Science Fiction Aficionados discussion

Because there's nothing in this Hard Sci topic..kind of like hanging out on the walls of your middle school gym at the dance.
Anyone?
I have read several of his books and I find them to be quite interesting. I'll say more if anyone one else fesses up with me.

Nope, I haven't read anything of his yet, but I have Flood and Ark sitting right in front of me, waiting to be read. :)

I tried to read "Flood" and couldn't even get through it. It's rare that I don't finish a book. I guess his writing style wasn't for me...or it was bad timing on my part and I wasn't in the mood for that particular book.

Rut-roh... =\

I've read the Manifold series (Time, Space, Origin), Evolution, and half of the Destiny's Children series.
Well firstly I'd have to say yes Jennifer his writing definitely has it's own distinctive flavor. Knowing his background his writing makes sense to me (the way it's written).

I haven't read his newest stuff because once I finished Evolution I was emotionally wiped out from his writing LOL. Uh it isn't the cheeriest read fo sho. I mean I felt bleak for a couple of weeks and that book's ending haunted me. I guess I'm sensitive like that.

After reading his Manifold series I couldn't even take a bath without constantly thinking about the heat death of the universe lol.

i think i have one of the Manifold books. one of these days, one of these days.

Any recommendations for getting started with Stephen Baxter's books?

I read Coalescent. It was pretty good but took me a long time to get through. Not sure if I will continue.

I have a copy of Evolution but I might just pass it on.

@Michael:
I have only read the Manifold series and half of his other series and Evolution.
I'd say the Manifold series is a good place to start. Perhaps I'm biased because I actually completed that one lol ;).
His books are definitely thought provoking and dark IMO. If I had one word to describe his word I'd say "cold".

Baxter was actually the guy who got me into hard sci-fi. I really enjoyed most of his books but I'd say Ring and The Timeships would be my favorites.

Michael wrote: "Any recommendations for getting started with Stephen Baxter's books?"
I'd say Vacuum Diagrams would be the perfect place to start. It's a collection of short stories that serve as a good introduction to Baxter's universe.

I havnt read anything by him but I do own The Time Odyssey Trilogy he co-wrote with Clarke. I've heard it has no real ending tho since Clarke died after book 3.

A friend of mine really loved Evolution, and we tend to have similiar taste in sci-fi so I will give that one a try sometime I'm sure.

Scott wrote: "I read Coalescent. It was pretty good but took me a long time to get through. Not sure if I will continue.

I have a copy of Evolution but I might just pass it on."

I've pretty much given up with Coalescent, it is taking so long to get anywhere and doesn't feel like scifi, as mostly it is set in normal middle ages time. Switching to Timelike Infinity, one of his Xeelee series.

Has anyone tried Excession by Iain Banks? It's a bit 'harder' than his usual style, but it just blew me away!

I read "The Time Ships" and liked it enough (4 stars) that I recently bought "Space", "Time" and "Origin" to give them a try...

i liked Excession, but for me it was a bit weaker than some of his other Culture novels. but it's a good book. i love how the novel is all about the Mind Ships. there's so many of them and they're so different from each other!

I've read pretty much everything he's written and enjoyed them all, except for Flood I think... wasn't that the one about global warming? I'm not a big fan of that concept which I think turned me off from reading it.

And I haven't seen that book by Ian Banks before. I enjoyed other ones, I'll have to check it out!

And my recommendation to any fan of hard sci-fi would be Picoverse. Can't remember who wrote it though...

I'm quite fond of EXULTANT - 617 Squadron...in Spaaaace!

I have read all of Baxter's work. Somewhat depressing and lately more so.

Bob, there are rules about joining our group simply to promote your own book ! Check them out

Gerry wrote: "Bob, there are rules about joining our group simply to promote your own book ! Check them out"

Is that directed at me? I haven't joined this group just to promote my book and you'll see that I have posted in several threads and I am a memeber of several other groups.

Just because I haven't made a lengthy comment here or on the other threads doesn't mean I'm not going to in the future. Some of us have a limited amount of time.

When I find a discussion I want make a contribution to I will.

Rob

I've read lots of Baxter's novels. My favorite was The Time Ships since it is an authorized sequel to H.G. Wells' "The Time Machine" and written in Wells' style. It picks up right when the time traveler tries to get back to Weena in the future.

I hated "Flood" (it was a bit too much like the movie "2012" but without the action or any ending) but I really liked its sequel Ark.

I also really liked his Anti-ice

I recently read . The science part was wonderful and very interesting but the story was a little bit weak

I'm reading The Time Ships by him right now and really enjoying it. I think it fried my brain at the start, with the way the future of Earth changed when the traveller moved forward into it again.

Bob wrote: "I've read lots of Baxter's novels. My favorite was The Time Ships since it is an authorized sequel to H.G. Wells' "The Time Machine" and written in Wells' style. It picks up right when..."

I love how he wrote it in Wells' classic style! Really makes it feel like a genuine sequel, though much more technical than anything Wells ever wrote, lol. Incredible book.

Have any of you read The Long Earth series which is by Pratchett + Baxter? I'm thinking of starting the series but hesitant. Sometimes collaborations are great (ala Niven/Pournelli - their novels are my favorite) but sometimes a bust.

I thought The Long Earth was worth a read, but The Long War was pretty bad. All the characters just kind of hang around waiting for the sequel.

I really liked The Long Earth, but you have to think of it as more of a series of short stories than a whole series. From the reviews it sounds like the rest of the books are the same way. Didn't read the others in the series. Here is my review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Bob wrote: "I really liked The Long Earth, but you have to think of it as more of a series of short stories than a whole series. From the reviews it sounds like the rest of the books are the same way. Didn't r..."

Thanks, Bob and Alex. I've added it to my 'want to read' pile but won't get my hopes up too much.

Barry wrote: "Has anyone tried Excession by Iain Banks? It's a bit 'harder' than his usual style, but it just blew me away!"

Funny how tastes are different. Mark says he found it weaker than some of Banks's other work, whereas so far it's my favorite. Player of Games was close, but the POV of the ship minds is just too good in Excession.

As for Baxter, I've only ready Vacuum Diagrams, which is a collection of related short stories in his Xeelee Sequence. After I had picked it up I read somewhere where Baxter said that the Xeelee Sequence could be read in any order but if he had to recommend an order, he'd recommend starting with this book. So you can think of it as a kind of primer to that universe.

I found the ideas quite good overall, with an early Greg Bear kind of Huge Science theme running through them.

...However...Baxter really annoyed me with his aliens. He broke the prime directive to make aliens believable from an evolutionary slant. You can't, IMHO, be "Hard" SF and have intelligent, spacefaring aliens who defy the Tool Maker paradigm.

That is to say, to have a spacefaring alien race, you must have aliens with a physiology that facilitates tool making--OR you must explain how illogically limbed aliens came to have, use and maintain spaceships.

Baxter doesn't do that. He's got fish aliens without limbs. How did they come by metal making and advanced electronics in their aquatic environment? How do they maintain their spaceships? How do they subjugate other alien races?

Worse, Baxter's got an alien race described as being one-celled animals that are the size and shape of a swamp. These are supposed to be one of the uber races that ruled Earth for a time. How? He never tells us. How does a single celled swamp harness fire, manipulate ores, construct and use hammers, screwdrivers, soldering irons, manufacture printed circuit boards, harness nuclear power, escape the gravity well of their homeworld, build fleets of powerful spaceships and then subjugate and rule alien worlds?

Answer: handwavium.

Micah wrote: "As for Baxter, I've only ready Vacuum Diagrams, which is a collection of related short stories in his Xeelee Sequence. After I had picked it up I read somewhere where Baxter said that ..."

Maybe those questions are all answered in his series? Have you checked it out?

Rabindranauth wrote: "Maybe those questions are all answered in his series? Have you checked it out?"

No. I don't see why I should continue reading a series in the hopes that things get better.

Violating the Tool Maker paradigm is one of my hard SF pet peeves. The fact that Baxter made not effort to either explain his illogical aliens, or even acknowledge that there was a mystery surrounding their evolution says to me that he's not likely to correct it in his longer works.

There were some other issues I had with his stories that made me not take this author very serious...like the fact that he's got humans, unchanged in flesh or mind, unevolved...throughout the stories, which cover tens or hundreds of thousands of years of history. Makes for convenient storytelling, but it's hardly "Hard" SF.

Worse, Baxter's got an alien race described as being one-celled animals that are the size and shape of a swamp. These are supposed to be one of the uber races that ruled Earth for a time. How? He never tells us.

Does he bother to mention how a swamp-sized cell manages not to pop like a soap bubble?

Worse, Baxter's got an alien race described as being one-celled animals that are the size and shape of a swamp. These are supposed to be one of the uber races that ruled Earth for a time. How? He never tells us.

Does he bother to mention how a swamp-sized cell manages not to pop like a soap bubble?"

These are not the swamp-sized alien cells you are looking for.

Micah wrote: "Rabindranauth wrote: "Maybe those questions are all answered in his series? Have you checked it out?"

No. I don't see why I should continue reading a series in the hopes that things get better.

..."

Ah, fair enough. I'm considering reading that series, so I'll have to message someone who's read em all and find out if he addresses it at some point in the series.

All that said, the collection I read did have a lot of good stuff in it. I do find myself mulling over some of the ideas he brings up, so I'd not say it's worthless.

Tried one, found it boring--uses science as a substitute for plot. That's a death wish when it comes to my reading sci-fi. Just my opinion, of course.
r/Steve

I have read Anti-ice, ringRing, Raft, and Titan. Enjoyed all of them, although Anti-ice was different from the others, and wasn't really my cup of tea. A nice light read though.

I have read The Time Ships, which was a wonderful sequel to the Time Machine that was sanctioned by the Wells estate.

I have his Manifold series in hardbound on my bookshelf. Manifold: TimeManifold: SpaceManifold: Origin.

The Xeelee novels and the 'time ships' are brilliant - manifold series ok.

The problem with Baxter is that he uses characters as garnish, when what he really wants to do is describe what is going to happen anyway, with or without the involvement of his protagonists/antagonists.

I agree, he's bleak, but what makes him especially so is that it never seems to matter what anyone does, the outcome is set in stone. Flood is a great example of that, all we as readers do is watch the characters' experience of the inevitable. That's also true of Time (I never progressed beyond halfway through Space). To me, that's just not very satisfying.

That is an excellent observation, and a sign that the writer is himself a robot. It (he) starts with an end point--an outcome he wants--and then constructs an entire plot around it to lead to the conclusion. This is just the opposite of real (literary) writing, but it is sometimes the only thing genre writers can manage. Then, when you don't even have realistic characters who are supposed to drive the plot in ways that cannot seem predetermined, well Houston, we have a problem.

Chris wrote: "The problem with Baxter is that he uses characters as garnish, when what he really wants to do is describe what is going to happen anyway, with or without the involvement of his protagonists/antago..."

Funny, that's exactly the issue I had with Asimov's highly praised Foundation Trilogy. He was focused on the history and concepts rather than the characters.

I've not read any yet but I do have Time in my "to read" pile so hopefully I'll get around to it one day!