Stephen Baxter is a trained engineer with degrees from Cambridge (mathematics) and Southampton Universities (doctorate in aeroengineering research). Baxter is the winner of the British Science Fiction Award and the Locus Award, as well as being a nominee for an Arthur C. Clarke Award, most recently for Manifold: Time. His novel Voyage won the Sidewise Award for Best Alternate History Novel of the Year; he also won the John W. Campbell Award and the Philip K. Dick Award for his novel The Time Ships. He is coauthor (with Sir Arthur C. Clarke) of Time’s Eye, the first of two SF novels linked to Clarke’s bestselling Space Odyssey series.
“Spectacular . . . What is astonishing is how . . . entertaining as
well as informative this book—an episodic novel with evolution as
its protagonist—manages to be.”—The New York Times Book Review
“Magisterial and uplifting . . . A brilliant, grand-scale sampling
of sixty-five million years of human evolution . . . It shows the
sweep and grandeur of life in its unrelenting course.”—The Denver
Post
“Strong imagination, a capacity for awe, and the ability to think
rigorously about vast and final things abound in the work of
Stephen Baxter. . . . [Evolution] leaves the reader with a haunting
portrayal of the distant future.”—Times Literary Supplement
“A breath of fresh air . . . The miracle of Evolution is that it
makes the triumph of life, which is its story, sound like the real
story.”—The Washington Post Book World
“A work of outrageous ambition. Baxter’s goal is nothing less than
to dramatize the grand sweep of primate development. . . .
Evolution is a cautionary tale, warning of the dire consequences to
contemporary humans if we persist in behavior that threatens the
survival of our ecosystem.”—The New York Times Book Review
“Baxter’s depictions are brilliant, with some inspired conjectures
to spice up events. . . . I highly recommend Evolution. . . . [It]
provide[s] food for thought, confronts our notions of what it means
to be human, and gives warning that nothing can be taken for
granted in the ongoing struggle for survival.”—scifi dimensions
“Baxter chronicles the epic survival of the mammalian family that
ultimately ended up with us. . . . The sheer timescale makes a
great story that is panoramic in extent. I felt I was watching
Walking with Beasts rolled into The Human Journey. Baxter’s ability
to turn science into exciting and readable fiction makes him one of
the most accessible SF writers around.”—The Times (London)
“The overall narrative [is] a big, thick, geophysical stick upside
the head to remind us all that things can change, at any moment,
for any reason.”—The San Diego Union-Tribune
“I recommend this novel to anyone who appreciates novels that take
chances. . . . Baxter is not shy about painting big pictures about
big ideas. . . . [He] painstakingly moves us from the shrewlike
creatures that coexisted with the dinosaurs through the walking,
tool-using hominids of Africa, through Neanderthals, through
humans, to an entirely speculative future that is beyond brief
description.”—sfrevu online
“A powerful fusion of science and imagination . . . Baxter makes an
impressive job of putting flesh on to the bones of the scientific
theory and in its imaginative vision Evolution deserves comparison
with SF epics such as Olaf Stapledon’s Last and First Men or Alfred
Doblin’s Mountains, Seas, and Giants. Baxter leaves you with a
memorable yet unsettling sense of our insignificance in the scheme
of things. In the story of evolution, as in all good thrillers, an
extinction event is always lurking just around the corner.”—The
Guardian (London)
“A tour-de-force . . . A sprawling, ambitious chronicle spanning
millennia . . . The account of the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction
and the rise of mammals as the dominant life-form is particularly
fascinating. . . . Similarly well crafted is Baxter’s projection of
a posthuman future.”—Booklist
“Taking a page from SF saga writers like Kim Stanley Robinson and
Brian Stableford, British author Baxter portrays humanity’s
origins, growth, and ultimate disappearance in a loose-knit series
of brutal vignettes spanning millions of years of evolution. . . .
The book rises above its fragmented narrative . . . to reach a grim
and stoic grandeur, which clearly has humanity’s best interests at
heart. Here is a rigorously constructed hard SF novel where the
question is not whether humanity will reach the stars but how it
will survive its own worst tendencies.”—Publishers Weekly
“Highly recommended . . . Spanning more than sixty-five million
years and encompassing the entire planet, Baxter’s ambitious saga
provides both an exercise in painless paleontology and superb
storytelling.”—Library Journal
As a group of scientists gathers in the South Pacific for a conference to save the human race from extinction, their actions represent the culmination of millions of years of struggle by their primate ancestors to survive in an ever-changing world. The author of the Manifold trilogy (Manifold: Time; Manifold: Space; Manifold: Origin) uses a modern-day story as a frame within which he relates a series of vignettes tracing the history of the evolution of intelligent life on Earth, from its mammalian beginnings in the Cretaceous era to the present. Spanning more than 165 million years and encompassing the entire planet, Baxter's ambitious saga provides both an exercise in painless paleontology and superb storytelling. Highly recommended for sf as well as general fiction collections. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
"Spectacular . . . What is astonishing is how . . . entertaining as
well as informative this book-an episodic novel with evolution as
its protagonist-manages to be."-The New York Times Book Review
"Magisterial and uplifting . . . A brilliant, grand-scale sampling
of sixty-five million years of human evolution . . . It shows the
sweep and grandeur of life in its unrelenting course."-The Denver
Post
"Strong imagination, a capacity for awe, and the ability to think
rigorously about vast and final things abound in the work of
Stephen Baxter. . . . [Evolution] leaves the reader with a
haunting portrayal of the distant future."-Times Literary
Supplement
"A breath of fresh air . . . The miracle of Evolution is
that it makes the triumph of life, which is its story, sound like
the real story."-The Washington Post Book World
"A work of outrageous ambition. Baxter's goal is nothing less than
to dramatize the grand sweep of primate development. . . .
Evolution is a cautionary tale, warning of the dire
consequences to contemporary humans if we persist in behavior that
threatens the survival of our ecosystem."-The New York Times Book
Review
"Baxter's depictions are brilliant, with some inspired conjectures
to spice up events. . . . I highly recommend Evolution. . .
. [It] provide[s] food for thought, confronts our notions of what
it means to be human, and gives warning that nothing can be taken
for granted in the ongoing struggle for survival."-scifi
dimensions
"Baxter chronicles the epic survival of the mammalian family that
ultimately ended up with us. . . . The sheer timescale makes a
great story that is panoramic in extent. I felt I was watching
Walking with Beasts rolled into The Human Journey.
Baxter's ability to turn science into exciting and readable fiction
makes him one of the most accessible SF writers around."-The
Times (London)
"The overall narrative [is] a big, thick, geophysical stick upside
the head to remind us all that things can change, at any moment,
for any reason."-The San Diego Union-Tribune
"I recommend this novel to anyone who appreciates novels that take
chances. . . . Baxter is not shy about painting big pictures about
big ideas. . . . [He] painstakingly moves us from the shrewlike
creatures that coexisted with the dinosaurs through the walking,
tool-using hominids of Africa, through Neanderthals, through
humans, to an entirely speculative future that is beyond brief
description."-sfrevu online
"A powerful fusion of science and imagination . . . Baxter makes an
impressive job of putting flesh on to the bones of the scientific
theory and in its imaginative vision Evolution deserves
comparison with SF epics such as Olaf Stapledon's Last and First
Men or Alfred Doblin's Mountains, Seas, and Giants.
Baxter leaves you with a memorable yet unsettling sense of our
insignificance in the scheme of things. In the story of evolution,
as in all good thrillers, an extinction event is always lurking
just around the corner."-The Guardian
(London)
"A tour-de-force . . . A sprawling, ambitious chronicle spanning
millennia . . . The account of the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction
and the rise of mammals as the dominant life-form is particularly
fascinating. . . . Similarly well crafted is Baxter's projection of
a posthuman future."-Booklist
"Taking a page from SF saga writers like Kim Stanley Robinson and
Brian Stableford, British author Baxter portrays humanity's
origins, growth, and ultimate disappearance in a loose-knit series
of brutal vignettes spanning millions of years of evolution. . . .
The book rises above its fragmented narrative . . . to reach a grim
and stoic grandeur, which clearly has humanity's best interests at
heart. Here is a rigorously constructed hard SF novel where the
question is not whether humanity will reach the stars but how it
will survive its own worst tendencies."-Publishers Weekly
"Highly recommended . . . Spanning more than sixty-five million
years and encompassing the entire planet, Baxter's ambitious saga
provides both an exercise in painless paleontology and superb
storytelling."-Library Journal
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