Flux

Xeelee Sequence #3

by Stephen Baxter

Star humans were engineered to exist within the mantle of a star, mere tools of their Earth-evolved makers in a war against the Xeelee, owners of the universe. Stephen Baxter's third novel in his magnificent Xeelee Sequence is an exotic and endearing story of an abandoned people.Abandoned to their fate, their history lost along with contact with their makers, Star people survive in an environment that is possibly the strangest in science fiction. Microscopic inhabitants of superfluid air above a Quantum Sea and below the tangled Crust of the Star, swimming in an electric-blue grid, the Magfield, which is subject to violent storms, Star people struggle, like us, to make sense of their world... and the threat hanging over it.Though the truth is far more disturbing and ominous than they feared, they will confront, finally, their makers, and they will rebel against the purpose for which they were created.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Space Opera, Ebooks, Hard Science Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy, Fantasy

444 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

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 currently working on his next novel, a collaboration with Sir Arthur C. Clarke. Mr. Baxter lives in Prestwood, England.

Reviews

[Apatt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I try to read most books without reading the synopsis first, it is more fun discovering the story that way, but for Stephen Baxter’s books this never work out. Baxter has an immense imagination backed by a profound knowledge of science. He is also quite a good storyteller, definitely an ideal combo for writing hard sci-fi… but! I suspect he may find it difficult to conceive how little the layman understand scientific principles that he takes for granted. I imagine he hasn’t been a layman since the age of five or something.

The setting for Flux is even weirder than Raft, the book is set on a neutron star where microscopic genetically engineered “humans” live in the star’s mantle. These people do not walk around, they move by “Waving” a sort of swimming on magnetic field lines. If I understand correctly there is no gravity as such so nothing ever fall in this book and the concepts of up and down is not as we would experience it. The “humans” do not see, hear, breathe or taste as we do. I don’t really know enough science to explain any of this I am sorry to say. (Hopefully I will some help in the comments).

I have read thousands of science fiction books but I don’t think have read one set on a star before (as opposed to a planet). I had to google stuff about core, mantle and crust to have a better idea of the setting. If your knowledge of science (especially physics) is as limited as mine but you still want to read this book then I suggest you read the synopsis first (on the back of the book, or on Goodreads, Amazon etc.), even then don’t worry too much about understanding the science just let Mr. Baxter tells his story and things will gradually become clearer.

The funny thing is the plot of this book is quite simple to follow. The main theme is basically a struggle to survive and the story eventually becomes about a character’s attempt to save the world (which is a star, not a planet). In contrast to the science the characters’ motivations are extremely easy to understand, this makes it fairly easy to follow the plot.

There is quite a lot of neologism in this book, the odd thing is that they are common words with the first letter capitalized, like Air, Wave, Human Beings etc. The author clearly wants the reader to infer the meanings of these words through the narrative, I have only been partially successful.

Dialog, prose style and characterization are clearly not Baxter’s strong points. The great Arthur C. Clarke had the same weaknesses, except he explained the science behind his fiction much more accessibly in my opinion. That said I think Baxter is a little (not a lot) more successful with character development. These are not wonderful, complex and believable characters you get in a Tolstoy novel but the few central characters are amiable enough. As for the damn Xeelee aliens once again they barely show up, considering Flux is part of the Xeelee Sequence they tend be play very hard to get!

Any way, massively impressive world building backed by real science, likable characters and a good story. Fans of hard sci-fi should enjoy this, especially if their grounding in science is up to snuff. As for me, I quite like it!

So ends my last review of the four volumes from my copy of the Xeelee omnibus edition. Over all it has been a fun if often incomprehensible ride (on the scientific side). There are several other volumes outside of this omnibus in the full Xeelee Sequence which I will probably catch up with sooner or later.

[Dirk Grobbelaar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Already the ripple was hurtling at her faster than any she could remember, and as it approached its amplitude seemed to be deepening, as if it were feeding on Glitch energy. And, of course, with greater amplitude came still greater speed. The instability was a complex superposition of wave shapes clustered along the length of the migrating vortex line, a superposition which spiralled around the line like some malevolent animal clambering towards her ...

Not only does Baxter conjure up an extraordinary setting, he makes it work. I’ll be honest though, there were some challenging bits here, and my imagination had to work for its reward, but in the end, it was totally worth it.

She tilted back her head and opened her eyes as wide as she could, trying to take it all in, to bury her awe and build a model of this new universe in her head.

The nature of the star people is no big secret or spoiler. The point is really driven home, though, when you start realizing that the measures of distance they use (mansheight) are, in fact, microns, and that a few meters are a very, very far distance indeed.

The instabilities were becoming more prominent, too; now ripples almost a mansheight high were marching along the soaring lines, deepening and quickening as they passed. There was a terrible beauty in the way the complex waveforms sucked energy from the vortex lines and surged forwards.

As for the nature of the flux lines and the details of the world presented: like I mentioned, it can be challenging. This is Hard Science Fiction after all. My knowledge of the nature of neutron stars are limited (this kind of thing, at least, forces me to brush up on some rudimentary knowledge, just to make sense of the environment),

She let her head sink forward, against her knees.
Xeelee.

And of course, the Xeelee. This is actually one of the books in the Xeelee sequence in which the Xeelee does feature (surprisingly enough). It also references the Ring (which makes sense, with Flux being sandwiched between Timelike Infinity and Ring.

She turned away and looked at the artifact; and a fear borne of childhood tales, of old, distorted legends, welled up in her.
‘I believed most of it,’ she said slowly, ‘most of the stories my father told me . . . But I don’t think I ever quite believed in the Ring itself.’

Finally: the grand reveal regarding the purpose of the star humans, is a right whopper.

And beyond the thin shroud of gas lay the stars, suspended all around the sky. They were lanterns, clear and without flicker; they were of all colours and all levels of brightness, from the faintest spark to intense, noble flames. And perhaps, she thought with an almost religious awe, those lights in the sky were worlds in themselves.

[Chris Berko · Rating 5 out of 5]

In three short books Stephen Baxter has become one of my favorite authors. These Xeelee books have been so alien and unique and exciting and straight incredible it’s beyond my ability to describe. This kind of science not adequately explained would be totally off putting with a story like this but he has a way of explaining everything and incorporating so much cool tech and ideas into the story it’s like eating a giant spoonful of buttercream icing and having your eyes roll up in your head, that’s how I felt per page. It was dazzling. I don’t think I have the vocabulary or the intelligence to correctly explain what happens here but the ride was tremendously fun and unlike anything I have read before.

[Jonathan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book, I really did. But I didn't. It's certainly not because I don't enjoy hard sf. Far from it. The first two in Baxter's Xeelee sequence, while far from literary triumphs, at least kept my attention and were fun to read. I have to admit that after 160 pages of Flux, I was forced to do something I never do: skim through sections until I hit some meat, which was much closer to the end of the story than I would have liked. I didn't care about any of the storylines except one and most of the micron-sized human characters were flat. I did care about the last thirty pages, which, in my humble opinion, rescued Flux from an even worse rating. I will go on to read Ring because my understanding is that the events in the fourth novel in the Sequence are more closely related to Michael Poole and Timelike Infinity, which I very much enjoyed.

[Esteban Vega · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ugh! Even worse than "Raft"!

Well, it's not that they're bad novels per se, it's just that they're so... parochial. They're absolutely not space operas, but small stories of a small group of ignorant people on a remote corner of the universe. That universe happens to be the same as "Timelike Infinity", so I read them just because of that, but if you're planning to read the Xeelee saga, you can skip Raft and Flux and have a better time sleeping, they feel so alien to the "proper" Xeelee universe, in the sense that they feel like caricatures inside an adult film.

Disappointing, lame, boring. The characters react unbelievably to external stimuli. You keep wishing for the book to end.

I've heard so much praise of the Xeelee saga, but with 3 books read, and 2 of them terrible... I'm beginning to think this saga may be veeery overrated.

[Jason · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 Stars

Flux by Stephen Baxter, Book 3 in the Xeelee sequence, did not live up to the first two novels. I made a huge mistake in that I should have never moved on to this book after immediately having read Timelike Infinity. I absolutely loved that book and was thrilled with the hard science, deep philosophy, and great characters. With such an emotional impact, I should have waited a bit to move on to this book. I am giving this read 3 stars only because the world building is that good.

It is sad that I did not like this book more. After all, this book takes place in one of the coolest places ever!!!! Inside the sun. Baxter makes things even more original by making this book be about Humans that are created by original Earth Humans. These people are adapted to survive the crazy environment of the sun. The world building in Flux is beyond words and will be very memorable…bravo Baxter.

The characters are as cool as the environment. They are a man-made Humanoid race made for the Sun. Oh did I mention that they are small…damn small, they are 100 thousand times smaller than us. They are adapted to the heat and the magnetic fields of the sun. Yet in the end, they are very much like us, with the same wants, needs, and skills. Freaking sweet.

Ironic that this novel that takes place in one of the most hostile and unknown environments is really a straight forward adventure with a tiny splash of science fiction. How different from the first two books of The Xeelee Sequence. For me, this was a huge mistake and this book pales in comparison to 1 and 2. I really hope that as the series moves on that Baxter gets back to Hard Science. This one was a huge disappointment.

I am a huge fan and will move on to book 4…later.

[Jake · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was an imaginative place Baxter came up with, but it did not work for me at all. The day to day lives of these people did not interest me, and the adventure the story is leading ever so slowly to did not feel worth the effort to get there. Even suspension of disbelief was tough. If he'd just said these are microscopic people and got on with the story, it might not have been so hard to immerse myself. But he kept getting into the details of how everything worked, which kept bringing me back to the impracticality of human-level intelligence in a microscopic organic being. That's aside from doing things like capitalizing certain words like Air so you know there's something unusual there, but maybe only explaining Air beyond context very far into the book. And the less said about jetfarts the better, but get ready to hear about superfluids a good amount. As far as "the most incredible family reunion in history", it was only incredible in the sense of incredible being not credible, and more so, I can't believe that's what I read through 20+ chapters to get to.

Most importantly, I was foolishly reading a book labelled Xeelee Sequence #3 expecting there might actually be something substantive involving the Xeelee. While Xeelee are a catalyst or driver of the story, virtually nothing is learned about the Xeelee here. So that's almost nothing about Xeelee in book 1, a few tantalizing morsels about them in book 2, and almost nothing about them in book 3. Book 4 has been recommended if I'm interested in the Xeelee, and if there's not some real meat about them in that book the only thing stopping me throwing it across the room is that it'll be an e-book.

I absolutely cannot recommend this. Only giving it 2 stars because of the imaginative use of scientific concepts that's on display. If you want to know what the probably limited relevance of this book might be to the next book, Ring, here it is. The people who made the micro-humans did so to have them help build a sort of star drive, to allow steering the star through space. They did this to aim the star at the Ring, apparently to try to destroy it because they were enemies of the Xeelee. The Xeelee were using their Starbreaker beams to try to stop the star from damaging the Ring, and that's very bad news for people living on the star. To stop those attacks, the micro-humans ultimately meet a copy of the mind of one of the original 'colonists' of the star, who helps get their craft via a wormhole to a control room where they can just push a few levers and engage the star drive and change the star's course so that the Xeelee see no need to continue attacking it. And while much damage had already been done, the micro-humans can get back to rebuilding their somewhat limited civilization and arguing about things as humans do.

[Lucas · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the craziest settings for a book that I've read. Definitely a bit challenging in the beginning trying to figure out what was going on and how the world worked and felt like if I had a firmer grasp on the science would maybe make a bit more sense, however as the book went on things made more sense in context and the story was actually fairly straightforward.

This ended up being a page turner and just when I was worried it would start getting stale something new would pop up and grab my interest. I think I liked this more in the context of the previous novels with the background that I know, in isolation maybe this is my least favorite Xeelee book so far. However, the imagination of this series remains to be pretty incredible and really stretches my brain and I feel engaged with the book and trying to make sense of what's going on, the science behind it, and has some really unique locations and vivid scenes that will stick with me.

Very interested in reading Ring as these 3 books have alluded to the eponymous Ring and I want to see what it has in store for us.

[Curtis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This Flux was way cooler than Doctor Who: Flux, which is probably the worst season in the show's long history.

[Johan Haneveld · Rating 5 out of 5]

9+ Yes, I can see how people would award this book lesser stars. There are some pretty critical reviews on here. And I can see where those critics come from. I would even agree with them, I think, if I didn't pick up this book to read a Stephen Baxter tale. If a Stephen Baxter story is what you want to read - a far future story, featuring almost uncomprehensible science, rocking your brain, encompassing a scale of galaxies and larger and grand conclusions with a sense of awe about them - this is a treat. It's pure Baxter sense of wonder. And yes, reading a Baxter story also means that the characters are not the core of the plot, but subservient to it, worked out to just the level for the story to function. But sometimes (often in my opinion) that is enough: I do not necessarily want to know the inside of these characters, but I want to look outside through their eyes, experience their lives in a totally different world, a totally different state of being. And for that these people are done well. And what a world they live in. This is hard SF taken to its most extreme: the reader is asked to plunge into the mantle of a neutron star, where microscopic beings of immense density weave their lives among the magnetic lines, building up technology from the wood of utterly alien trees, waving instead of walking, but with memories of life between the stars. This is a 'What if' of epic proportions and I was taken with the way Baxter extrapolates: ways the culture is shaped, ways predators work in this environment, ways the surroundings get dangerous the deeper people go, ways myths become legends. I really liked all the ideas here. Take a look at the cover and know that depicted is a city that plays an important part in the story, and marvel at the imagination that was able to come up with a concept like that! Even so, in spite of the grand scale, this is a small, human story about people living in the wild coming into contact with another culture and learning both are treathened by changes in the interior of the star. There are epic journeys, revelations and disaster that I saw happening in front of my eyes as it was described. Not for the fainthearted, but for those liking their speculation on the epic side this is really recommended. It helps if you know a bit about Baxters Xeelee-sequence, but it is not really necessary, as this is a bit of a side-tale to that.

[Alexander Theofanidis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Flux is the third instalment in Stephen Baxter’s landmark Xeelee Sequence—one of the most ambitious and cosmologically expansive series in the history of science fiction. Following Raft and Timelike Infinity, Flux shifts its focus from the temporal intricacies of its predecessors to the profound existential and corporeal adaptations of humanity in extravagantly inhospitable environments. Set in a distant future, the novel probes the human condition through the lens of a literally alien setting: the interior of a neutron star.

The most arresting feature of Flux is its audacious premise: human beings who have both biologically and culturally evolved to exist within a neutron star—one of the most extreme physical environments in the universe. In such a place, gravity is millions of times stronger than on Earth, atoms are crushed into exotic forms, and magnetic fields distort even molecular bonds. Within this milieu, Baxter’s characters travel by following magnetic flux lines—rivers of magnetism that serve both as literal pathways and as metaphors for the existential currents sweeping them along. The novel’s title, Flux, evokes not merely physical flow, but also transformation, instability, and evolutionary process.

Here we encounter a concept previously explored by authors such as James Blish in his masterful short story Surface Tension, or Mike Resnick in A Miracle of Rare Design: the transformation of humanity to survive in alien environments. Yet whereas Blish treats the idea primarily as an evolutionary parable grounded in biology, and Resnick explores the aesthetic and cultural absorption of the Other, Baxter takes the theme a step further—incorporating the spatiotemporal absurdity of a neutron star into a narrative that is fundamentally existential. Adaptation here is not merely functional; it is ontological, even theological: what does it mean to be human when all that is familiar has vanished?

Dura, the novel’s protagonist, emerges as a deeply human and convincing character, despite the alien circumstances of her life. Her resolve, the weight of her responsibilities, and her internal conflict—between duty, loss, and the search for the truth about her people’s origins—render her journey emotionally resonant. Her bond with her younger brother, Farr, and their companionship amid chaos add a tender emotional core to an otherwise hyper-technological tale.

The narrative unfolds at a pace that marries the epic with the philosophical. The transition from the initial village to the strange yet civilised Parz City—a vast journey spanning mere centimetres—and the harrowing trek into the heart of the star, imbue the novel with a palpable sense of discovery while maintaining coherence as a story of personal and collective survival. Baxter’s prose is spare yet contemplative, dense with scientific detail but never at the expense of narrative flow. He is a writer who respects both physical truth and human experience.

The ending—with the revelation that the star-people were engineered as part of a weapon, now under threat by the inscrutable and almost godlike Xeelee—elevates the novel into a meditation on free will, creation, and the right of the "manufactured" to define their own destiny.

Flux is not merely a clever science fiction novel, nor a conventional sequel within the Xeelee series. It is a milestone of speculative fiction, daring to marry hard science with existential reflection. In Dura’s story and her burning world, Baxter crafts a mirror of our own search for origin, meaning, and future.

A masterpiece of the genre—stunning in conception, gripping in execution, profoundly human and restlessly philosophical.

* * * * *

Το Flux είναι το τρίτο βιβλίο της εμβληματικής σειράς Xeelee Sequence του Stephen Baxter, μιας από τις πιο φιλόδοξες και κοσμολογικά εκτεταμένες σειρές στην ιστορία της επιστημονικής φαντασίας. Ακολουθώντας το Raft και το Timelike Infinity, το Flux εστιάζει λιγότερο στη χρονική πολυπλοκότητα των προηγούμενων και περισσότερο στη βαθιά υπαρξιακή και σωματική προσαρμογή της ανθρωπότητας σε εξωφρενικά αφιλόξενα περιβάλλοντα. Τοποθετημένο σε ένα μακρινό μέλλον, το βιβλίο εξερευνά την ανθρώπινη κατάσταση μέσα από έναν κόσμο κυριολεκτικά ξένο: το εσωτερικό ενός άστρου νετρονίων.

Η πιο εντυπωσιακή πτυχή του Flux είναι πράγματι η τολμηρή του σύλληψη: άνθρωποι που έχουν βιολογικά και πολιτισμικά εξελιχθεί για να ζουν στο εσωτερικό ενός άστρου νετρονίων, ενός από τα πιο ακραία φυσικά περιβάλλοντα του σύμπαντος. Εκεί, η βαρύτητα φτάνει σε τιμές εκατομμύρια φορές μεγαλύτερες από της Γης, τα άτομα συνθλίβονται, και το μαγνητικό πεδίο είναι τόσο ισχυρό που παραμορφώνει ακόμα και τα μόρια. Μέσα σε αυτό το περιβάλλον, οι ήρωες του Baxter μετακινούνται ακολουθώντας τις μαγνητικές ρευματογραμμές – ένα είδος “ποταμών” μαγνητικού πεδίου. Αυτές οι ρευματογραμμές αποτελούν τόσο φυσικό τρόπο μετακίνησης όσο και μεταφορά του υπαρξιακού ρεύματος στο οποίο παρασύρονται οι χαρακτήρες. Από αυτό το μαγνητικό ρεύμα αντλείται και ο τίτλος Flux – υποδηλώνοντας όχι μόνο φυσική ροή, αλλά και μεταβολή, αστάθεια, εξελικτική διαδικασία.

Εδώ συναντάμε ένα concept που έχουν επεξεργαστεί προηγουμένως συγγραφείς όπως ο James Blish στο αριστουργηματικό του διήγημα Surface Tension ή ο Mike Resnick στο A Miracle of Rare Design: η ιδέα της μεταμόρφωσης της ανθρωπότητας ώστε να επιβιώσει σε αλλόκοτα περιβάλλοντα. Όμως, σε αντίθεση με τον Blish, που προσέγγισε το θέμα κυρίως ως μια εξελικτική παραβολή με έντονο βιολογικό υπόβαθρο, ή τον Resnick, που δίνει έμφαση στην πολιτισμική και αισθητική απορρόφηση του Άλλου, ο Baxter προχωρά ένα βήμα πιο πέρα – ενσωματώνοντας τον χωροχρονικό και φυσικό παραλογισμό ενός άστρου νετρονίων σε ένα αφήγημα βαθιά υπαρξιακό. Η προσαρμογή εδώ δεν είναι απλώς λειτουργική· είναι οντολογική, σχεδόν θεολογική: τι σημαίνει να είσαι άνθρωπος όταν όλα τα γνωστά έχουν χαθεί;

Η Dura, η ηρωίδα του βιβλίου, αποτελεί έναν βαθιά ανθρώπινο και πειστικό χαρακτήρα, παρόλο που οι συνθήκες της ζωής της είναι εντελώς ξένες. Η αποφασιστικότητά της, το βάρος της ευθύνης της και η εσωτερική της σύγκρουση – ανάμεσα στο καθήκον, την απώλεια, και την αναζήτηση της αλήθειας για την καταγωγή της φυλής της – κάνουν την πορεία της εξαιρετικά συγκινητική. Η σχέση της με τον μικρό της αδελφό, τον Farr, και η συντροφικότητά τους μέσα στο χάος, προσθέτουν συναισθηματικό βάθος σε ένα κατά τα άλλα υπερ-τεχνολογικό αφήγημα.

Η αφήγηση εξελίσσεται με ρυθμό που συνδυάζει το επικό με το φιλοσοφικό. Η μετάβαση από το αρχικό χωριό, στο παράξενο αλλά πολιτισμένο Παρζ Σίτυ (ένα μεγάλο ταξίδι, μερικών… εκατοστόμετρων), μέχρι το τρομακτικό ταξίδι στον πυρήνα του άστρου, δίνει στο βιβλίο αίσθηση εξερεύνησης και ανακάλυψης, παραμένοντας ταυτόχρονα συνεκτικό ως ιστορία προσωπικής και συλλογικής επιβίωσης. Το ύφος του Baxter είναι λιτό αλλά στοχαστικό, με επιστημονική πυκνότητα που δεν θυσιάζει ποτέ την αφηγηματική ροή. Είναι συγγραφέας που σέβεται τόσο τη φυσική αλήθεια όσο και την ανθρώπινη εμπειρία.

Το φινάλε – με την αποκάλυψη ότι οι άνθρωποι-του-άστρου δημιουργήθηκαν ως μέρος ενός όπλου, το οποίο τώρα απειλείται από τους μυστηριώδεις και σχεδόν θεολογικά απόμακρους Xeelee – μετατρέπει το βιβλίο σε μια πραγματεία πάνω στην ελεύθερη βούληση, τη δημιουργία, και το δικαίωμα των "κατασκευασμένων" να ορίσουν το πεπρωμένο τους.

Το Flux δεν είναι απλώς ένα ευφυές μυθιστόρημα επιστημονικής φαντασίας ούτε μια τυπική συνέχεια της σειράς Xeelee. Είναι ένα έργο-ορόσημο για τη speculative fiction, που τολμά να παντρέψει τη σκληρή επιστήμη με τον υπαρξιακό στοχασμό. Στο πρόσωπο της Dura και του φλεγόμενου κόσμου της, ο Baxter δημιουργεί έναν καθρέφτη της δικής μας αναζήτησης για προέλευση, νόημα και μέλλον.

Ένα αριστούργημα του είδους – εντυπωσιακό στη σύλληψη, καθηλωτικό στην εκτέλεση, βαθιά ανθρώπινο και ανήσυχα φιλοσοφικό.

[Raed · Rating 4 out of 5]

This series must converge at a specific point,
If baxter is going to put everything in the Xeelee world, it will be a great series
but I can't go on, I just found out there are 17 books in the series and i don't have time now
i will come back to Xeelee one day... i promise Baxter 🧠

[Michael Finocchiaro · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very strange and disorienting book about tiny little humans living inside a star. Yeah, it is bizarre and yet highly entertaining. It has a structure not dissimilar to that of Baxter's Raft in terms of elevation between societal strata and so forth, but it is truly interesting and good to know when you read the next book Ringin which the action of this one plays a significant (if small) role.

[Kvakosavrus · Rating 3 out of 5]

The worst in four books Xelee sequence. You can skip this book and to miss nothing.

[Lee Belbin · Rating 2 out of 5]

About a 200m spherical world inhabited by 'humans'. Some 'steam punk' aspects. The usual comparisons of 'modern' vs tribal worlds. Easily put down.

[Tentatively, Convenience · Rating 3 out of 5]

review of
Stephen Baxter's Flux
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - October 6-19, 2021

For the entire review go here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/...

As far as I remember, I've only read & reviewed Baxter's The Time Ships so far - this, then, being the 2nd bk I read by him. The Time Ships continues H.G. Wells's The Time Machine & I very much enjoyed it for that. In my review of The Time Ships I wrote:

"On the back cover of the edition of The Time Ships that I have, the author is referred to as "today's most acclaimed new "hard SF" author, and the acknowledged heir to the visionary legacy of Wells, Heinlein, and Clarke". That might be in a parallel universe b/c I don't recall hearing about him until I got this bk, wch was published in 1995. Of course, I don't know EVERYTHING, just every other thing. Regardless, the notion of the multiverse wasn't postulated in MY universe until the mid-20th century so it's things like that that make this different from Wells's original The Time Machine. I admit, I wd've settled for the Time Traveller going back to the same future, finding Weena, & fucking her brains out w/ explicit description — but I can't fault Baxter for making the bk be an epic exploration of possibilities that cd be scientifically hypothetized way back in the 1990s before everyone had cell-phones & the world completely changed all over again." - https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/...

& there's a similar review on the back of this bk. I'd certainly give the author credit for having a wonderful imagination & pursuing it in significant detail. One thing that particularly interests me about him is the following from the 1st inside page:

"Stephen Baxter applied to become an astronaut in 1991. He didn't make it, but achieved the next best thing by becoming a science fiction writer"

There's nothing like a little imminent disaster to get a novel off to a good start:

"Dura scrambled across the Magfield flux lines to the Net. Men, women and older children were gathered in tight huddles, their thin bodies bumping together as the floated in the turbulent Magfield, laboring at the Net. They cast fearful, distracted glances at the approaching vortex instabilities, and from all around the Net Dura could hear muttered or shouted prayer-chants, pleas for the benevolence of the Xeelee." - p 12

Have you ever thought about the closeness of "pleas" & "please"?

This is a future in wch the birth canal has been engineered to not be such a problem child:

"Dia's pelvis was hinged; with the birth so close the cartiledge locking the two segments of the pelvis together would have dissolved into Dia's blood, leaving her pelvis easily opened. Her birth canal and vagina were already stretching, gaping wide. Everything was working together to allow the baby's head easy passage from the womb to the Air. It's easy, Dura thought. And it's easy because the Ur-humans designed it to be easy, maybe even easier than for themselves..." - p 21

"That wasn't a surprise, of course. Every kid learned at his mother's breast how the Ur-Humans had come from somewhere far away – a place much better than this, of course; Adda suspected every human on every world grew up believing that – and had left children here to grow, to be strong, and to join the community of mankind one day, all under the beneficial and all-too-abstract gaze of that multiple God, the Xeelee." - p 26

"Star Humans are microscopic, but their hopes and fears, and loves, are not. And the future of humans everywhere, on Earth and among the stars, depends on their courage in the face of attack by the mighty Xeelee, owners of the universe." - back cover

Hence the stage is set for a whole series of novels by Baxter (apparently this is the 3rd of them, wch I didn't realize, so the stage has long-since been set).

"Farr looked up.

"Leaves – six of them arranged in a neat, symmetrical pattern – hung down just above his head. With a surge of absurd gratitude Farr pulled himself up into the darkness beyond the leaves.

"A branch about the thickness of his waist and coated with slick-dark wood led from the leaf into a misty, blue-glowing darkness above him . . . no, he thought, that was the wrong way round; somewhere up there was the trunk of the tree, suspended from the Crust, and from it grew this branch, and from that in turn grew the leaves which faced the Sea." - pp 30-31

One of the most impressive things about this novel for me is Baxter's ability to describe a world so different from our own biomorphically & consistently. In the above case, the 'upside-downess' of it: the "Human Beings" exist in the air, the grounded objects are over their heads, the "Sea" is NOT a body of water, etc.. It was fun adjusting to imagining the described environment.

"The tree trunk she'd followed had broadened only gradually, at last reaching a width just too great for her to stretch her arms around. Now, suddenly, the clean lines of the trunk exploded into a complex tangle of roots which formed a semi-circular platform over her head. Peering up, she could see the roots receding into the dim translucent interior of the Crust itself" - p 44

Keeping in mind that the "Human Beings" are microscopic in contrast to ourselves what these "trees" consist of is unknown to me.

"'Let's have a little lesson. Why do you think the leaves are so tasty?'

"Farr thought about that. 'Because they're sull of protons.'

"Dura nodded seriously. 'Near enough. Actually they are laced with protein-rich isotopes – of krypton, strontium, zirconium . . . even a little heavy iron. Each nucleus of krypton, for instance, has a hundred and eighteen protons, while the tin nuclei of our bodies have just fifty each. And our bodies need protons for their fuel.'" - pp 32-33

What's a proton?

"Proton, stable subatomic particle that has a positive charge equal in magnitude to a unit of electron charge and a rest mass of 1.67262 × 10−27 kg, which is 1,836 times the mass of an electron.

"Protons, together with electrically neutral particles called neutrons, make up all atomic nuclei except for the hydrogen nucleus (which consists of a single proton). Every nucleus of a given chemical element has the same number of protons. This number defines the atomic number of an element and determines the position of the element in the periodic table. When the number of protons in a nucleus equals the number of electrons orbiting the nucleus, the atom is electrically neutral."

- https://www.britannica.com/science/pr...

Can we eat protons? According to Jerzy Michal Pawlak, ex particle physicist, on Quora:

"Free protons would be very difficult to eat, because as charged particles they strongly repel each other, so you can’t even easily gather a macroscopic amount of free protons without adding electrons to keep the protons together. And if you add electrons but insist that they don’t bind to the protons, the protons are still free, then technically you have what we call plasma. Eating hot plasma (at thousands Kelvins) is definitely unhealthy.

"Free neutrons present another difficulty: they don’t bind together and are not easily confined by matter. So it would not be easy to eat them. And unadvisable: free neutrons are radioactive, which is unhealthy, and they also bind easily to atomic nuclei inside your body, making those nuclei radioactive. Unhealthy!

"The way to go is to allow protons bind with neutrons into stable nuclei, and also add electrons to the mix, to balance the positive charge of the protons and also make the nuclei bind into molecules, and molecules into liquid or solid state, easy to eat. Some combinations of protons, neutrons and electrons are really yummy, and some others are healthy :)"

- https://www.quora.com/Can-we-eat-neut...

Scale is a matter of recurring presence & interest.

"Mansheights? he thought, distracted. A practical measure, he supposed . . . but what was wrong with microns? A mansheight would be about ten microns – a hundred-thousandth of a metre – if it meant what it sounded like . . ."

Hence, these "Human Beings" wd be about 150,000th of our height.

"She tried to keep her voice steady. 'I think so. I'm just a little taken aback by the speed of this thing, I suppose.'

"He frowned and squinted out through his window. 'We're not going so fast. Maybe a metre an hour.[']" - p 74

"'Do you know how big the City is? Ten thousand mansheights, from side to side. And that's not counting the Spine.' The little car continued to edge its way, cautiously, around the City, like a timid Air-piglet looking for a place to suckle. Toba shook his head. 'Even the Ur-humans would have been impressed by ten thousand manshieghts, I'll bet. Why, that's almost a centimetre . . .'" - pp 86-87

"Three metres deep.

"It was a depth Dura couldn't comprehend. Humans were confined within the Mantle to a shell of superfluid Air only a few metres thick. Her first journey with Toba to the Pole from the upflux – so far that she had felt she was travelling around the curvature of the Star itself – had only been about thirty metres." - p 257

[Reviewer's note: I often refer to differences between American English & British English. Webster deliberately changed American English to be different from British English, usually more stripped-down: as in the change from colour to color & favour to favor & labour to labor. One of my 'favorites' of these changes is theatre to theater wch creates the immediate problem of how to spell theatrical. Of course, the solution is to just spell it the British way - meaning that the change from theatre to theater really serves no purpose other than gratuitous differentiation. Same for metre to meter. When I was a child, I was taught that when adding a suffix to a word ending in a consonant that the consonant was doubled. Hence travel turned into travelling - as it appears in the above quote from this British author. However, as the Mirriam-Webster online dictionary notes:

"When it comes to spelling the forms of the verb travel, traveled and traveling are more common in the U.S., and travelled and travelling are dominant everywhere else." - https://www.merriam-webster.com/words...

It seems to me that this practice of dropping the doubled consonant in the US has happened in my lifetime but maybe it started way-back-when w/ Webster. Regardless, if you, as a writer, ever get 'corrected' by some pompous creep to one version or another be assured that they have a limited pseudo-knowledge that they shdn't try to impose on anyone else.]

"She frowned and pointed out the second cylinder to Hork. 'What do you think that is? It looks like a fortress. Perhaps the Ur-humans needed to shelter – perhaps they came under attack . . .'

"He was laughing at her, not unkindly. 'No, Dura. You've lost the scale. Look at it again. It's maybe – what ten thousand mansheights tall?'

"'Ten times as big as your glorious Parz City.'

"'Maybe, but that's still only 10 centimetres or so. Dura, the Ur-humans were metres tall. The hand of an Ur-human could have engulfed that cylinder.' He was watching her slyly. 'Do you see it yet? Dura, that's a food vessel. A cup.'

"She stared. A cup, large enough to hold a dozen Parz Cities?

"She tried to keep thinking. 'Well,' she said, 'then it's a damn odd cup. All the food would float out of the top. Wouldn't it?'

"Hork nodded grudgingly. 'You'd think so.' He sighed. 'But then, there are many things about the Ur-humans we can't understand.'" - pp 315-316

&, yes, there's even class in this microscopic world.

"Dura shook her head. 'Folk here don't hunt, Farr. I've learned that much. They grow special kinds of grasses, and eat them.'

"Mixxax laughed bitterly. '"Folk here", as you call them, don't even do that. I do that, in my scrubby farm on the edge of the upflux desert. I grow food to feed the rich folk in Parz . . . and I pay them taxes so they can afford to buy it. And that,' he finished bitterly, 'is how Hork's courtiers have enough leisure time to grow flowers.'" - pp 76-77

& there're even toilets.

"Toba showed the Human Beings a place to clean themselves – a room containing chutes for waste and spherical bowls holding scented cloth. Dura and Farr, left alone in this strange room, tried to use the chutes. Dura pulled the little levers as Tova had shown them, and their shit disappeared down gurgling tubes into the mysterious guts of the City. Brother and sister peered into the chutes, open-mouthed, trying to see where it all went." - p 96

&, of course, where there's class there's servitude.

"The woman was about Dura's age but a good deal plumper; her hair-tubes were elaborately knotted into a gold-and-white bun, and layers of fat showed over her cheekbones. With the air of a professional she peered into the boy's eyecups, ears and nostrils; she bade him open his mouth and ran a finger around his gums, inspecting the scrapings she extracted. Then she poked at Farr's armpits, anus and penis-cache." - p 128

& what about their hypothetical makers?

"'What were they like, the Ur-Humans?'

"'We can't be sure – the Core Wars and the Reformation haven't left us any records – but we do have strong hypotheses, based on scaling laws and analogies with ourselves. Analogous anatomy was my principle subject as a student . . . Of course, that was a long time ago. They were much like us. Or rather, we were made in their image. But they were many times our size – about a hundred thousand times as tall, in fact. Because he was dominated by balances between different sets of physical forces, the average Ur-human was a metre tall, or more.[']" - p 137

& human nature marches on.. even at this microscopic level.

"At last Hosch seemed to exhaust his anger, and he Waved away to some other part of the hopper line. The labourers who had gathered to relish Farr's humiliation – men & women alike – gave up their surreptitious surveillance and, with the smugness of spared victims, fixed their attention back on their work." - p 140

Perhaps one of the most fascinating aspects of this novel is imagining humans, as we currently know ourselves, evolving into creatures capable of miniaturizing a version of ourselves & seeding an environment w/ the miniatures that our currently sized humans wdn't be able to inhabit. Then there's imagining how the replicated human characteristics wd play out under these new conditions.

"Muub was no lover of the great outdoors, but he relished the Garden. He tilted back his stiff neck, looking up into the yellow-gold Air. To be here beneath the arching, sparkling vortex lines of the Pole – and yet securely surrounded by the works of man – was a fulfilling, refreshing experience. It seemed to strengthen his orderly heart that the Garden was an artifact, a museum of tamed nature – but an artifact which stretched for no less than a square centimetre around him . . . The Garden was enough to make one believe that man was capable of any achievement." - p 174

"[']I have asked you to view the Garden today as my guest, as a friendly gesture to one who is new to Parz and who is alone here. But frankly, if you're not prepared to be courteous then you are free to depart.'

"'Oh, I'll behave,' Adda grumbled. 'Though I'll not swallow the pretense that you've done me any sort of favour by treating my injuries. I know very well that you're exacting a handsome price for the labor of Dura and Farr.'

"Muub frowned. 'Ah, your companions from upflux. Yes, I understand they have found indentures.'

"'Slave labour," Adda hissed." - p 175

The clashing of cultures that I've only hinted at in the quotes thickens the plot as the dominant culture decides it may have a need for the wilder ones.

"'Muub, we have to think wider. Beyond the City, even. What about those weird upfluxers you told me about? The old man and his companions . . . curiosities from the wild. The upfluxers are Xeelee cultists, aren't they? Maybe they could tell us something; maybe they have preserved the knowledge we have foolishly destroyed.'" - p 190

For the entire review go here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/...

[Michael Pryor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dense, rigorous, wide-screen.

[Eric Stewart · Rating 3 out of 5]

Much like Raft, this book presents humans (or human-like entities) living in a scrappy "primitive" world, surrounded by phenomena and technology they can only understand through oral histories and a suspiciously-good grasp on high-level physics. Unlike Raft, though, the world presented is so utterly alien and beyond any possible human experience that I found it near-impossible to actually understand the sensations being experienced by the characters. The characters are all tiny (microns are the common unit of measurement), artificially-created human-like beings who inhabit a superfluid of magnetically-rich particles in the middle of an ancient neutron star.

Their world is bounded by an upper Mantle, from which energy-hungry nuclear trees grow down, and a lower Crust which contains the unknowable depths of the Quantum Sea. The humans here don't have eyes (only "eyecups") which allow them to "see" via the means of collecting sound-like vibrations as they percolate through the (not really gaseous, but it's easier to imagine it that way) medium in which they float and live out their lives. They "smell" stray photons and "eat"... well, I'm still not exactly sure how the air-pigs and leaves they consume translate into energy for their bodies but it's a close enough analogue to real humans that it least allows one point of familiarity. They move by "Waving", which I quickly just imagined as swimming in zero-g, because I don't know how to interpret or understand the description given of them sort of pushing off the omni-present Magfield, and its swirling hexagons of vortex force that transfers rotational energy from the star's core. All of this stuff is cool, and interesting, and I enjoyed reading about it, but none of it really cohered into an actual understanding of what it feels like to be alive in this place, because it's so utterly remote and filtered through layers of metaphor. The usual Baxter tropes are here in full effect (dull characters, the conflict between "primitive" tribespeople with an impressive understanding of nuclear physics and "civilized" people who maintain order through a cruel bureaucracy/economic system, a plot driven largely by looking at cool physics stuff) but I found myself much preferring Raft - which had a similar structure - but wrapped its concepts around human beings who were fundamentally sympathetic, living in a strange world but one that could still be imagined without confusion while I read.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible. Life inside the mantle of a star, where breathable "Air" is actually more nearly a liquid than a gas with a density nearly identical to a human body, where "humans" essentially swim instead of walk. In addition to the hard science fiction aspects, I really enjoyed the contrast between the primitive but wise outsiders with the cultured but ignorant people of the city.

I've enjoyed Baxter's novels, but this was the best so far. The climax kept pushing until the end, and the story had so many intricate points. There was enough resolution for the main characters to give satisfaction, and yet enough left open that makes me want to start reading the next book in the Xeelee Sequence right now.

[Arnab · Rating 1 out of 5]

Here's a memorable quote from the book -

"Painfully slow,..." There. Yes. That's a quote. From the book. I'm not gonna give the context, since I think it is never out of place in the ENTIRE book, the storyline being good for about 1/5th or even 1/10th of its size.

And the science. It is all off. Flux lines! Flux lines can't hit you! They are not discrete as implied in the story multiple times. Smelling photons. Impossible because it depends on a faster than light physiology. Not to mention instantaneous vision of far away objects is not possible, in an environment where photons diffuse like gas.

Raft and Timelike Infinity were good.

Ring was excellent.

But this was quite amateurish, and dull.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

In some ways Flux is structured the same way that Raft is structured. People trying to survive in an actively-hostile universe. Protagonist who is really smart, and understands their corner of the world, but is forced into unfamiliar territory. Flux is much more interesting and somewhat better-written than Raft and the scope manages to be both (literally haha) minuscule and vast.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Flirted with giving this one 3 stars. For the first 2/3 of the book the fact that everyone's a microscopic being living inside a neutron star is essentially irrelevant. We just have a very slow story of aborigines seeing the big city for the first time. Of course at the end it goes all Baxtery and big things happen very quickly.

[Worms · Rating 3 out of 5]

A few years ago I got really into Baxter's Xeelee Sequence and bought every book I could find in the series. I never really had much interest in Flux as it sounded the least interesting of the series and I knew it wouldn't have any real significance in the greater Xeelee/Ring storyline, but I found a nice hardcopy edition of it so I picked it up anyway. As predicted, this was the least good of all the Xeelee books I've read so far, although I definitely wouldn't call it bad.

One of my favorite things about Baxter is his ability to come up with creative aliens which truly feel alien and not just like re-colored humans or insects. Although this book is technically about actual humans, the setting is extremely weird, creative, and suceeds in feeling genuinely "alien". The writing itself is also quite good (although WAY too much completely unnecessary gross body stuff, prepare to hear about "jetfarts" endlessly...ugh). Another place this story shines is that it's about actual characters who have depth, personality, and experience growth over the course of events. I don't know if I particularly liked the characters per say, but I found myself invested in them. This is incredibly rare to find in hard sci fi, so points have to be awarded for that. There is a ton of science throughout this book (probably too much tbh), which I definitely appreciated and found interesting, however I found it difficult to visualize a lot of what was described and understand how it all functioned and worked together (that's not really good nor bad, just pointing it out.)

Unfortunately though, despite the enormously novel setting, the story itself is rather mundane. While there is tons of science thrown around, the setting doesn't fundamentally impact the narrative all that much; the same story could have been told in any number of other settings/times and been almost identical. It's your standard tale of outsiders living in a harsh, unforgiving environment who have basically reverted to tribal savages encountering people from the real world and being forced to attempt to re-integrate into society (guess he really likes that one since he used a variant of it in Raft and again in Ring). Standard fish-out-of-water tropes abound and it's largely predictable. The story is also incredibly slow; most of the book is spent describing things and explaining how normal things work in this special setting. It's interesting and the worldbuilding is welcome, but there are so few scenes where anything is actually...happening. The society itself is pretty bland and generic, with very little to make it memorable. Additionally, the injection of science is a bit comical and hamfisted because its routinely delivered via incredibly forced set ups so that someone can do a straight-from-a-textbook infodump. I can't even say it's bad, I honestly found it hilarious every time.

Overall, despite all the science I found it to be a pretty easy read. It was interesting enough to keep me going, but too dry to be memorable. My biggest problem with it (which, to be fair, is largely due to personal bias) is the lack of cosmic significance - they mention the Xeelee and "Ur-Humans" throughout the book and constantly hint at greater mysteries, but never get into them. It wasn't until page 380 of 409 that something cosmic finally happened and even then it was over as quickly as it started. You'd think the crux of the mission to save the world in a way which also impacts the greater universal conflict would get more than a few pages, but I guess not. I suppose this book simply feels very small-scale compared to the enormity of events in Ring (but again to be fair, Flux and Raft were given all of like 2 sentence references in Ring so they can't be expected to have all that much cosmic significance).

It's worth a read if you enjoy Baxter's stuff, but it won't be your favorite.

[AoC · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three books into the Xeelee series and I'm still amazed by how Stephen Baxter manages to make them work as standalones while clearly being connected to a shared timeline. It's time for Flux, one with [so far] the strongest connection to setting at large and eponymous Xeelee themselves.

Part of me almost wishes novel kept its world hidden for a while longer, but "submicroscopic human society existing in a neutron star" is a premise too crazy to dance around. Even crazier is we start off following Dura, one of the Human Beings who happen to live as so-called Upfluxers aka savages eschewing civilization after they got exiled for certain reasons. Or did they? Needless to say this will become an incredibly major part of the story as Dura, her brother Farr and jaded veteran Adda find themselves in the very center of civilization their people absconded from generations ago. Amidst tackling the unfamiliar way of life, an on-going danger in the form of Glitches seems to be reaching its peak as Dura's very world is in danger of being snuffed out. What does this have to do with ancient legends of Ur-Humans and forbidden Xeelee religion? More than you imagine.

It should come as no surprise at this point that I'm a sucker for world building, but even more so for straight up weird settings. Which makes Flux incredible because it never stops being outlandish. You have to keep in mind this is a submicroscopic world, where "air" these genetically engineered people "breathe" is wrong on both accounts and those inverted commas are there for a reason. We're talking about superfluidity, very magnetism enabling people to move around by waving their limbs, high center of civilization that is Parz being a wooden boxes suspended on a spike with surrounding ceiling-farms, etc. This is a kind of world Baxter proceeds to use real life scientific principles and terminology to explain, and despite that I had trouble visualizing just what I was reading until I went over some pages multiples times. Having someone explain all of this would be akin to robbing you of the pleasure of reading it on your own.

Interestingly enough contrasting POVs isn't something Flux does much at all - we're generally following the Upfluxers' perspectives as we have three different characters to work with. This doesn't mean we don't get hot takes on both camps, though. Dura is our strong female protagonist actually done right for a change as she has both intelligence and wisdom to temper it. She's the one who adjusts to Parz the best and sees potential merits as opposed to hunting air pigs for a living. Her younger brother Farr is ultimately just a youth torn between two ways of life. I like how he finds his center by working with a decent person who teaches him lessons about city life. Likewise, same applies to Adda who profoundly despises everything Parz stands for, is a font of ancient knowledge... and finds himself doubting whether he may have been mistaken all along. Wonders what first-hand exposure can do to a person. All in all, our trio makes friends in both high and low places, as well as step into their roles when push comes to shove. Easily my favorite chapter is when they and city leaders debate over precisely how they intend to reach the Core and contact the original Colonists as they bounce ideas. Pigs always seem to be the answer, though.

I would profusely recommend Flux, albeit with caveats that haven't changed from Raft or Timelike Infinity. Baxter is heavy on science talk, and Flux is the most out there one that I've read so far which can be overbearing if that's not up your alley.

[Jon]

I suppose I've lost some of my sense of wonder over the years. There was a time when I believed I might actually get offplanet during my lifetime, but that dream just slides further and further away as NASA underachieves and private industry fails to step up to the plate. That said, you can understand why I find Baxter's account of life on the surface of a neutron star less than thrilling - more of an amusing tale in the tradition of Barsoom or Gor.

Unfortunately, the tale wasn't anywhere near as exciting as Burroughs' or Norman's sagas, so I ended up a couple hundred pages into it, still bored, and had to give up. The story begins with a band of genetically engineered humans who are living under primitive conditions getting devasted by a "glitch" in the star. As they wander in search of food, they encounter more "technologically" advanced groups, and become somewhat involved in their society. There was a bit about surfing on the magnetic currents in the body of the star that could have gone somewhere, but didn't by the time I quit reading.

In that vein, I once read a short story about people kayaking in lava flows on a distant world that was pretty good. Wish I could remember where.

[Cory · Rating 4 out of 5]

Only Baxter can somehow manage to write a book that’s incredibly cool and incredibly hard sci-fi while also making the very same book incredibly lame and plain silly, but that’s honesty part of why I love Baxter. There are some amazing ideas in this book, especially in the first and last hundred pages, but in the middle there’s an oddly stark clashing of imagination. We have a group of submicroscopic humans who live inside a neutron star in the deep future and fly along magnetic flux lines and smell photons, and yet most of them live in a normal-ass city doing normal-ass people things, and for some reason farting is a very important aspect of this story. Like, the whole thing is ridiculous. And yet, as always, Baxter totally won me over by the end. There is just something about the Xeelee books that capture my imagination more than anything else. They can be so stupid and yet it’s probably my favorite series of books. Anyway, I’m glad I went back and read Flux after initially skipping it due to the low reviews because at the end of the day I had a great time with this book. Nobody writes like Baxter!

[Steve Scanlan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Set in Baxter’s Xeelee sequence, this is the story of the microscopic inhabitants of a neutron star. For purposes explained in the story, human constructs have been designed to live within the harsh environment of a neutron star. These constructs are unaware of their purpose, but are fully aware of their origins.

The star is experiencing instability which is wreaking havoc upon a small group of inhabitants of the upper reaches of the star. These “upfluxers” refer to themselves as Human Beings and live a life floating in the Air of the upflux, attaching themselves and their meagre possessions to a flimsy net. When an instability, or Glitch, destroys the net the upfluxers are forced to seek refuge elsewhere within the star. So begins a journey of discovery for a trio of ignorant primitives.

I found this book took me a while to get into and thought about giving up on it, a first for a work of Baxter’s. I did persist however and while it doesn’t rate as a favourite, it is a worthwhile addition to Baxter’s Xeelee saga.

[Kevin Phyland · Rating 4 out of 5]

A race of humans 10-microns tall has been designed by Ur-Humans thousands of years ago to inhabit the inside of a neutron star some 20kms in diameter. They move by Waving across flux-lines in the exotic hyperonic mantle beneath the crust of the star and above the superliquid Core, where old tales tell of the first settlers here - the Colonists. But the neutron star has become unstable and huge magnetic glitches are wreaking destruction on the inhabitants and a last-ditch attempt to find ancient wormhole artifacts via an artificial pig powered by pigfarts (I'm not kidding! is launched into the underMantle to find mythical weapons. As the vovage reaches the unfathomable depth of 5 metres an apparition appears on the deck called Karen Macrae - an avatar of an old human - and they need the help of the micro-people in a final move in the deadly war with the Xeelee. Mind-blowing in its scope, it is a satisfying book, despite me never really being able to "picture" what it looked like in my feeble mind. Good stuff by Stephen Baxter.

[Michael Sypes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Apparently, I had read this book over twenty years ago, but didn't remember it at all. Now that I've read it again, I don't know how I cold have forgotten. Very good. Well written characters with their own unique arcs, plus an important tie in with the overall Xeelee series. (Which I've never read.)
Interesting science as the basis for the fiction. I can't call it "hard science fiction," since it does require a significant suspension of disbelief that atomic nuclei under extremely high temperatures and pressures can assemble into structures that support life, but highly imaginative nonetheless.
You don't need to have read the other Xeelee novels to appreciate this one; I haven't. However, the book's denouement feels rather rushed and incongruous with the rest of the novel, and this feeling might be reduced if you have read the other books. This has definitely made me interested in reading the others.

[Roger Burk · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's a biosphere in the upper mantle of a neutron star, floating in a superfluid between the hard crust (where a sort of inverted flora is rooted) and the star's core of compacted neutrons. Into this extraordinarily hot and dense environment, for reasons that only gradually become clear, has been placed a race of homunculi. They are about 10 microns tall, made out of tin nuclei, as close to human form as possible, but adapted to flourish inside the star. But the colony has not prospered, and we follow a small remnant struggling to survive. (Baxter seems to have a thing about small remnants struggling to survive--they appear on many of his books.) Some of the action doesn't quite make sense, even given the assumptions of the story. I don't understand how waste disposal works--it seems to sink away towards the core, but nothing else sinks. Still, the scope of imagination and scientific detail is spectacular, and typical for Baxter.