Xeelee: An Omnibus: Raft, Timelike Infinity, Flux, Ring by Stephen Baxter (2010-03-18)

With almost 900 pages, this for sure is a book for hard-core sci-fi readers, specially thoses familiar with Stephen Baxter.The book includes 4 novels of Baxter’s Xeelee Sequence: Raft, Timelike Infinity, Flux and Ring. Each one of them is an independent piece but, if read in sequence, allow the reader to connect the dots of this majestic creation.In short, the Xeelee Sequence is a cosmological framework that scientifically “explains” the history and evolution of the universe. It’s extremely rich, but probably the most relevant feature of this history is the long war between baryonic civilizations (of which the Xeelee are the most advanced, although Mankind eventually tries to challenge Xeelee dominance) and a dark matter civilization (the “photino birds”). This war spans millions of year, and involves manipulation of celestial bodies from both sides (i.e. use of galaxies as weapons, acceleration of the decay of stars, etc.).A short description of the 4 novels follows (I have tried to avoid spoilers):+ Raft: this is the most self-contained novel of the group. It’s the story of the descendants of Human spacefarers who, apparently by accident, end up living in an alternate universe where the gravitational constant is higher. Life is tough for Man in this universe, where stars are smaller and other forms of life exist.+ Timelike Infinity: around the year 5000, Mankind has been dominated by the Qax, an alien civilization of traders (completely different bodies than Man). Around 5200, a group of rogue humans is able to travel to the past to try to alter the future. The Qax follows them to the past, but their plan fails and the wormhole used to travel through time is closed by Michael Poole, a legendary astronaut that ends up traveling to the end of time (when closing the wormhole).+ Flux: a very creative story of a man-like civilization that lives in the heart of a neutron star, in very dire circumstances. I won’t get into details, but this story has powerful twists that really bring a sense of wonder.+ Ring: the longest of the four novels, and probably the best. Around the year 4000, Mankind gets information that imply that most stars in the universe will be dwarfs around 5 million years in the future. And the sun is behaving in a strange way. An AI probe is sent to the sun and a spaceship is sent to travel at very high speeds for a thousand years in order to travel into the future. The probe discovers, in the sun, the dark matter photino birds, and gets to understand what they are doing. The spaceship gets to the future and confirms the suspicions of Mankind. The ship and the AI probe then start a desperate run to avoid being destroyed in dying universe.

I’m reasonably new to science fiction, but I’ve been really taken with Baxter’s work, having read novels and short story collections across all his key genres. Xeelee was by far the most expansive in terms of theme and understanding, the scope of his overall story is simply staggering, though sometimes daunting in its execution.Strangely, my pick of the series was ‘Raft’, one of his earliest stories and definitely one with the most limited scope. The typically great combination of hard physics and pointed social commentary that really make Baxter an outstanding and insightful writer.I read all four stories back to back and the difference in style and tone is very noticeable, again typical of Baxter who has a real gift for finding a unique voice inside each novel.I’ve since read Vacuum Diagrams (a nice overall history), and I’ve got the rest waiting.Baxter is a fantastic author, perhaps the best ever in this particular genre. Xeelee is his magnum opus, a must read.

I don't have words to define what Baxter's Xeelee saga encompasses. So I will try to say what it is not. It is not your ordinary space opera, in fact it is not an space opera at all, despite a war in space (and out of it) spanning the age of the universe. It is not a distopia or an utopia, despite depicting many societies with these traits. It is not military fiction even though militarism stamps its mark thorough the work. It is not hard sci-fi while being based on hard sci-fi premises. It is not a treatise on alien societies but it depicts a few of the most interesting and awe inspiring aliens I ever seen! Well, it transcends sci-fi, or, maybe, it defines what sci-fi is.If I was to try to define it imperfectly I would say that the Xeelee saga is the amalgamation of David Brin's Uplift Series with Olaf Stapledon's Star Maker and Last and First Men, getting the best traits of each of these incredibly creative masters of sci-fi/philosophy. The sense of wonder we get when reading Sapledon's works is there. The vividness of Brin's depictions of strange extraterrestrial beings and that deep, deep past history our petty human minds can't comprehend is also there. I didn't read the Xeelee saga, I savored it. And I felt a hollow when it ended.I can't recommend this book enough!

From picoseconds after the Big Bang to billions of years in the future the Xeelee Sequence is the the longest time-spanning space opera ever written. Baxter’s universe is richly imagined with dark energy & baryonic matter based beings living in civilizations as large as the universe itself; but loosely tethered to reality by cutting-edge theories of astronomy, quantum physics & chemistry. Highly recommended for space opera & hard science fiction fans. It gets four stars because the action passages are often interspersed with character dialogue & excruciating detail. That said, the four Xeelee books contained in this omnibus edition are classics of the genre & not to be missed.

Just as described, thanks

This collection is epic but uneven, also incomplete and unfinished. Overall they read quite well, and all have very good moments. For me the poorest is Flux. The author did not manage to make me care about any one character, which is unfortunate as the character-related stuff in the book is loooong. Fortunately the story picks up at the end. The best for me was Ring, I really enjoyed this, particularly the star-diving character. There are many loose ends and sentences open to interpretation especially towards the end. For a hard-science novel, I was disappointed by some constructions around cosmic strings, time and FTL travel, but overall the novel is great and awe inspiring. The other novels in the collection are only so-so.

A lover of space opera - Iain M. Banks, Peter Hamilton, Neal Asher etc - I had been intending to read the famous tales of the Xeelee for quite some time, and having finished a large fantasy set, I was in need of space and stars rather than swords and sorcery. Not one to dip my toe, I opted for the Omnibus, nine books in one kindle package, with the full intention of not surfacing until I was xeeleed to the core.Halfway into the first book, I was confused. Yes the story was intriguing, fascinating, character driven, with some great settings, but space opera? Hmmm. Continuing onwards into successive books, and with considerable time jumps along the way, I found myself asking the samee question: was this space opera? Certainly not in the manner of the three authors mentioned at the start. Yes lots of super cool technology - Stephen Baxter loves his deep explanations of science - but none of the huge capital ships smashing into each other as space battles rage across the cosmos: hinted at, explained in historical narratives, but not engaged.And yet I was really enjoying the journey. Indeed, as the journey passed halfway and began to accelerate, I realised that it was my definition of space opera that was in error, not the author's story telling. This is an opera in the truest sense of the word, a huge journey by many characters across an immense stage as large as time itself, with a main protagonist that never actually appears. Incredibly, the Xeelee chronicles never actually introduce a Xeelee at all in the entire nine book saga.I loved these books, the science is sublime, the characters interesting and well written, the imagination off the scale: truly  something of which Puccini would have been proud.Highly recommended.Fleecy Moss, Author of the Folio 55 SciFi fantasy series (writing as Nia Sinjorina), End of a Girl, Undon , and 4659 now available on Amazon.

Where do I begin? I've honestly never experienced such an ambivalent feeling towards writing like I have that of Stephen Baxter. First of all, the great things. Thematically, it's a little like Arthur C. Clarke with a dash of H.P. Lovecraft. Hard sci-fi taking mystery, overwhelming scales, and cosmic insignificance as its currency. The overall arc of Baxter's future history is astonishing. I was encouraged to continue reading wherever we got more tidbits about the mysterious Xeelee and their diabolical projects. The nature of the great conflict, suggested on the cover, is probably one of the coolest sci-fi ideas I've ever come across. It redeemed the entire effort.But it was not an enjoyable read, and not simply because of all of the scientific ideas (which were, at times, a little over-laboured, but are ultimately part of what makes Baxter's style so distinctive). The issue is Baxter often didn't know when to let the scientific perspective drop and, whenever he did, the prose became barren. At one point in the grand narrative we meet a shattered, formlerly populated star system. It is described with geometrical precision but with little heart and, oddly, little grandeur. It reads a bit like turning up to a funeral, and instead of hearing the eulogy we are anticipating we receive a very dry and technical post-mortem better suited to a coroner's inquest than a cremation. I likewise had a chuckle when, in a short story contained in another volume, Baxter describes a genetically-engineered animal as "a broad fur-covered cylinder supported on stumplike legs."Overall, I'm glad I read them (though you can skip Raft and Flux, as they don't contribute anything to the major story). I was also buoyed enough by Baxter's central themes to read Vacuum Diagrams afterwards. But just be aware as you're going in - this isn't Zelazny or Wolfe. Every book requires a level of care and engagement, but in order to get the most out of this you may have to practically rewrite parts of it in your own imagination.

Xeelee omnibusThis is a long review covering four novels from Stephen Baxter's Xeelee sequence, so the short version goes thusIt is hard SF with some great ideas in itIt deals with things on the grandest possible scaleThe story telling and characterisation are somewhat on the mediocre, repetitive sideOf the four novels here, Timelike Infinity is the strongest, followed by Ring and Flux, with Raft bringing up the rearAs a whole, the collection had me thinking of another subdivision within SF, that of SCIENCE fiction. Odd? Well there is science fiction which verges towards fantasy, Frank Herbert's Dune, for example. Then, much of what we call SF is really, when we think of it, Technology Fiction, it is about future use of technology, most of cyberpunk, and much "hard SF" and space opera would appear in this bucket. Stephen Baxter's writing is much more science based, playing with and extrapolating from basic laws of science. At its least successful, this means that sometimes sections of these novels read a bit like an A level physics lesson, or the first year of an undergraduate maths course. The first story here has a character working out the periodicity of a pendulum. At its most successful it means he comes up with some genuinely original ideas; an artificial civilisation established in the crust of a neutron star?There are common themes which appear in these novels, in both Raft and in Flux the central character starts as a humble outsider and develops to gain acceptance by society. This is perhaps suggestive of something in the author's own view of himself.These are also stories rooted in a British liberal tradition, Baxter sympathises with those in the lower strata of society, economically and/or politically oppressed, but is also dubious about the benefits of revolution and the motives of its leaders.Finally, in general terms, this is definitely ideas and action driven fiction, it is not character based. Even in the longer novels in the collection, Baxter's cast remain stereotypical and shallow.RaftRaft is set in some form of pocket universe where gravity is stronger, and a group of humans have been stranded. Their society has become stratified into those who live on a giant plate, developed from the remains of the original starship, a lower class who work the surrounding mines, and the sinister half mythological Boneys who live deep in the nebula above which the Raft floats.With its giant flying forests, emphasis on orbital dynamics, and portrait of a society which has lost its scientific edge, Raft owes an enormous debt to Larry Niven's Integral Trees and Smoke Ring.It is a fairly standard story of a highly intelligent boy, Rees, born into poverty as a miner, but rising through society to lead its escape from a collapsing nebula. On its own, it is probably a three star book. Interestingly, it is not until the third story in the collection, Flux, that there is any hint of how Raft links to the universe of the other stories.Timelike Infinity My favourite of the stories here, Timelike Infinity is rooted in the speculative physics of wormholes, singularities, multiverses and time travel. As such it is the closest to traditional Hard SF or Space Opera.The primary locations are two periods in the future, one where humanity has developed wormhole technology and is a free species expanding into an emergingly hostile universe. In the second, the human race has been subjugated by the Qax, and their living starships, who have virtually outlawed human spaceflight. Into this era, a wormhole from the former time appears and a group of human fanatics dive through it into history to pursue their impossibly ambitious goals.Back in the original period, Martin Poole, inventor of the wormhole, must understand the aims of the refugees from the future whilst also battling with Qax invaders from even further in the future seeking to prevent humanity's ultimate if inadvertent victory over their kind.Here Baxter has great fun tying the various timelines into ever more intricate knots, to deliver a thoroughly entertaining and action packed story. If the story has a main weakness it is the infallability of its central character, but that is probably forgivable in a tale with this breadth of ambition, which plays around with the possibilities thrown up by multiverse theories.All in all a four and a half star yarn.FluxFlux is set in the far future from the main story of Timelike Infinity. In setting, Baxter really lets rip, with specially engineered, microscopic humans living in the mantle of a neutron star. It would be fascinating to know the physics from he has extrapolated his tale.While the setting is exotic and original, the story and characters are less so. The basic structure is along very much the same lines as Raft. Dura is born into a nomadic society, (with echoes of native American philosophy) which is threatened by electromagnetic instabilities in the star. She and her brother Farr become separated from their grouping and end up travelling to the more advanced city, where like Rees in the first novel, she plays an important role in the saving of the world. The structure at the level above the story is also very similar, Baxter drops the reader into an unfamiliar environment, at first it is all a bit disorienting, but there are enough hints to keep one going, then some way into the novel Basil Exposition walks in and the plot stops for a while so we can be told what is really going on.The characters we meet are the disaffected teenager, the grizzled old hand who overcomes his cynicism for the greater good, the sadistic supervisor in the dangerous job, the gentle friendly giant, etc etc.There are some good action sequences, the denouement with the micro humans operating on a macro scale is quite fun, and we learn more about human - xeelee interaction, but this is probably only a three and a half star work. RingRing brings together much of what is contained in the earlier novels, in terms of story threads, but also in terms of strengths, weaknesses and style. It is closest to being a sequel to Timelike Infinity, but on the way it hooks into both Raft and Flux. How the humans of Raft got into a pocket universe is clarified, and there is more "in star action" as a virtual woman is lowered into the sun.The basic plot centres around information gathered from events at the end of Timelike Infinity, which indicated an unexpectedly early death for our sun. A shadowy organisation, a sort of "New Space Order" launches two missions to find out what has happened/is going to happen, one the aforementioned solar explorer, the other a generational starship using relativistic effects to travel 5 million years into the future. On the way, there is more interaction with Xeelee technology, we learn about their true enemies, the mysterious photino birds (its difficult not to picture them as being angry) and see the ultimate fate of the universe. So, once more there is some good fun with the science and technology, we get to fly around in a Xeelee nightfighter, but I really lost sympathy with it when things went wrong on the giant starship and for the third time we were confronted with regressive society struggling for survival.It was also while reading Ring that it dawned on me that, as hyper intelligent uber-races go, Baxter's Xeelee are a bit rubbish. They have all this fabulous technology, but seem totally incapable of any form of interaction and in the end are brought down by an inter-stellar pest infestation.As a rather cruel conclusion, this collection has a rather depressing constant air of decay, the super intelligent aliens have issues with interacting with others and a significant number of leading characters have a chip on their shoulder about their origins. Is this perhaps precisely what we could have expected from science fiction written by a mathematician from Liverpool?

I bought this book after a friend of mine highly recommended the story "Raft", and I found this book that contained it.Raft is a terrific read, about a man who lives and works in a remote mining colony completely reliant on external support for food, support that is contingent on the settlement meeting mining quotas. This opens up a really interesting power-struggle story about oppression and resistance, with a character who is kind of caught in the crossfire of it all. Meanwhile the entire story takes place in a vivid and exotic fictional world unlike anything I have seen elsewhere. Raft is 5 stars.Unfortunately the rest of this book is not as good. Timelike infinity has a lot of problems. After every 2 pages of story someone goes "hang on a minute, let me tell you some SCIENCE" and then you get 1 page of fictional science. (I call it "fictional" to be generous. Some of it reads like the author thinks it is correct, which it isn't. In any case it is needless to the plot). Imagine you are watching Star Wars and, just before the jump to hyperspace, we get a half hour lecture about how hyperdrives work. Timelike infinity also does a very bad job at introducing things. Scene 1 is a man looking out a spaceship window and thinking to himself "I am just going to inner monologue a history of Earth for the last 300 years so that some hypothetical person listening from the 20th Century can be brought up to speed. The same plot could have made a much better story if this history had been revealed while stuff happened, not instantly info-loaded at the start.On the bright side, Timelike infinity has really, really awesome aliens! Timelike looks like 2 stars to me.I only read the very beginning of the third story, 1 page in and I could see a repeat of Timelike infinity and gave up on the book.The Raft is great though.

Got into these after picking up Raft at a charity shop and thinking it was decent. Overall thought they were all good - some better than others. Flux was perhaps the best of them, and Ring provided a lot of answers to questions I'd had storing up throughout the other three. Maybe had them in the wrong order (I'd have kicked off with Timelike Infinity, not Raft).As I believe others have said, it can be heavy going at times. Physics has never really been my forte so there were a few bits I didn't quite follow, but even if you share my aversion to the subject you should be able to follow it.On the downside... throughout the books, so many things are mentioned in passing, but never elaborated upon, and that always left me wanting to know more. More about the people, about the past that brought them here, what the future (even next week) holds, events in the wider universe. Almost as if you're looking at a thin crust of ice and trying to work out what the lake underneath is like.