Thursday 17 September 2015

Xeelee: Endurance - Stephen Baxter

Return to the eon-spanning and universe-crossing conflict between humanity and the unknowable alien Xeelee in this selection of uncollected and unpublished stories, newly edited and placed in chronological reading order.

From tales charting the earliest days of man's adventure to the stars to stories of Old Earth, four billion years in the future, the range and startling imagination of Baxter is always on display. As humanity rises and falls, ebbs and flows, one thing is always needed - the ability to endure.

Contains eleven short stories and novellas.

My thoughts:
A couple of novellas, a couple of short stories, spanning billions of years of mankind's expansion of space. I did say I wanted to try more sci-fi, and branch out in my sci.fi. I think I have done pretty well over the summer with that.

Return to Titan
I was hooked  at once, and the end. Omg. The end! I wanna know more. But this is just the early days of space exploration. And this trip was about the Moon Titan. Intriguing and good.

Spacefall
The first galactic war. So I get why the war began, still asshole way of doing it.

Remembrance
This was a good one. I could not stop reading. The squeem came and conquered earth. It was hellish.

Endurance
The Qax occupation. Poor earth, but they do seem better than the Squeem.

The seer and the silverman
Humans are free and they are now the conquerors. And they are not nicer than the ones that conquered them.

Gravity Dreams
Ad 978,225. They find people in a beta universe.

Periondry's quest
AD 3,8 billion years. Humans are turning creepy and weird.

Climbing the blue
Earth is so weird now. The rest of space seems to be lost.

The time pit
We are now so far into the future that I can not relate to them as humans, even though they are.

The lowland expedition
As in a few earlier stories, earth has time zones (in an effort to same them from aliens). And by this I mean that if you go up you can be away for 40 years, but only 1 year pass below. And in this story they visit a timepit and find strange strange things. Earth is messed up!!

Formidable caress
5 billions years.
As time pass humans seem to be going backwards. Technology lost and found again. Nothing new getting done. Buildings are alive and ruling. Scary future.


As you can see, the more time that passed, the more bizarre it got. Humans had spread back over the universe, and then they died and earth was left. But humans stayed as before. Idiots all of them.

Conclusion:
I could not put it down. First there were invasions. Then we invaded space. Then things got weird. So interesting.

Cover
it does look sci.fi

Hardcover, 448 pages
Expected publication: September 17th 2015
Sci fi
For review

29 comments:

  1. Great to hear that you enjoyed and couldn't stop reading

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ah, I do remember you saying you weren't sure about sci-fi but wanted to try out more and I'm glad to hear this worked for you!

    ~Mogsy @ BiblioSanctum

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I am glad I tried more cos I have found that I do enjoy them :D

      Delete
  3. This sounds like a creepy read seeing Earth change so much! Glad it was it proved to be so interesting though:)

    ReplyDelete
  4. This sound so good! And that's fantastic that so many of the stories worked for you. That's rare for anthologies.

    So dose each story advance the overall arc? That's what it sounds like.

    Karen @For What It's Worth

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Maybe cos they were all written by him ;)

      Well yes and no. There is a million years between some of them so a lot happened during that time. But some things do stay the same

      Delete
  5. Well this sounds creepy and weird. I love a good space/alien read.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I'm always looking for more sci-fi, but novellas are rarely my thing.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Think of it as a big book instead since they do all connect

      Delete
  7. I love that you wanted to branch out, you did, and that you enjoyed it so much! Awesome! :)
    ~Jess

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It was awesome :D What have I been scared of?!

      Delete
  8. Makes a bizarre sort of sense that humans go to seed if left to it that long. I could see myself reading this out of curiosity. Nice review!

    ReplyDelete
  9. it's usually a complicated topic for me...

    ReplyDelete
  10. This sounds like the kind of sci-fi I like! Will check out ;)

    ReplyDelete
  11. My library's got plenty of his books, I must try :)

    ReplyDelete
  12. Say no more, I am absolutely sold! And I don't even like novellas or short stories! Must check out... Have a great weekend, Linda :)

    ReplyDelete
  13. Interesting premise...mmmmm...if I'm in the mood for sci-fi I might hit this up.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Awesome! Glad you enjoyed it. Sounds like a great collection, and a touch more sci fi in the diet. ;D

    ReplyDelete

Contributors

Copyright © 2008-2020 Book Girl of Mur-y-Castell All Rights Reserved. Proudly powered by Blogger

  © Blogger template Starry by Ourblogtemplates.com 2008 Modified by Lea

Back to TOP