Xeelee

Xeelee Sequence #1-4

by Stephen Baxter

This omnibus edition contains four science fiction novels from the pen of well-known author, Stephen Baxter.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Hard Science Fiction, Space Opera, Ebooks, Time Travel, Space

900 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2010

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]

Xeelee is an omnibus book containing:

Raft
Timelike Infinity
Flux
Ring

The above four titles are linked to my review of each individual volume. The titles are ordered in the book by publication dates but I find that reading the books in this order did not work for me as Timelike Infinity and Ring are closely linked while Raft and Flux read more like standalones. Also, the settings of Raft and Flux are so weird that it may be easier to get used to Baxter's style and the Xeelee's back story through Timelike Infinity and Ring first. YMMV though. My recommended reading order for this omnibus would be:

1. Timelike Infinity
2. Ring
3. Raft
4. Flux

The books are works of jaw dropping imagination on an epic scale, all backed up by real world science. In fact a lot of the science is far above my comprehension but the plot tend to be easy enough to follow and the characters while fairly simplistic are likable enough. I can tell Baxter made a real effort to develop his characters, evidently not his forte but I appreciate the attempt. The dialogues leave something to be desired but I can forgive him that.

There are a few more books in the full Xeelee Sequence beside these four volumes but these should be enough for newcomers to the series to be getting on with. Recommended for fans of hard science fiction (if you are hard enough).

______________________

Note:

Stephen Baxter has this to say about the reading order for the Xeelee Sequence:

"I hope that all the books and indeed the stories can be read stand-alone. I’m not a great fan of books that end with cliff-hangers. So you could go in anywhere. One way would be to start with ‘Vacuum Diagrams’, a collection that sets out the overall story of the universe. Then ‘Timelike Infinity’ and ‘Ring’ which tell the story of Michael Poole, then ‘Raft’ and ‘Flux’ which are really incidents against the wider background, and finally ‘Destiny’s Children.’"
(Source)

[Stevie Kincade · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got into Stephen Baxter because the idea of a series that spanned all the way from the Big Bang to the last star in the universe winking out was absolutely irresistable to me. About a year ago I read all the synopsis of books featured on the various "Greatest Space Opera's of all time" lists.
The scope of Baxter's ideas had me buying dozens of his books without having read a word.

Baxter is a really smart guy. He has a talent for taking all of the latest physics theories and scientific knowledge and weaving a story into them. His ideas and imagination are second to none. Some of these books have more orignal hard science ideas in a chapter then most authors would come up with in a career.

One of the things he delights in doing is violating something we know about the universe and making the reader go "Hey I thought we were doing HARD SCIENCE here!" Then he flips it and says "ah but what if all of these factors were different, THEN then it WOULD be possible!

This Omnibus collects "Raft", "Timelike Infinity", "Flux" and "Ring"

Raft, Timelike Infinity and Flux are stand alone novels.

To enjoy "Ring" properly you need to read Timelike Infinity.

"Raft" is barely related to Ring , given only a winking mention.

"Flux" has more of a connection - but one that can be summarised in a paragraph.

To anyone who isn't sure where to start with Baxter read "Timelike Infinity" first

It is one of my all time favorite science fiction stories and the shortest of the 4 books.
It is Baxter at his most focused and brilliant best, wrapping the story of 3 timelines, connected by wormholes around his extensive knowledge of quantum physics. It is great science and a great story, a modern science fiction classic. 5 stars

The first published story in the sequence"Raft" is a solid, enjoyable, hard science fiction about an alternate universe where Gravity is a million times stronger then ours.
It works as a science mystery where we are trying to work out what the hell has happened and how people could survive in this world. - 3.5 stars.

Timelike Infinty is the 2nd story by publishing date.

"Flux" was one I struggled to get through. I found the world (inside a neutron star) to be very hard to visualise. I certainly couldn't predict where it was going. It had some good world building and concepts. Overall I wasn't interested in all of the characters and the payoff didn't mean that much to me. The events it describes are ahead in time from the main plot of "Timelike". I hadn't read "Ring" to connect it to everything.
It should also be noted that the plot of "Flux" involved air pigs who fly via fart propulsion.
While the idea of air pigs who fart helium is obviously possible I found it hilarious in a distracting way from Mr Hard Science Fiction 2 stars

Here is the full review of "Ring".

Ring starts just after the events of "Timelike Infinity" so I was immediately drawn in.
Baxter delivers some wonderful lectures on all his favourite quantum mechanics theories by inserting a compelling story within his exquisite infodumps.

Baxter isn't for everyone but if you love large scope, hard science fiction he is THE MAN

Suggested Reading Order

Timelike Infinity
"Ring".
Vacuum Diagrams

Optional:
Raft
Flux

[Noémie J. Crowley · Rating 4 out of 5]

RAFT

Dans cette histoire, à la base une nouvelle, nous suivons un groupe de quelques milliers d’humains, entrés par accident dans un univers parallèle, à la force gravitationnelle très forte ; les étoiles y sont minuscules, les planètes n’ont jamais pu se former. Ils vivent dans une nébuleuse, dans une société extrêmement stratifiée, mais la nébuleuse se meurt, et Rees, notre personnage principal, compte bien comprendre pourquoi.

Livre assez court mais intense, j’ai beaucoup apprécié ma découverte de Raft - la société et le pourquoi de sa fondation, discutée en filigrane dans le livre, est hyper intéressante, le côté hard SF plus que présent mais jamais étouffant, bref, j’ai vraiment hâte de découvrir la suite !


TIMELIKE INFINITY


Plusieurs milliers d’années dans le futur, en 5000 et des patates, l’humanité a été concquise par une race alien nommée les Qax, fortement oppressive. Un jour, le Projet Interface revient après 1500 ans, ramenant un vaisseau appelé le Cauchy, et un trou de ver. Le reste serait spoiler.

J’avais déjà beaucoup aimé Raft.
Mais alors celui-là ?
Wow. Juste wow. Il y a tout pour que ce soit le kiff absolu, et ça l’est. Espèces aliens belliqueuses, deadciv, voyage temporel, de l’amour, un vrai bon space opera comme on devrait en faire 45 à la minute tellement c’est excellent, très bien écrit, avec toujours la grosse pointe de hard sf centrée sur la tech, avec certes des persos un peu en retrait, mais assez forts pour tenir l’histoire. Du très bon !


FLUX

Dura et sa tribu vivent dans une étoile à neutrons, cimetière d’une étoile morte, et sont des humains minuscules, génétiquement modifiés. Elle se rend dans la ville de Parz, et son voyage la mènera à la découverte des Colonisateurs, fuyant les Xeelees.

On va pas se mentir c’est super spécial comme livre. J’ai vraiment du mal à me faire une opinion définitive sur le sujet tant c’est particulier. Je veux pas dire que c’est mauvais, le concept est hyper intéressant, mais j’ai eu du mal avec les personnages et la société décrite, du coup j’ai eu pas mal de difficultés à rentrer dedans. Le dernier quart est hyper intéressant, mais c’est assez long à se mettre en place - et aucune idée d’où on va avec Ring, la dernière partie.


RING

Deux sous-histoires sont racontées simultanément : celle de Lieserl, une IA créée pour voyager dans le soleil, et y découvrant des formes de vie basée sur la matière sombre, et celle de l’équipage du Great Northern, envoyée dans un trou de vers à travers le futur.

J’attendais cette conclusion à la Séquence avec impatience et je n’ai pas été déçue. J’avais émis des réserves, surtout avec Timelike Infinity, mais alors ceci offre une fin vraiment intéressante à la saga. J’ai adoré le voyage de Lieserl, et toute la conclusion autour du personnage de Poole est à la fois déchirante et bien trouvée. Dans l’ensemble c’est bien foutu !

[Bill · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a Baxter fan, I put off reading this series for far too long. This omnibus is an excellent way to get into this Hard, Epic Science Fiction Universe which so far has spanned over 5,000,000 years.

The first two novels are highly reminiscent of the works of Hal Clement, the father of Hard SciFi. They concern 2 human-derived, humanoid species living near extreme environmental conditions. They were gengineered by humans to survive these conditions, one in the gasses surrounding a black hole and the other in that surrounding a neutron star.

The 3rd and 4th novels expand on the Xeelee and explain what's happening to our universe. The conflict is introduced and resolved at least for humanity. This is all done using believable quantum mechanics and relativity—modern physics of the 90s. Where it goes from here I don't know, cause I yet to read the many sequels.

Recommended for all lovers of hard SciFi - 8 of 10 stars.

[David Knight · Rating 5 out of 5]

crackalacking!!

[Gabor Hernadi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Raft
------
The first book of Baxter`s Xeelee saga is a thought provoking and original book in itself. It`s basically a picaresque novel, where the hero wanders around in the new home of the descendants of a lost earth spaceship, the inside of a nebula in a parallel universe where the gravitational constant is much bigger than in ours. I don`t know enough physics to decide that the pictured environment is correct or not but the book without a doubt is an impressive read.
4.5/5


Timelike Infinity
---------------------
The second book of the cycle is also a fascinating read At the beginning of the book we learn that in he future Earth was conquered by an alien race. After that we got wormholes, time travels and living ships, all of them in a cosmic timescale. And at least we learn something about the mysterious Xeelee as well.
4.5/5

Flux
-----
What can I say? The third book of the Xeelee saga is just as much original, thought provoking and entertaining as the previous two. This time we can follow the fate of tiny humanoids living inside of a neutron star as they discovering the origin and the purpose of their own existence. And yes, the xeelees are there in the background again.
4.5/5


Ring
——
The fourth book of the saga perhaps the most monumental of all, a travel through five million years, nicely incorporating the themes of the previous books.

[Nebogipfel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Four books of the Xeele universe in one. What I really like about them is tons of awesome technology. Stephen Baxter gets creative in all four stories. He is prone to info-dumps every few pages, but I didn't mind. Other than that, stories, characters and dialogues are so-so.

Raft and Timelike Infinity are the best. Flux, other than portraying an ineresting society, is weakest. The whole story exists just so that the main characters would perform a certain action in the end. Ring drags on too long. The wow factor has been exhausted and the story contains deus-ex-machina solutions to situations which I'm not a fan of.

[Alexander Theofanidis · Rating 4 out of 5]

1. Raft ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Το Raft (1991) είναι το πρώτο μυθιστόρημα της σειράς Xeelee (δε θέλω αηδίες, «ζίλι» προφέρεται) του Stephen Baxter και ταυτόχρονα το εκδοτικό του ντεμπούτο, κάτι εντυπωσιακό αν σκεφτεί κανείς τι επίπεδα απόδοσης πιάνει με την πρώτη.

Σε ένα πυρήνα σκληρής επιστημονικής φαντασίας, ο Baxter μας ρίχνει κατευθείαν στα βαθιά, ξεκινώντας μέσα σε ένα εναλλακτικό σύμπαν, όπου οι θεμελιώδεις παράμετροι της φύσης είναι… λίγο διαφορετικές. Για παράδειγμα, η βαρύτητα (η παραμόρφωση/καμπύλωση του χωροχρόνου που προκαλεί η συγκέντρωση μάζας, αν θέλουμε να είμαστε μετανευτώνεια ακριβείς) είναι τάξεις μεγέθους μεγαλύτερη από αυτή που γνωρίζουμε στο δικό μας σύμπαν. Το κρατάμε αυτό, γιατί μεγάλη σημασία για την εξέλιξη της ιστορίας του νεαρού μηχανικού Ρης (άνθρωπος είναι, όλα εξηγούνται μην άγχεσθε). Ο Ρης δεν ξέρει πολλά για το παρελθόν του, ζει και εργάζεται με τους απογόνους εξερευνητών που παγιδεύτηκαν σε αυτό το σύμπαν με τη συντριπτική βαρύτητα, αλλά η ιστορία τους αν ήταν ποτέ γνωστή, έχει χαθεί.

Το βιβλίο, παίρνει τον τίτλο του από το απομεινάρι κάποιοι διαστημόπλοιου που πλέον αντιπροσωπεύει μια… σχεδία για την εναπομείνασα και όχι ακριβώς ακμάζουσα ανθρωπότητα σε αυτό το σύμπαν.

Ο Ρης, φιλοπερίεργος, γενναίος και με δίψα για γνώση, θα γνωρίσει πολλές από τις παράξενες πτυχές του τον κόσμο στον οποίο βρίσκεται, τα παράδοξα για εμάς φυσικά φαινόμενα, τις σχεδόν ακατανόητες για εμάς μορφές ζωής μισοεξερευνώντας μισο…προσπαθώντας να επιβιώσει, σε μια πολύ ενδιαφέρουσα ιστορία (και καθόλου φειδωλή σε τεχνικές λεπτομέρειες), που σέβεται όμως απόλυτα και την τήρηση της επιστημονικής λογικής, το φυσικό ορθολογισμό και παίζει μόνο με τις παραμέτρους θεμελιωδών δυνάμεων (κάτι που ωστόσο είναι αρκετό).

Παρ’ ό,τι αποκτά συνέχειες η σειρά Xeelee (δυο-τρεις εξ αυτών είναι εξίσου διαμαντάκια), το Raft έχει μια ξεχωριστή θέση στην καρδιά μου και σαν ιστορία και σαν κρίκος σύνδεσης διαφορετικών γενεών Sci-Fi λογοτεχνίας. Κάτι σαν γέφυρα ανάμεσα στη γενιά του Κλαρκ και του Ασίμωφ με τη γενιά των Peter F. Hamilton και Alastair Reynolds, πατώντας γερά και στις δύο όχθες, έχει την ποιότητα του παρελθόντος και την λογοτεχνική επάρκεια ή τις ενδιαφέρουσες πλοκές των επιγόνων.

Δεν είναι το απόλυτο μυθιστόρημα Hard-SF, αλλά αυτό, ευτυχώς δεν έχει ακόμα γραφτεί…

TBC...

[Joseph Wright · Rating 3 out of 5]

My previous experience of Baxter's work has been his Manifold Time series and Destiny's Children series which I read in the early 10's. I don't remember too much about them except being impressed by the scale of the work and the detail in them.

The Xeelee Sequence is his main series, the one which I didn't read all those years ago and decided to pick up now. A grand story spanning the history of the universe, or that's at least what people say.

This is true to a degree but an inaccurate representation of the series collected here. What you get is a series of wildly imaginative, bizarre and trippy scenarios that the characters of the story must guide their way through. The first story, Raft, alone features floating space trees and cosmic whales.

The titular antagonist of the series, the mysterious Xeelee, aren't even mentioned throughout most of these 900 pages. They are dealt with mostly in the last story, Ring, and even then there's little direct confrontation. The books instead deal with another threat to humanity, the Qax (and briefly mentioned Squeem), an inhuman alien race who enslave mankind and strip them of their advanced life-lengthening technology.

The situations and imagery are really out there and the characters are interesting but sometimes the language Baxter uses is a little opaque at times, his concepts a little too difficult to follow in any meaningful way. This leads to confusing ideas about places and situations, and makes the work rather tiring to read. However when things click there are interesting enough stories for anyone interested in this style of jargon heavy hard sci-fi.

[Andy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read books 1 - 4 (Raft, Timelike Infintiy, Flux, Ring) and then books 16 and 17 (Xeelee: Vengeance and Xeelee: Redemption). I'd love to read "Vacuum Diagrams" but I can't find it anywhere!

The universe(s) Baxter creates are breathtakingly vast. Without spoiling anything, the way he writes stories for such distant future are both engaging and very creative. Several of the books take a while to fully describe what/where the main characters are and Baxter does this slight of hand trick with ease. When those revelations hit it's always a fantastic "Oh that is such a cool idea" moment where many of the pieces fall into place creating something bigger.

My biggest gripe with the series is the over reliance on the Poole family, but I can understand why. It really helps to tie all these vastly distant/different stories from one another.

If you're looking for a non-linear sci-fi series to read that is fairly easy to follow, I would recommend any of these books. You really do not have to read them in order.

[Thom · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stephen Baxter is a pretty big name in sci-fi, and the Xeelee Sequence is almost certainly his most famous set of books (at least, writing alone - the Long Earth series are probably more famous), and diving into this omnibus was one hell of a way to dive into it. 4 books and 900 pages, it's an intimidating tome, and took me over 2 months to get through, but it was so worth it. The Xeelee Sequence is the definition of hard sci-fi, a universe where the rules of physics are stubborn and absolute, and their effects are the driving factor behind the mechanisms of the plot. It's deep, verging on incomprehensible at times, but Baxter managed to sell me on everything, and convince me of the logic of the universe. The books themselves have their ups and downs, of course, and they seem barely connected at first, but the way it all comes together by the end is just phenomenal. This wasn't an easy read, at times, being very dense, but I've never been more happy to power through that difficulty.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

This omnibus is a mixed bag of novels. The novels themselves are the earliest of Baxter's career, and represent a period when he was learning to become a better writer. The first three novels are filled with tropes and dull characters, and it is only in the fourth novel that Baxter's talents show improvement. (The differences and growth are so dramatic that I suspect he may have had assistance from a ghost writer and/or a strong editor or two.)

Of the four novels in this collection, I would only recommend the second and fourth to another reader of science fiction. The second novel, Timelike Infinity, is dully presented, but it does neatly use a focal point in Baxter's Xeelee sequence to layout a timeline of the entire history. The fourth book, Ring, then neatly encapsulates the previous books and tells a fairly interesting 'big science' story.

[Mort · Rating 1 out of 5]

Honestly one of the most painfully tedious books I’ve ever read. I came for the ideas and high concept sci fi, and the ideas are interesting, but the execution is so atrocious that I struggled to finish each page anew. Characters are unrealistic and unlikable, tone is dull and often needlessly wordy just for the sake of trying to sound smart in a way that decreases clarity in what was already a dense read. Overall i do not feel like this book contributed positively to my life. If you want good Stephen Baxter i recommend The Time Ships or the Long Earth. Despite its reputation, this ain’t it chief.

[Jamie Bridle · Rating 2 out of 5]

I stopped reading this as I didn't like the style. Clearly written by an older man with an engineering headset; that is to say, flat emotionless characters being pushed around a chessboard. This style of writing was probably great back in the day but pretty out of touch now. The only female character in the story is of course described via her looks while the males are described more via their character. The female character is objectified. I got no time for this.

[Konrad · Rating 5 out of 5]

This omnibus too a long time to read, and parts of it were quite slow, but it was worth it in the end. I was made aware of this after reading Cixin Liu's books, but the scope of those pales in comparison to this masterpiece. Sure, the characters are fairly uniformly terrible, and there are some plot holes, but none of that really matters. The "universe building" here is magnificent, and the scale is just breathtaking.

[Lee Belbin · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit scattered and cryptic at times, but a fair example of a big "what if...?". In this case, the novellas center around the idea of evolution under two separate scenarios - ongoing war and a small population on a starship. Not sure I buy either scenarios as both have serious holes and inconsistencies.

[Ian Massey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ooof! That was hard work. Probably the hardest SF novel/series I've read and, being honest, there were chunks of it that I really didn't understand. Not that I didn't enjoy it - it liked the slow reveals of what was actually going on, the huge vistas of the far-future Solar System and the ideas (those I did understand).

[Patrick Scheele · Rating 2 out of 5]

Raft: 2 stars
The science isn't nearly as hard as it pretends to be, but that's not this story's biggest problem. The biggest problem is that the ending pretends to be a happy one, but it clearly isn't. These people have exactly one useful way of getting food, their food dispensers. They have one left in the end, even though it was already made clear they need at least two to keep everyone they brought in the ship fed. That means they are stuck with a small population, dependent on their single, aging food dispenser. There is no happy ending, they just postponed death for a few generations. Their only hope would be to make more food dispensers, but their tech level isn't nearly high enough and unlikely to rise considering all the stuff they lost in their escape.

Timelike Infinity: 1 star
This story had great potential. Humanity is under the yoke of an alien species and has little hope of ever getting its freedom back. But then, a centuries old human space ship returns to the solar system with a scientific experiment started in the days when Earth was still free: one end of a wormhole, the other end of which is in the past. One group of humans have been preparing for this for centuries and launch a ship that races through the gate, blindsiding the aliens... A brilliant start, I couldn't wait to find out what happened next. First of all, this group, the friends of Wigner, does nothing. They're not interested at all in changing history. They just wanted the freedom to... well, send a message to their philosophical version of a god or something. For some unexplained reason, they don't even bother to close the gate, so obviously the future aliens send through a few ships. These ships are way more advanced than anything the humans have, but because humans have plot immunity, they manage to easily destroy both of them. Then the superdupergenius (aka Baxter's avatar) closes the gate. Apparently in the end, nobody bothers to change the timeline, everything happens as it always had, meaning billions of people were killed. But, through dumb luck, in the future humans do beat the aliens.

Yes, you read that right. This is a story of time travel, where nothing actually gets accomplished or changed because of the time traveling. The writer even ignores the massive changes the attack from the future would have made to the timeline all by itself. And that is why, in spite of a great beginning, this story gets 1 star and I doubt I'll ever read a Baxter novel again after I finish this omnibus.

Flux 1 star
After reading a few reviews on this one, I decided to just skim it. The whole setting of artificial lifeforms inside a star makes very little sense.

Ring 2 stars
Again Baxter comes up with a great setup for a story, but completely ruins it. Let me count the ways:
1) The intriguing time travel plot is ruined because some primitive ends up destroying the wormhole they spent 5 million years setting up as a doorway into the past. Mission: fail.
2) Anything interesting that happens in the universe happened before the mission ends up at its destination. So, we only get a few clues of what may or may not have happened. We never get much in the way of answers, except near the end inside a bunch of sciencebabble.
3) Baxter is way too in love with the sun and stars in general. He doesn't just show off his astronomy-textbook-reading skills, he constantly breaks the flow of the story for lush, lengthy and romantic descriptions of the sun. Dull, dull, DULL!
4) A society capable of building an AI that can stay sane for 5 million years decides to send thousands of people on a 1000 year journey instead with the inevitable consequence that everything goes wrong. Dumb.
5) In the end the day (and humanity) is saved by... the same annoying twit from Timelike Infinity. Deus ex Machina.
6) Once again, the Xeelee play no part in the story. There's only a photo-op near the end where they don't do anything but let Baxter wax poetically about their cool ships.

To sum up the whole book: the most intriguing thing in it are the Xeelee. However, this "Xeelee Omnibus" contains almost no Xeelee at all. It wasn't worth reading.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

Amazing big ideas often strung out with wooden characters and dull plots.

[db · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved the science, the unexpected plot twists and endearing characters. Evocative world building.

[Paschalis]

elibrary

[Andre · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 books in 1!
It was cute how he incorporated Flux and Raft into Ring.

[Fredric Rice · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a good romp through time and space.

[Will · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic collection of novels and a great introduction to the series! I’d absolutely recommend to fans of hard scifi and space opera, I truly cannot praise it enough!

[Sheldon Locke · Rating 5 out of 5]

it's hard to believe, but a 900 page book held me rapt for its entirety. Just wonderful.

[Ford · Rating 5 out of 5]

While some of these entries into the series are more interesting than others, this omnibus as a whole is great reading.

[Ian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyable and the scope is impressive but the writing is uneven and characterisation is a bit golden age with at least one of the book having a woman being rescued by her ex-husband. To be fair, it reflects the time that they were written and I would still recommend dipping into the series. I thought there was a lot of inventiveness especially in Raft and I also enjoyed Ring for its hubris.

[Shiveen · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a great set of stories and intro to the Xelee universe. One of the best pieces of science fiction I have read this year but some of the stories felt like I just kept wasting my time in them.

[AJ Nelson · Rating 5 out of 5]

My only experience before this with Baxter was Titan, which I did not like at all. But, I'm glad I gave him another chance because the Xeelee books are great. Though, if you go for this Omnibus... it's not in the best reading order, read up on that before you start.

[Mårten Ericson · Rating 4 out of 5]

As promised the "Xeelee, an Omnibus" takes place on a cosmic scale. Since it is a collection of four books (Raft, Timelike Infinity, Flux and Ring) it's hard to put one single rating on it. So, I will try to give one for each. However first some remarks on Stephen Baxter's writing in general.

Stephen writes what is called hard SF. Science is deeply embedded into the stories. I like this, in fact I love it. However sometimes the prose gets overwhelmed by Baxter's want to explain and the explanation becomes almost as a tutoring schoolbook on cosmology. This is especially apparent in the last book - Ring (also the best) - where he sometimes manage to get me irritated while failing to get all the information into the story in an interesting way. As for language Baxter is a skilled author though he has some weird fascination for words like "shit" and "fart".

Now lets look at the different parts.

Raft: A strange story set in a strange universe. Since this is the opening book in the Omnibus I was surprised to see something completely different from what reviews had said Xeelee to be. "Raft" will surely test you on what kind of universe you are willing to accept in you SF-reading. British and human 1900's society is obviously the inspiration somewhere in the background. It does not take a rocket scientist to make out the social hierarchies in 80's Britain. I could smell "mining strikes" a long way, there is also a Pol Pot-like revolution involved. It has a very nice ending though. The book gets 3 stars.

Timelike Infinity: Now it's getting interesting and I understand the reviews I've read on before hand. This is really Good hard SF traversing both time and space. It takes place during the Qax occupation of Earth sometime in the distant future and the story unfolds on different timelines and alternative versions of our universe. The book is a clear 4 star:er.

Flux: Oh dear my old gods! This is a strange book. A primitive civilization of human descendants hidden inside a neutron star where they hunt boars and have pigs that propell themselves in the weightlessness with neutrino farts. Again society is failing and somewhere at the horizon Xeelee operations is threatening to destroy their world. Somehow they manage to get contact with a wormhole leading to the "ur-humans" supposedly living in the heart of the star. This was too much for me, I give the book 2 stars. After reading Timelike Infinity this read made me severely disappointed.

Ring: As a whole, simply superb hard SF on a cosmological scale. The story spans over millions of years in a failing universe. It has everything, primitives riding alien technology, time travel, dimensional travel, AI's living inside Sol, cosmological constructs, a war as old as the universe, the last remnants of humanity, Xeelee and so forth. If you have never heard of String-theory before, you will know a lot about after reading Ring.

However Ring has some drawbacks. One being the overly explanatory ambition of Baxter. He want's to get every detail in there and he fails sometimes to make it into prose. I can see a lack of editorial work here, someone at the publishers house should have seen this. Baxter also has the annoying habit of repeating him self in the text. I don't knot how many times the "Xeelee nightfighter spreads its wings" - it might be five or ten times in a very short time-span, in fact it can happen several times on a single page. This happens again and again and again. Again - there is obviously an absent editor here somewhere.

In the end the massiveness of this cosmological SF nullifies these drawbacks but it puts the book on 4 neutrino stars, and not five. Story wise "Ring" is definitely one of the most interesting hard SF stories I've read so far in my less than cosmological life of 40 years.

So 3+4+2+4 makes 4 right? :) The excellence of "Ring" saves the day!