Ultima - Stephen Baxter

In PROXIMA we discovered ancient alien artifacts on the planet of Per Ardua - hatches that allowed us to step across light years of space as if we were stepping into another room. The universe opened up to us. Now in ULTIMA the consequences of this new freedom make themselves felt. And we discover that there are minds in the universe that are billions of years old and they have a plan for us. For some of us. But as we learn the true nature of the universe we also discover that we have countless pasts all meeting in this present and that our future is terrifyingly finite. It's time for us to fight to take back control.

My thoughts:

The things he comes up with, my heads always spins after reading a Baxter book. He also seems to like the End Time. You know the end of it all.

I always feel all WOW. Here we have multiverses and hatches, and, aye beyond me.

The two people from the last book stumbled into a multiverse in the last book, and here Rome never fell so Rome went to space.

But that is not the only multiverse. A few other characters also from that previous verse makes it here and explore this brand new reality. And it is fascinating. What if this and that never happened, what if time took another direction. So much to explore.

The possibilities are endless.

Conclusion:
Good book. He is a great author

Hardcover, 560 pages
Published November 20th 2014 by Gollancz
Proxima #2
Sci.fi
Library

Proxima - Stephen Baxter

The very far future: The galaxy is a drifting wreck of black holes, neutron stars, and chill white dwarfs. The age of star formation is long past. Yet there is life here, feeding off the energies of the stellar remnants, and there is mind, a tremendous galaxy-spanning intelligence each of whose thoughts lasts a hundred thousand years. And this mind cradles memories of a long-gone age when a more compact universe was full of light... The 27th century: Proxima Centauri, an undistinguished red dwarf star, is the nearest star to our sun. How would it be to live on such a world? 

My thoughts:

The beginning was a bit slow, but I kept thinking it's Baxter and it got better. I think the problem was that there was this other POV that showed up, not often, not that long, but I just did not care. I was all about the settlers. Oh those were fascinating.

It's a race between China and the rest, and to beat China settlers are sent to Proxima. It takes 4 years for a message to get from there home, and the settlers are really left to fend for themselves. On a strange new world, and well there are So many more things I want to say, but honestly it's just spoilers spoilers.

Proxima is an interesting planet, and there are secrets, and the end, omg, that was freaky! I really need to read part two to see how it all plays out. There are some good secrets in here for sure.

The book is about Yuri who gets sent to Proxima (and stuff goes down and I so want to talk about but I can not.) I loved learning more about the planet and the struggle for the settlers.

The POv of whatever was boring, and I am glad when it showed up it was a few chapters and I skimmed it. I did not really see the point of it. Our solar system is boring.

Conclusion:
In the end, Baxter is a great sci-fi writers and he always comes up with such cool concepts. I need book 2 then.

Cover
ok

Hardcover, 456 pages
Published September 19th 2013 by Gollancz
Proxima #1
Sci.fi
Library

The Medusa Chronicles - Stephen Baxter and Alastair Reynolds

Following an accident that almost cost him his life, Howard Falcon was not so much saved as he was converted, through the use of prosthetics, into something faster, stronger and smarter ...but also slightly less human and more machine than he was. And with this change came an opportunity - that of piloting a mission into Jupiter's atmosphere, and ultimately of making first contact with the life forms he discovers there. Picking up the threads of humanity versus artificial intelligences and machines, and of encounters with the alien, this collaborative novel between two superb writers is a sequel to Howard Falcon's adventures. A proper science fiction adventure, this is perfect for fans of Golden Age SF as well as the modern SF reader. 

My thoughts:

I have never read Alastair Reynolds so I can't say a lot about him, but I have tried a Stephen Baxter book and I must say it felt very Baxter like.

It is the story of Howard Falcon, through out centuries, as he just lives on, watches and plays a part. Because after a crash he is now not human, not machine. Trusted and mistrusted by other humans as they spread out and settle on planets.

It's not one of those stories where you are told this and that happened. Nope, we get to see him visit a planet. 200 years later we get to see him doing something else. There are big jumps in time and while seeing that we also see the rise and fall of others. Shimps. The machines. Humans...

Jupiter had an interesting eco-system.....you will see.

It is hard to explain this book. Each story can stand on its own, even though they are tales from his life and they should of course be read like that since it is a book, but you get the idea. And they are interesting. He is a good character to follow, there is a sadness to him, he is one of a kind, there was never anyone like him. Or would ever be.

Conclusion:

A fascinating story. I like that how far we make it, we are still humans, and that is not always a good thing.

On another note, I should read more Baxter, and try Reynolds

Paperback, 327 pages
Published May 8th 2016 by Gollancz
Sci.fi
For review

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