Manifold: Time by Stephen Baxter Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Manifold: Time
Book Review: A sadly lacking premise to the story
Summary: 1 Stars
I have enjoyed many of Stephen Baxter's books in the past. This one, however, just does not measure up. Statistically showing the world must soon end: Come on, is that the best that he could come up with to get the the book started?. Nevertheless, I read on hoping that I could just suspend disbelief. I was mostly successful, but then got bogged down with characters explaining science to me every 2 pages. Maybe if you know no physics that part is interesting. I found it useless, and typically skipped whole paragraphs that were science tutorial monologs.I'm about to start Manifold: Space. Hopefully it will be better.
Book Review: All Exposition, All the Time
Summary: 3 Stars
I will start by saying that I found "Manifold: Time" very compelling reading, and I definitely plan on checking out "Manifold: Space," if only because I can't imagine what a sequel to this book would be like. The plot contains elements of "2001," "Childhood's End" and "The Midwich Cuckoos," but it's all mixed into an intriguing new brew. For lovers of hard sci-fi and intensive, mind-bending and (mostly!) scientifically valid speculations about the nature of reality, this is heady, engrossing stuff.
The plotting and the prose style, on the other hand, remind me that the only thing I don't like about science fiction is that it is written by sci-fi authors. If you are looking for ecstatic prose in the vein of Nabokov or Ellison, pass. The characterizations are diagrammatic at best, and the dialog is almost purely expository. A writerly tic from which Baxter suffers, which I can't believe some editor wouldn't have beaten out of him, is his habit of having the characters address each other by name several times in each conversation. People simply do not talk like this, and it became a running joke with me to see how often it happened.
In contrast to Baxter's far-future speculations, which seemed plausible and fascinating, his version of the near future missed by a mile. OK, it's easy to take potshots from 2009 about Baxter's speculative 2010, but for all his pessimism about humanity as a whole, his ideas about what technology would be available a mere ten years out from publication is wildly optimistic. We have (among other things) self-driving cars, service robots, hydrogen engines, AI psychoanalysts and genetically-enhanced spaceship-flying squid, but what are these "cell phones" of which you speak? I know it's not fair for a "downstreamer" like me to nit-pick thus, but as cell phones were already in use in 2000 their absence, amid all this advanced gear, did seem odd. Perhaps he should have set the near-future sequences a bit further down the line, 2050 maybe. Cue up the book review from 2050 complaining about what *that* gets wrong...
Anyway I don't want to pick on Mr. Baxter, he's got a lot of great ideas and despite the stylistic shortcomings, I quite enjoyed it.
Book Review: Amazingly intriguing
Summary: 5 Stars
I have just finished reading this amazing book, and I really can't sleep. It's not trully the science in it, even it being a "classical" "Hard" Sci-Fi book, so it has got lots of those not yet proven "weird" scientific theories, but it's the way this science is pushed to the limit, to mold society, to makes us understand transcendent roles of our selves. And making this fluidly, with a story that just keeps you turning pages and waiting to see what is coming next.I can't say more without making this a spoiler, but it is really, according to my humble taste, a must read for everybody that wants to have your brains twisted a little. Ah, just to reiterate this, it is a "Hard" Sci-Fi book, so if you don't have a good scientific background, probably you could still enjoy it, but many things will just look too weird to make any sense.
Book Review: An Expansive novel
Summary: 5 Stars
When I first picked up Manifold: Time I was unimpressed and put it down after 15 pages. Weeks later when I started reading it again out of boredom, I couldn't put it down. This book has some of the first new ideas I've come across in a while. Baxter isn't the GREATEST writer of all time, but he is the perfect man for this story. In a way, I see Manifold Time as scientific theology. It gives all life purpose, no matter how insignificant it may seem. That all said, this book probably isn't for you if you hate science and want more of a space opera.
Book Review: Anyhow, An OK read - Anyhow
Summary: 2 Stars
If you like the word 'anyhow', then this is the book for you. Ignoring the conclusions drawn from the scantest of evidence, the repeated misuse of 'anyhow' will drive any 'anyhow' word lover wild, anyhow.
Anyhow, I did manage to struggle through to the end which, for me, indicates a reasonable read. Unfortunately all the 'anyhows' lost this book a couple of rating stars, anyhow.