Ultima

More multidimensional mind warping

Written by

Stephen Baxter in 2014

The Proxima and Ultima duology are two of the best books I’ve read so far this year. Their scale is vast, spanning time, space and multiple universes. If you want big concept cosmological science fiction, these are the books for you.

Ultima brings the that story began so many pages ago with Yuri Eden, who wakes up on board the interstellar starship Ad Astra. Ultima sees him to his end, his daughter, Beth and granddaughter, Mardina pick up where he left off, together with Stef and Penny Kalinski, and some new characters from the various realities they hop between.

The first half of the book is, frankly kind of boring. Apart from one large cataclysmic event, a lot of character background and world building is accomplished, quite brilliantly I might add, to get you immersed in a new world. Then Baxter tears you away from it.

It is all done to set up the ultimate (hah, a pun!) conclusion and give it a bit of excitement. Except when you finish the book, put it down and consider what you’ve actually read, you realise the ending makes no sense. It’s contradictory. Anyway, I don’t want to spoilerise it too much.

Ultima, apart from spanning aeons of time unimaginable to us, makes you feel really freaking small. It’s so very effective at saying just how insignificant humanity is compared to the grand majesty of the cosmos. However, this is a book that requires patience, even more so than Proxima, because it has to move away from a singular narrative to explore each thread fully. It does it well, however.

Rating

Lovely followup to Proxima.

Read this if you…

Like big concept stuff spanning generations of characters and aeons of time.

Don’t read this if you…

Are impatient for things to happen. You will need to wait a while.

Proxima

Stephen Baxter’s imagination runs wild. And I like it!

Written by

Stephen Baxter in 2013

Proxima is a complicated beast of a book. Diverging storylines, red herrings and suggestions of a cosmic cataclysm. Plus some human stupidity thrown into the mix as well. This is the sort of grand universe science fiction that I love, but can only take in small doses because it can make a man’s head explode.

We start off in the future, where humanity has colonised much of the solar system and begun to fly around in interstellar space. Yuri Eden, has woken up on the Ad Astra, an interstellar starship powered by mysterious “kernels”, which have nothing to do with corn. Instead, they’re some sort of controllable micro-wormhole thing.

Anyway, Yuri and the passengers are dumped without much ceremony on Proxima C, the third planet from Proxima Centauri as “colonists” with the very basics for survival. Like…nothing at all, apart from . Their stories are intertwined with that of the Kalinskis in the solar system, as well as the artificial intelligence Earthshine. Together, across four light years, they try to unravel the mysteries of the kernels.

Stephen Baxter writes some pretty heavy, fate of the universe type stuff, that has nothing to do with Infinity Stones. Proxima involves the multiverse, time travel, time dilation and a whole bunch of concepts that can really challenge the reader’s imagination. This is not your typical rainy Sunday afternoon adventure.

Proxima is for fans of hard science fiction, no laser beams or lightsabers. It is rooted in reality, as much as artificially manipulated wormholes are grounded in reality, but most of all, it uses these concepts as the basis to ask some deep and meaningful questions about humanity. If you’re willing to give it a go, you might be surprised at how enjoyable Proxima is.

Rating

Stephen Baxter writes some pretty cool stuff. This is amongst his best.

Read this if you’re…

Engrossed by fate of the universe type stuff, minus Marvel’s universe of super heroes.

Don’t read this if you’re…

Not very well versed with concepts in physics and cosmology. Catch up on this stuff first.