they existed, they would be here' - this is the Fermi paradox concerning the existence of extraterrestrials. Once it confirmed Malenfant's opinion that humanity was alone in the universe. But when Nemoto, a Japanese researcher on the Moon, discovers evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence in the solar system, the same paradox provokes both Malenfant and Nemoto to question why now? Because, suddenly, there are signs of intelligent life in deep space in all directions. Deeper layers of Fermi's paradox unravel as robot-like aliens, the Gaijin, seem to be e-mailing themselves from star to star, and wherever telescopes point, far away, other alien races are destroying worlds.
In the face of this onslaught from the stars, Malenfant sets out alone in a salvaged antique spacecraft to make contact with the Gaijin. In response the Gaijin come to Earth in their beautiful silver flower-ships but not to save mankind. They trawl through the archives of human culture for their own mysterious reasons. In their wake, recreated marvels of prehistoric life once more roam the Earth, including those hominids driven to extinction by man. But the Gaijin have more questions than answers.
As other aliens approach in a blaze of destruction there is no comfort in recalling Nemoto's certainty that this has all happened before, over and over. But in the soul of Malenfant, in the dreams of the new Neanderthals, and in Nemoto's obsessive loathing of all aliens there are glimmers of hope that the cycle can be broken.
Stephen Baxter is the most acclaimed, most accomplished and most ambitious of a new generation of scientifically trained authors who are expanding the vision of science fiction and taking it to a new golden age.
‘Britain’s foremost hard SF writer’ The Guardian
'Baxter has emerged as a master of cosmological hard SF, a writer enamored of alien viewpoints and radical settings, with a sense of sublime immensities and an ingenuity at working permutations on the question of what is human' Locus
'Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein succeeded in doing it, but very few others. Now Stephen Baxter joins their exclusive ranks, writing science fiction in which the science is right. The reaction is that which C.S. Lewis referred to when he described science fiction as the only genuine consciousness-expanding drug.' New Scientist
'The best SF writer in Britain' SFX

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