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S - Science Fiction
F - Fantasy
H - Horror
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Adams, Douglas (S)
Asher, Neal (S)
Aylett, Steve (S)
Banks, Iain M (S)
Barclay, James (F)
Barker, Clive (H)
Baxter, Stephen (S)
Brin, David (S)
Bury, Stephen (S)
Card, Orson Scott (S)
Cherryh, CJ (S/F)
Clute, John (S)
Cockayne, Steve (F)
Cook, Glen (F)
Danielewski, Mark (H)
Dick, Philip K (S)
Egan, Greg (S)
Feist, Raymond (F)
Gaiman, Neil (F)
Gibson, William (S)
Goodkind, Terry (F)
Grimwood, Jon C (S)
Hamilton, Peter (S)
Jeter, K.W. (S)
Jordan, Robert (F)
Lethem, Jonathan (S)
McAuley, Paul (S)
MacLeod, Ken (S)
Martin, George RR (F)
McMullen, Sean (S)
Miéville, China (S)
Moran, Daniel K (S)
Morgan, Richard K (S)
Nagata, Linda (S)
Niven, Larry (S)
Noon, Jeff (S)
Robinson, Kim S. (S)
Rucker, Rudy (S)
Simmons, Dan (S)
Smith, Michael Marshall (S)
Stephenson, Neal (S)
Sterling, Bruce (S)
Vinge, Vernor (S)
Westerfeld, Scott (S)
Williams, Sean (S)
Williams, Tad (S/F)
Collections (S/F)
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| The Classics |
Bradbury, Ray (S/H)
Burgess, Anthony (S)
Tolkien, JRR (F) |
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| Stephen Baxter |
| Author Information |
Reviewed Books |
Other Books |
| Notes: (M) - Manifold Series |
Manifold:
Time (M) |
Evolution (2/03)
Raft
Anti-Ice
Flux
Ring
Manifold: Space (M)
Manifold: Origin (M) |
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Our Ranking Manifold: Time, is the first
novel I've read by Baxter and I really didn't know what to expect. I'd heard Baxter's
name mentioned quite a bit, especially when reading any kind of major award nomination
list, which he seems to frequent quite a bit. (In fact this book itself was nominated
for the Arthur C. Clarke award in 2000). I always knew that Baxter was more in
the "hard" sci-fi arena, but since I'm a huge fan of Greg
Egan I figured I'd give him a shot. Let's just say I might have over stepped
my bounds a bit on this one. Baxter more or less decides to ambush you from a
plot stand point in this one. The book starts off very simple. A space jockey
wannabe, that couldn't quite hack it in NASA, decides to bypass the NASA bureucracy
and complacency and attempt his own space mission to an asteroid. At first this
mission is backed by simply economics. If you can mine the asteroid and bring
the materials back to Earth, not only will you be filthy rich, but the sheer magnitude
of the resources would replenish the draining supply of Earth's own resources.
However, very early on, you realize this launch has much further reaching implications
that basically flip the plot upside down, inside out, and well, just in all directions.
Once the plot gets all twisted about is when the real hard science began to kick
in, and for the most part where my understanding (and interest to a large degree)
went out the window. The plot is very physics heavy, loaded with theories about
not only the creation/end of universes, but also with space and time continuity.
Much of these theories are just tossed out there in the book by the characters.
Most of the time I really had no idea if these were proven, accepted facts, or
theories, or just really technical sounding fiction. For me, the incredible technicalness
of it all wasn't interesting. However, the plot is so wrapped up in this that
you truly do need it to write the story. Basically, this is an extremely technical
and complicated plotline. If this isn't your cup of tea, I'd suggest moving on.
The technical stuff aside, the one thing that really stood out, and left me disappointed
with the book were the characters. For the most part, they were very cookie cutter,
one dimensional people. Even worse, they weren't even good dimensions. The main
character Malenfant was supposed to be this incredibly powerful and magnetic individual
that people flocked to, and was just in control. The reason you know this is because
that what the author keeps saying. It's certainly not an opinion you get from
reading what Malenfant does and says. The same is basically true for the other
characters. Their personalities and motivations are not developed at all. For
the most part they just seem to be there to help move the plot on a bit. Overall,
this was a bear of a book for me to get through. I don't want to rate the book
unfairly just because I didn't get most of it though. It's a very "hard science"
book and apparently that's not my cup of tea. (still haven't figured out why I
like Egan so much though) For all I know this was a tremendous book from the technical
side full of just mind blowing theories and concepts. However, what I do know
is that the characters are very weak, and the plot itself is pretty jumpy. Things
just seem to lurch along between all the technical jargon. As of now, there's
two more Manifold novels out there (this one is a very stand alone story though.
I was surprised to learn it was part of a series) but I will probably pass and
leave them to those readers much more advanced scientifically then me. |
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