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Exultant
Exultant is not a direct sequel to Coalescent, in that it doesn't pick up the story of George Poole and continue it. The concept of coalescence plays little part in this new novel -- so anyone expecting more of the same may be disappointed, but not for long. Once you start reading Exultant, it quickly becomes clear that the Destiny's Children novels are part of the Xeelee sequence (something that was not obvious in the first novel). The Xeelee sequence is a future history, mapped out by Baxter, in which humanity spreads out from Earth; is crushed and enslaved; frees itself; and in a much harder and violent form begins to assimilate and destroy other alien cultures, all the while being unaware of the larger and more important cosmic battle being fought all around it.
At the opening of Exultant, humanity is close to the end of its third wave of assimilation. It has spread across the galaxy crushing everything in its way -- even the mysterious and powerful Xeelee have retreated into the core of the galaxy. The whole of human society is held together unchanged across millions of light-years and billions of worlds by the Druz doctrines -- ruthless rules intended to keep humanity conquering and to punish any deviations from the human norm. The result is a human society turned into a colossal war machine, dedicated to one aim: the destruction of its last enemy, the Xeelee. But the war machine has been stalled for thousands of years. The Xeelee have no intention of leaving the galactic core, and their advanced technology (nightfighters constructed out of flaws in space-time itself) and ability to manipulate time means that every human assault is repelled easily. Trillions of human lives are wasted by hurling themselves at Xeelee defenses ... and it goes on and on. A war machine with billions of worlds full of generations of soldiers barely in their teens born in tanks and dying in thousand-year-long projects aimed at smashing the Xeelee, and knowing nothing but training, the doctrines and death. Whether in a coalescent hive or a not, it seems most human lives are spent in an empty drone-like struggle governed by simple rules -- indeed this message pervades the novel. In Coalescent the rules governing the eusocial society were:
Sisters matter more than daughters.
Ignorance is strength.
Listen to your sisters.
In Exultant the rules are the Druz doctrines, with a key part being 'A brief life burns brightly.'
In the middle of this multi-millennial slaughter, a young pilot, Pirius, and his crew decide to disobey doctrine and instead of throwing their lives away in a pointless heroic gesture they try a bold strategy. As a result they capture a Xeelee nightfighter, which is the first significant development in the war for hundreds of generations. Naturally, the rigid doctrinal bureaucracy chooses to prosecute him rather than promote him -- but with a twist. Thanks to his faster than light travel, Pirius has arrived back a few years before he left. Time is a malleable thing in this war and meeting oneself isn't unusual.
He arrives back to find himself still in training, and both Piriuses must be punished: one for breaking doctrine and the other to make sure he doesn't in future. His saviour is a strange Earth commissioner (part of the powerful bureaucracy controlling the war effort) who is desperate for a way to unlock the stalemate with the Xeelee and bring to an end the waste of life. He needs someone willing to step outside the rules -- even if it is only a little at first. So begins the split story of Pirius Red and Pirius Blue. One sent to a punishment camp to train as Xeelee cannon fodder, and the other taken back to Earth to see a solar system radically changed by alien occupation, thousands of years of industrial activity and a society at the core of the war effort that is not as doctrinally pure as he'd been brought up to believe.
No-one will ever accuse Stephen Baxter of thinking small. His Xeelee sequence novels are set in a universe teeming with life since the first fraction of a second after the Big Bang -- and indeed before that -- and a war that has raged between dark matter life-forms and baryonic life such as the Xeelee (with humans as a self-destructive nuisance ignorant of the larger conflict), for most of that time.
Exultant is a story of individual human courage and brilliance, and collective human stupidity and self-destruction. Those who dislike Baxter's work (and there are some!) because it is pessimistic about humanity as a whole will find nothing to change their minds here. On the other hand, anyone looking for hard science-fiction of breathtaking scope and bursting with invention and ideas will love it. Personally, I'm looking forward to seeing where he goes with the next part. One advantage of following Baxter's work is that you rarely have long to wait between novels.
You can purchase Exultant from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
If they spread out from earth and the galaxy is the milky way, then it's only 100,000 light years. Not millions.
From the review " Time is a malleable thing in this war and meeting oneself isn't unusual." Uhoh.. I am in a infinite loop.. mass cloning of myself.. here I come..
That's what's kept me away from hard scifi since forever.
His Manifold series (Manifold Space, Time & Origin) are simply too good. I've not read the Destiny's Children series, but if it's anything like his other works, I can be sure it would be damn cool.
And anyone else notice that Wikipedia is awfully slow or down these days? I wonder why.
Hah, I must admit I was chuckling as I read through this, part of me wondering how this ended up on the front page of Slashdot - but hey, it was better than another dupe.
Some choice snippets really looked great though, especially this one:
Naturally, the rigid doctrinal bureaucracy chooses to prosecute him rather than promote him -- but with a twist.
I liked that. Take a standard literary cliche, but add a 'twist'. Well, it all certainly sounds like a 'tiwst' on convention, what with all the scifi jargon and strange sounding alien names. I know that sounds flippant, but it is cool. I must admit, this following part was funny though too:
One advantage of following Baxter's work is that you rarely have long to wait between novels.
Hah, is that an advantage.. or a disadvantage?
Sounds a little unoriginal and.. weird. But hey, who am I to condemn a book that I haven't read. Oh, slashdot. Maybe if I see it in the bookstore I'll pick it up, I'll see what other readers say.
"There's no success like failure, and failure's no success at all."
- Bob Dylan
You see, Pirius is gay, and chapter 14 is when he meets himself and, well, I won't spoil it, but skip chapter 14.
The review makes the book sound like an enormous dystopia: I have seen the future, and it is horrible. Dystopias succeed, when they do, by pointing out dangerous trends in the present, and showing what could happen if they're allowed to grow unchecked. Nothing in the review gives any suggestion of that, and without the insight into today, a dystopia is simply depressing and morose. Even so, it's a good review, because it told me exactly why I personally wouldn't want to read this. If you're interested in this type of thing, I hope you enjoy it.
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I've read Manifold Time and Manifold Space, and while interesting, they didn't really engage me. The two books of his that I've read and really enjoyed were The Time Ships, his authorized sequel to H.G. Wells' The Time Machine, and Vacuum Diagrams, a collection of short stories set in the Xeelee Sequence mentioned in the review.
I found this to be a very enjoyable book with many fresh concepts. You don't need to read the first book.
There's your PvE and PvP options. There's your mindless hordes of PCs grinding their way to mastery. There's your Galactic War that's a perpetual stalemate.
And there's your 10,000,000 year story arc (Baxter's universe, FTL/time travel), followed by an opportunity for a player or two per month to break the mold and change the universe for the next time around, and punctuated by new content whenever Baxter writes some more backstory in the form of another novel.
Unlike every MMORPG universe to date, Baxter's sounds like an interesting universe to live in, even if your marketing department says "don't forget to put in a treadmill for the powergrinder set". And unlike most serial SF (or SciFi, or fantasy) works, it also sounds like a universe that's close enough to a game environments MMORPG designers are capable of making. Anyone crazy enough to steal some concepts? Maybe even steal Baxter himself?
Destiny's Children after great illness the children are back in action!
I'm somewhat skeptical of hives for humans because of the differences between human genetic structures and the genetic structures of true hive makers (Hymenopterans e.g., bees, ants, and wasps).
The hive construct arose in these insects because of a unique genetic quirk called haplodiploidy -- females are diploid (getting 2 copies of each chromosome, one from each parent) and males are haploid (getting a single copy of each chromosome from the mother only). This quirk makes females more related to their sisters than to their own daughters. If a bee, ant or wasp "wants" to be selfish, it foregoes having its own offspring and raises sisters. This creates the basis for a very strong social bond in which individuals maximize their own fitness by belonging to a group. Humans have no such genetic basis -- the bond for sociality is limited to a more transactional trade of social tit-for-tat.
I like Stephen Baxter and will have to read this series to see if/how he addresses this issue.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
I really enjoyed how the Regina and George threads finally merged in the first book. Baxter is one of those authors who is good at keeping a lot of things going on at once without getting lost.
I'm looking forward to reading the rest.
Credo sim. - I think I am.
Probably just like any other eusocial society? With an egg laying queen, sterile female workers, and mouthless drones who live just long enough to mate? For a neat mammal example of this structure, see Nake mole rats.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
Exultant is the second part of his Destiny's Children series (no Beyonce jokes, please).
You're obviously not ready for that jelly.
What's reading? I spend too much time playing EverQuest.
Shush. Don't give the neo-cons any new ideas...
Exultant is the second part of his Destiny's Children series (no Beyonce jokes, please).
Oops.
Buy it from amazon instead and make me money!
Come on, we're all grown ups (well, some of us are)...doesn't anyone read anything outside of the scifi and fantasy realm???
Look at the titties on these naked mole rats
Now available for your perverted pleasure, rubber naked mole rats!
I suggest you all read Gregory Benford's (hard core sci-fi) Galactic Center series. Mr. Baxter obviously did. -karl http://karlfrinkle.net
-karl says 'disregard the spelling and grammar mistakes!'
Who gives a toss about stupid sci fi book written by some 10th rate author.
Give me Beyonce's butt instead.
I was just about to post to /. in order to try to get another Score 5, Funny, when all of the sudden I received an email from myself.
Now, this is very dubious, since no one on my LAN would spoof an email to me. So I read it, and it said "Dear null etc., I know this sounds strange, but I am you, and must warn you (or me, for that matter) that you should not post to /. and get another Score 5, Funny. If you do (and I did, that's why I'm warning you), the consequences will be dire, and the overall quality of the posts on /. will decline."
So I quickly deleted my post and sent this one instead. Now, I'll wait patiently and hope I don't get Score 5, Funny.
At least Wikipedia agrees..
"While it is increasingly common to place AD after a date, by analogy to the use of BC, formal English usage adheres to the traditional practice of placing the abbreviation before the year, as in Latin (e.g., 100 BC, but AD 100)."
and she's good value too, at $2.99 for a quickie.
I've read 4 Baxter novels and found them thoroughly uninteresting. The story concepts were excellent, which kept me going back to try another. The writing was bland and uninteresting and the story never seemed to get anywhere. All the actual story where the concept is explored was compressed into the final chapter or two of the book. Everything up to that was people travelling here and there, being involved with unimportant and uninteresting side plots. The actual story was compressed into the last 2 chapters during which events progressed in a whirlwind.
Anybody else feel the same about Baxter's books? It's been a few years since I read one, and maybe I would view them differently. Is it worth trying another?
Stop the Slashdot Effect! Don't read the articles!
Suffice to say it involves a knife and the first instance of a human engaging in auto-necrophilia.
ewwwwwwww!
But it was original.
I prefer 400 C.E. thanks
Cthulhu loves you.
"I'm somewhat skeptical of hives for humans because of the differences between human genetic structures and the genetic structures of true hive makers (Hymenopterans e.g., bees, ants, and wasps). "
The basis for a hive society doesn't have to have a genetic basis.* Technology will do nicely. Even chemical messengers could be a basis.
*Some might even argue that some asian societies are a primitive form of hive.
"For the same reason that Slashdot does not talk about a lot of other stuff - topics that do not interest the general demography of the readers of nerd/geek population would attract far too few folks."
Hey! Anyone want to discuss "How to get a woman"?
"The actual story was compressed into the last 2 chapters during which events progressed in a whirlwind. "
You might want to wait till the last two books.
How does b******* sound. This word doesnt even exist never mind the "social" consequences of trying to get ppl to agree to being so. If you want to use eusocial then firstly look at the implications of the word you have just created. After that then look at the implications of having used a letter group such as EU, its like me using EA and not considering that theres a company / community that relates its identity to that acronym. Meanwhile, Europe and Britain goes to sleep and aint so bothered bout yer poor comment ;)
meanwhile perhaps the usocial contract calls for something which we euro's aint found yet, possibly known as the capability of thinking for ourselves...
Stephen Baxter is amongst the hardest of the hard sci-fi writers. I read a review of Coalescent, and in it, the reviewer described the end of the book as set in "a typical Baxterian universe". To me, there's no better way to describe it.
Exultant, to me, is a story that could read as one of Baxter's masterpieces, if only he got a few more elements right. (Alas, that's not the first time I've thought that of his stories). The narrative often doesn't flow well, sometimes cutting to dry physics lectures, and feeling like a disjoint list of tasks that must be done, filling in time until we make it to the climax, which seems rushed. Also, there seem to me to be some fairly obvious plot holes... for instance, his faster-than-light travel doesn't create time paradoxes except at the beginning of the story, where it's a plot device.
This is only a loose sequel to Coalescent, with some recurring themes. It's a very different book (as you may guess: one is set in Roman Britain and the other is 20,000 years in the future) but it also has a strong focus on hard physics. Some of this is at the expense of the characters... for instance, Baxter really needs to work on his romance writing, or (for preference) leave it out. But the action scenes were done well, and you really get the sense of the vast human empire and the insignifance of one little life.
But the central theme, A brief life burns brightly, is strong, and Baxter explores it well. As usual, he's got plenty of fascinating ideas, like how life may have proliferated in the deep past, causing some events that we've otherwise put down to straight, lifeless physics...
Even after all that? I'm hooked. I'm re-reading the story, and I haven't read anything from the Xeelee Sequence up until now, but that's next on the list.
call it what you want, but it's still based on Jesus. But that's ok, he loves you
"Stephen Baxter is a remarkably prolific British hard science-fiction author -- one of many that have come to prominence in Britain over the last ten years or so. Exultant is the second part of his Destiny's Children series (no Beyonce jokes, please)."
...you said "hard"... huhuhuh
Uh huh huh huh,
from a reformed sci fi fan.
The eu- prefix in 'eusocial' isn't a reference to europe. It's a latin-derived prefix meaning 'true' - hence, a eusocial society is truly social, rather than having only sporadic social behaviour between selfish individuals as our current society does.
For comparison, see 'eukaryote' ('true nucleus'), 'eugenics' ('true genes'), etc.
Am I the only one who gets annoyed by the use of C.E. and B.C.E. in place of A.D. and B.C.? It's not for any religious reasons - I couldn't care less about them - but it's a pointless change of an established standard that only creates additional confusion.
I'm going to have to check out this book. Personally I believe a hive-like state is the only long term survivable state for humanity, even though I don't like the idea. Any society with freedom of individual thought and action will self-destruct when technology advances to the point where free individuals can wield enough power to destroy it.
Science fiction involving high-tech freedom fighters doesn't usually address the question of what happens after the Death Star blows up. At least in Star Wars we got to see that the Empire simply built another one. Surely it's obvious that various people will keep figuring out how to do the same thing. Eventually one of them will win, and once is all it takes.
Write a review of something else and submit it.
What about them? What's the corresponding case with the rats?
I heard people raving about Titan, so I gave it a read.
It was one of the worst books I ever suffered through. Totally unbeliveable plot, uninteresting, cardboard characters, bad, bad science and a deus ex machina ending that made no sense at all. A little bit better than Peter Hamilton-level dreck, but not much.
I've avoided almost all of his stuff since, but the little I've read afterwards hasn't improved my opinion. Can a Baxter fan suggest something that might change my mind?
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
Evolution by Baxter is probably one of the best SF books I have read (starts 65 million years ago and goes to the end of earth). Highly recommended
Why not DP and AP - During Paganism and After Paganism? BCE, etc. is arbitrary, political, and annoying. It was called BC and AD by the people who set the standard - change the name when you change the standard, rather than trying to pull some sneaky double-speak bullshit.
Having read practically every manor scifi book/series and every significant fiction work available during my lifetime, I can tell you that by far the more meaningful fiction has been outside of scifi. Some scifi does have messaging beyond the geekspehere (Heinlein), but mostly we're talking about stuff you should have left behind when you were fifteen.
Termites are eusocial and diploid, not haplodiploid. Naked mole rats are also eusocial and diploid, as other posters mentioned.
:P
There are a lot of non-social haplodiploid wasps and bees, too. Some races of European honeybees have cheating workers that try to lay their own eggs for the other workers to raise instead of the queen's eggs.
Other factors such as overlap of generations and group defense may be more important than chromosome count in the evolution of eusociality.
Personally, I think humans are more likely to spin off a strain of social parasites than become eusocial.
Not sure if I should read the book or not, though undoubtedly I will end up doing so because there aren't that many talented sf writers broadly published, and because the review said it was in the Xeelee universe full of invention.
Coalescent was an extremely frustrating book to read for someone who loves hard sf, speculative and "Golden Years of SF" style philosophical versions like Heinlein, Van Vogt, etc.
After a long time of waiting for the other shoe to drop in Coalescent and the "real" sf story to start, I gave up being bored to tears and worked hard at getting into what was the only "historical" (well historical fantasy) novel I have read since maybe A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.
I ended up liking the history part but found the ages long saga interminable and stifling . Sure the hive idea was cool but it could have made a series of short stories or a hard sf novel on its own, I thought. Hear's hoping that that is exactly what the new book is. Sounds a bit like Riddick though!
Matt R.
For another interesting take on the hive mind read "The Light of Other Days", co-written by Arthur C. Clark and Stephen Baxter. The hive mind concept is only a small part of the book, but the entire book is very readable and thought provoking.
>and it applies whether you've chosen the side of America 2.0 or Allah 0.9
Some of us have chosen secularism and liberal democracy. We must be crazy not to participate in the "USA is #1" vs "Allah will punish" you nonsense the right wing has framed as a easy and pathetic frame to explain various extra-legal adventuring overseas.
I've never heard of the Xeelee series before, but the plot seems very similar to Last And First Men by Olaf Stapledon, a very ambitious novel from 1930, a Sci-Fi classic.
Not saying that's a bad thing... in fact, if Baxter has been influenced greatly by someone as wonderful as Stapledon, then the books are probably excellent, and I think I'll check them out.