The origin of space and time. (Stephen Baxter in general)

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Product:	Stephen Baxter in general
Date:	11/04/02 (11 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Hes the man, This catorgory is shot

Disadvantages: The worse of the three

While Arthur C Clarke has been sunning himself and remembering his youth in Sri Lanka, the author of this one has taken over the mantle in my opinion as the number one British sci-fi writer. Although this third book in a trilogy is not his best work, its definitely a good transcript of his extreme talent.
If you havent read Time and the second book Space then you shouldn't put this one high on your shopping list. Read those first to get the line of the trilogy and the relevance of the characters.

Where as the first book in Time explored the apparent limitations of the universe through time travel and basic physics that explain why we are here. This one questions our evolution through fictitious hypothesis that we are of Alien DNA and that we were dumped here rather than evolved from the apes.
This of course is as heretic as you can get this side of, The life of Brian and would perhaps not appeal to the religious members of our book reading community. Did you know that 40% of American schools still teach the biblical form of evolution over Darwins more feasible theory.


Charismatic NASA astronaught legend Ried Malefant is back from his previous time hopping space explorations in book one and two with strangely little knowledge of them in this read though. Yet this is described as the third book in the trilogy so expect it all to fall into place at the end.
The Japanese scientist Namoto that features heavily in "Space" is also here and also unaware of the previous adventures, again you can see where im going with this.
The intricacies of time travel demand complex plots and readers im afraid.

His wife in Emma Stoney is back to also suffering from event horizon memory loss of previous and therefore future events as the two are again thrown into trouble. The blue time rings again re appear mysteriously as Emma and Malefant are investigating a UFO over Africa. Turbulence sucks Stoney into the ring, l
eaving the brooding macho space jock left behind. While the time gate loop is still open, strange humanoid like creatures fall to Earth from another dimension, it seems.
As the misses is thrown into another world and dimension, Reid is left on Earth and the loss of his wife and soul mate is not his only problem. After the time event, a weird new blood red moon has replaced the old one and is messing up the tides and the planets ecology.

The imposing lunar portent is calling to the burnt out astronaught and drawing him into another adventure. He has to persuade the US presidency that hes the man to explore the new moon and save the Earth from the catastrophic tidal waves and ocean displacement.
The young scientist in Namoto goes along on the mission in search of answers and Rieds girl. The launch is OK,d as the duo are blasted off on what could be a one way ticket.
What ever is up there waiting for them holds the future of mankind and a possible route to another understanding of our planets history and relevance in the big picture.

The moon shot itself is described as trying to catch a bullet in your teeth whilst riding a rollercoaster as the landing window was tighter than Gordon Browns prudence.
Also on the planet are other humans sucked into the strange portal and strange sub species not quite of this timeline.
The days are 30 hours long and the air thin, and the gravity thinner. But every hour counts as that alien moons gravitational pull is lifting the Earths crust and tides every day.

The book then explores the cave men and their different rates of evolution with whole chapters tediously dissected for each group, as they converge for the books climax. Theres definitely a hint of the British class system here as the author feels the need to "order" the species on the rock. You will see what I mean when you read it.
Although the collections of knuckle draggers are seemingly stupid, ironically th
e biggest Neanderthals off all who move on all fours turn out to e the brightest. Bit like Graham Lesaux at Chelsea.
It also has another pop at religion through Baxters scientific upbringing and atheism by saying all men of low intellect, as on the moon, need some sort of fictitious God to lead and discipline them.

The British author has also thrown in the typical old eccentric English guy on the nomadic moon that I presume is him. He treats the knuckle draggers like Kaffirs in South Africa with assigning tasks and a dictatorship.
Im sure theres some sort of statement there about God and that biblical evolution Mr Baxter!. His projected persona of himself in the epic even has a pop at the French who annoyingly exists in the parallel universes to!.

Are all that are stranded on this strange and fertile moon somehow interconnected. And will the juxtaposition that's tumbling at them unexpectedly resolve the way back to everyones own time and home.
The secret is in alternate universes that one particular group of travelers use to their advantage.
Apparently all of the life forms dumped here through the portal came from alternate Earths of the same age, but of slightly different evolution to cover all possibilities.
This is the theory that the more established quantum physicists use to explain the paradox that you cant go back and kill your mum so you wernt born. An infinite number of alternate universes allows for this in theoretical quantum science.

Will Ried find Emma who are running with separate packs of simpletons find each other. Will they get of this desolate existence and get back to their Earth. Or does the secret of the moon lie just beyond the horizon.
Is the Fermi paradox that runs through the three books as a theme the ultimate truth in this trilogy. It preaches that the current size of the known universe there has been enough time for a thousand alien empires to colonize it. Therefore disallows
the possibility of alien life forms, else they would be here already. Which means its up to humans to colonize the entire cosmos and we will only meet ourselves in the future in other forms and states of evolution.

Its all interesting stuff built around a rather bland story line as the author explores this theory and more in the context of what we know, and how his brilliant mind sees it shaping up..
But theres no disguising to the readers of the first two books that this is the worst one. The action of putting chapters aside for the cave men talk are tedious and help to speed up the read by flicking over them, and at times you need that in this four hundred and fifty page read. It seems to amble along at the pace of David Beckhams brain reading Janet and John.
He does explore some interesting theorem and ideas as ever and you always will learn something from this guys intellect and imagination.

One such freaky fact is that if you are able to slice any electron, that orbits all neutrons in an atom. The other half can exists just about anywhere else in space and time.
One such experiment in real life did this test and found identical halves in two different labs and countries that obviously belonged together. Think about that for a moment and the mind starts bending like the forth dimension,(except the England captains of course).

My humble advice is to read the trilogy in order, with the first book in Time and the second Space, hence the clever title. Time is fascinating, as is Space, although they are very intense and intellectual that will leave you brighter ones in awe and the rest of us confused.
This book doesnt quite bring closure to the series though.
I have reviewed the other two in this excellent trilogy so take a look if your interested in the full 1400 pages of sci-fi, time travelling, universe exploring, mineral mining adventure.

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