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A review by llsburg
Manifold: Time by Stephen Baxter
4.0
I read this book twenty years ago and count it among my favorites. I chose to re-read it to find out if it holds up today. Well, I have changed. Maybe I don't hold up lol! My math and science comprehension is not as sharp, and parts of the book were over my head. Still, I love to chew on the philosophical and metaphysical puzzles presented here. Stephen Baxter is a unique thinker, and this book is chock full of unique ideas especially for 1999.
Despite my excitement to re-read it, I found myself slogging through the first half and then zipping through the last quarter. I'd like to say this was a literary device reflecting the central theme of time dilation, but I think it has more to do with a lack of experience at this point in Baxter's career. The constant narrator shift and media shifts come off as a messy hodgepodge, and I think the writing could benefit by some strict editing.
But I love this book! You have space-faring cephalopods, super smart "blue" children who have somehow come from the future (downstream), universe-and-time-transversing wormholes, and human politics. You get to play with fun science brain nuggets like imagining matter is a fold in space time. Also, it's impossible not to compare space entrepreneur Reid Malenfant to Elon Musk ... a prescient choice by Baxter!
Ultimately, Baxter raises and explores the question: "What is the point to all THIS?" ...And then he mindfucks you by playing out the possibility of a successful, intelligent, peaceful space-colonizing civilization for millennia and millennia. It's quite depressing!
Somehow, Baxter ends the story with a hopeful solution, but without answering the question of "Does it work?" (appropriately so).
I recommend this book because I think everyone should experience this thought experiment. It was a formative book in my young adult life, and I cannot imagine never having read it. That being said, I give it 4 stars instead of 5 because of technical issues with the writing.
Despite my excitement to re-read it, I found myself slogging through the first half and then zipping through the last quarter. I'd like to say this was a literary device reflecting the central theme of time dilation, but I think it has more to do with a lack of experience at this point in Baxter's career. The constant narrator shift and media shifts come off as a messy hodgepodge, and I think the writing could benefit by some strict editing.
But I love this book! You have space-faring cephalopods, super smart "blue" children who have somehow come from the future (downstream), universe-and-time-transversing wormholes, and human politics. You get to play with fun science brain nuggets like imagining matter is a fold in space time. Also, it's impossible not to compare space entrepreneur Reid Malenfant to Elon Musk ... a prescient choice by Baxter!
Ultimately, Baxter raises and explores the question: "What is the point to all THIS?" ...And then he mindfucks you by playing out the possibility of a successful, intelligent, peaceful space-colonizing civilization for millennia and millennia.
Spoiler
Well, once the universe's energy is exhausted, once the universe dies as it eventually must, what was the point of such pioneering, of all these great ideas, of all these moving experiences, if it all has to end??Somehow, Baxter ends the story with a hopeful solution, but without answering the question of "Does it work?" (appropriately so).
I recommend this book because I think everyone should experience this thought experiment. It was a formative book in my young adult life, and I cannot imagine never having read it. That being said, I give it 4 stars instead of 5 because of technical issues with the writing.