Manifold: Time by Stephen Baxter Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Manifold: Time
Book Review: Mind candy you can get your teeth into
Summary: 4 Stars
(***1/2)This first volume of Baxter's "Manifold" triad is a tour de force of exposition masquerading as fiction. The writing is plenty lively enough, but this is the kind of hard s-f (one of the more satisfying kinds, for my money) in which the plot consists less in what happens to our heroes than in what dawns on them.
The characters themselves are two dimensional figures, stolen from old Heinlein stock, elitist and tiresomely self-confident and too crammed with genius to be believed. But that's okay. They are only there as screens onto which Baxter can project his dazzling tutorials on topology, time travel via retarded waves, paradoxical consequences of Bayesian statistics, sound ethical justifications for destroying the universe, and cosmology as a branch of genetics, among other perfectly serious loopy ideas. Who cares if the screen is two dimensional, if the movie succeeds in adding dimensions to your mind (almost painlessly) just for the price of admission?
The scale of Baxter's imagination is so large that I often couldn't settle on whether what I was reading was comical or awe-inspiring. And from chapter to chapter the scale keeps expanding. Think Olaf Stapledon on speed, and you'll hit near the mark.
Happily, volume one is completely self contained. So much so that it's not possible to conceive of a "sequel." The remaining two "Manifold" books take place in alternate universes that merely happen to include the same characters. So if you share my phobia of trilogies and tetralogies ("Do I dare crack this book, knowing that if I even half like it I'll have to read the rest to see how it comes out?"), fear no more. By the time this one volume is over, it has *all* come out, in spades. You can wait a decade or two to pick up the "next" volume, if you like, without dropping any threads.
If you like hard science fiction, you owe it to yourself to sample Baxter, and this is a fine place to start.
Book Review: Mind-bogling
Summary: 4 Stars
This is really remarkable, a tour de force of "hard" science fiction ideas (real theories put to speculative uses). A dimly perceived catastrophic fold in time will wipe out humanity within two centuries. Ostensibly a story of space exploration to escape Earth, deeply layered logical and physical extrapolations draw one wider and wider into fundamental questions of existence, life, and purpose in the universe. Baxter gives us extraordinary visualizations of other universes than our own, endlessly evolving, that would make a great special-effects movie from this book. Until the end you don't realize how much Baxter manipulates the few characters through petty conflicts for cosmic ends rather than drive them from their thin personalities. The mutability of existence eventually turns upon the main characters as well, the author almost starting the story over again with literal second thoughts. Among the disparate elements woven into a fascinating story are sea-creatures already adapted to null gravity, dooms-day equations, the End Times hysteria, super children, and quarks. There's even a list of the science sources for Baxter's most outlandish propositions.Book Review: My God! It's full of... universes!
Summary: 5 Stars
People have criticised Baxter for his paper-thin characterisations. In my opinon, the fast-paced nature of Manifold: Time doesn't lend itself to great character development. You really don't have time to invest feelings in Reid Malenfant, Emma Stoney and the Blue Children, except on a superficial level. This is a story about mind-boggling science, the wonder of the Universe and just what human existence means.Having just finished the book, I'm still in that post-brain-melt stage; the science is staggering. You can't fault Baxter for throwing in as many theories as he does, and every one of them is put to wonderful use. As a suggestion, have a connection to the internet open so you can research these theories as they crop up in the book. Reading about Cruithne and Caribbean Sea Squid added a wonderful sense of learning to the novel.
If you're looking for a thought-provoking, hard science novel that never lets up until the last page, I thoroughly recommend Manifold: Time.
You'll love the one-line nod to Arthur C. Clarke's "2001".
Book Review: Nice Job
Summary: 4 Stars
The world has turned stagnant. Big projects are not put into motion unless a profit can be proven to be made. A maverick, Reid Malefont wants to fly to an asteroid to mine it for its wealth using genetically enhanced squid. It is this background that Manifold: Time is written in the near future. As he draws plans for his project, a religious fanatic convinces Reid that there is an end of the world scenario likely to occur and the only way to prevent the catastrophe is to build a radio reciever to listen to signals from the future, which he does. The squid is rocketed to the asteroid and on the asteroid a gateway is found to other time/demension.This is a well written book with a few flaws. The character development is done on mostof the characters just to move the story along which is fine except the reader will not care one way or the other for most of them. It is also the first story in a trilogy. So the ending is not the best because it must open into the second book. The basic premiss of the book is very depressing. The end of the world for humanity, but there is a way out. Baxter bounces from many of the characters including the squid to move his story along. My complaint is that as long as he stayed with Malefont, the story progressed nicely. But once he leaves Malefont, the characters are a little flat. Malefont is a perfect example of the type "A" driven individual with a goal in mind and the world be damned. He can be compared to a modern day Ahab. Every bit as destructive and driven as the 19th century version. Baxter also does a nice job with the squid and does not spend enough time on them which is a shame. This book is a good read and enjoyable.
Book Review: Not a storyteller
Summary: 2 Stars
I wanted to like this book, but I couldn't even force myself to finish it. Mr. Baxter does a poor job of juggling multiple viewpoints, and as another reviewer described, the characters are "paper thin" - I didn't care about any of them. He rushes through everything except the science. I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone.