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Vacuum Diagrams (The Xeelee Sequence #5)
"And everywhere the Humans went, they found life ..."
This dazzling future history, winner of the 2000 Philip K. Dick Award, is the most ambitious and exciting since Asimov's classic Foundation saga. It tells the story of Humankind -- all the way to the end of the Universe itself.
Here, in luminous and vivid narratives spanning five million years, are the first Poole wormhol...more
This dazzling future history, winner of the 2000 Philip K. Dick Award, is the most ambitious and exciting since Asimov's classic Foundation saga. It tells the story of Humankind -- all the way to the end of the Universe itself.
Here, in luminous and vivid narratives spanning five million years, are the first Poole wormhol...more
ebook, 512 pages
Published
October 13th 2009
by HarperCollins e-books
(first published April 24th 1997)
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The disturbing/triumphant ending to the xeelee sequence: The final(?) book in the Xeelee Sequence, answers many of the questions posed except the biggest. The final machinations of the ultimate enemy of the universe, the photino 'birds'. This often disturbing image as the univese is slowly destroyed for all life except dark matter life is depressing in that even the godlike xeelee have run away. There is hope though as the final humans left in the universe escape through the xeelee rip in space...more
This is a collection of short stories with an incredibly lame bridging mechanism that strains credibility all by itself... and oh dear god it gets worse as you keep reading.
It's science used with all the exaggerated care and concern of a man using tipex on his computer screen for the very first time. His short story in which "evolution" is the punchline is astonishing not just in its sheer wrongheadedness, but also in the implication in the story that this is a very clever ending and very cleve...more
It's science used with all the exaggerated care and concern of a man using tipex on his computer screen for the very first time. His short story in which "evolution" is the punchline is astonishing not just in its sheer wrongheadedness, but also in the implication in the story that this is a very clever ending and very cleve...more
Aug 31, 2007
Rich
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
serious sci-fi readers
Shelves:
sci-fi
This is the very best sci-fi book I've ever read. This book attempts to offer PLAUSIBLE ideas about what other forms of life might exist in our universe, may have existed, or might exist in the future. These are not your average lizard-like aliens with large black eyes. No sir, these are "life forms" that will bend your mind over backwards and turn it inside out.
Absolutely fascinating read from cover to cover. If I could forget this book and read it again, I would.
Absolutely fascinating read from cover to cover. If I could forget this book and read it again, I would.
I guess I spoiled this by reading the first three Xeelee sequence books. I skipped entire paragraphs and stories that I had already read in their full context in the novels. I also couldn't help but notice that some of these stories are actually elements of the longer novels in their embryonic forms. Paul is a proto-Micheal Poole, even retaining the same descriptions of some of his actions. And Teal is a proto-Maker-of-Arrows. I have not yet read the rest of the books of course, so I do not know...more
I don't know if this is the best novel Stephen Baxter ever wrote, but it's my favorite. It's hard to even put my finger on why I love it so much. I just do. Perhaps because it rends me more intensely than the work of any other current writer of Arthur C. Clarke's great early short stories. Vacuum Diagrams is less novel than Grand Galactic History. But it manages to pack in the Big Science Ideas - enough of them for five books by any normal writer - while still presenting memorable and even movin...more
Brilliant arc of future history: Difficult going at first with so many ideas and situations thrown at you that it seems a bit overwhelming. Stick with it, though. I finished this as I sat in the back of my truck on lunch break at a construction site and the words "wow" and "holy sh*t" came involunarily from my lips. The ten million year history is wrapped up in a sequence of stunning stories concerning the ultimate fate of humanity and the Universe, and it was a rush of sparking imagination with...more
This book reads like a series of short stories, tenuously connected by an over-arching storyline. Why? Because that's what it is. It isn't apparent from the cover. (Or maybe it is and I'm just a doofus.)
Most of the stories are interesting. A few fall flat. The over-arching storyline falls flat, as does the ending.
Overall, it's a nice read if you look at it as a collection of sorta-related short stories rather than one big one. Too bad it's billed as the latter.
Most of the stories are interesting. A few fall flat. The over-arching storyline falls flat, as does the ending.
Overall, it's a nice read if you look at it as a collection of sorta-related short stories rather than one big one. Too bad it's billed as the latter.
Very good collection of short stories that are written in a linear format spanning millions of years. It gave an interesting depiction of possible life that could exist out in the universe. There is lot's of astrophysics and whatnot in the story which really helps to give a visual image of what is going on. While all the stories stand alone pretty well, the book can be read through to give a complete picture of humanity's struggle over the massive timeframe.
Short stories are not much for character development, especially if they are spread over millions of years, but each story is a little thought experiment of xenoevolution, time travel, and just good ol' exploratory science fiction. The time scale of the collection will be beyond your grasp, but that makes you feel even more humble as you turn the page and find the next story happens another 100,000 years in the future.
Inspirational and mind-expanding.
Inspirational and mind-expanding.
This is a series of short stories in Baxter's Xeelee Sequence. This is the second book I've read in this sequence. While the stories were good, I found them to be somewhat disappointing. There was not as much exploration of the Xeelee and their great project as I was hoping for, and many of the great events of the sequence (such as the occupation by various alien species) is not really explored - it's more of a background than anything else.
Baxter plays fast and loose with the laws of physics, adjusting them and ignoring them at will for the purposes of the particular story line he want the reader to buy into. While he might be excused for this he unfortunately does the same with human behavior, emotions, common sense and logic and expects the reader to play along. It just does not work.
This is probably the last of his books I will waste my time reading.
This is probably the last of his books I will waste my time reading.
Being a hard sci-fi nut, I find it difficult to get my sci-fi fix without compromising something. In this case my compromises were minimal - Baxter isn't the greatest writer in the genre, but damn if his science isn't glorious!
This book is less a novel than a collection of stories drawn from a single unique universe of his devising, loosely connected by a segregated secondary narrative that gives them some additional weight and context. Many of the tales can be read as stand-alone stories, and i...more
This book is less a novel than a collection of stories drawn from a single unique universe of his devising, loosely connected by a segregated secondary narrative that gives them some additional weight and context. Many of the tales can be read as stand-alone stories, and i...more
Oh man. This book was so bad. You don't even know. I made it through . . . 2/3rds of the short stories? Something like that. I don't think there was a line of dialog in there that didn't sound amazingly forced. I don't think there was a plot in there that wasn't super formulaic. I tried to power through, but I just couldn't.
I'm about a hundred pages or so from the end and I already know there's a good chance that I'll go right back and read it again as soon as I'm done. I can't remember the last book I wanted to do that with. A truly excellent piece of Hard SF.
Probably one of the best in the Xeelee Sequence. Some of Baxter's other novels suffer from too many small plot threads. Baxter may be at his best when writing short stories.
It had its ups and downs but overall it was a decent read. I certainly hope you have a physics background to help you with some of his topics.
Quite possibly the best collection of hard sci-fi stories ever. I've read it twice and I think its about time I read it again.
Includes some great stories that take place in the Xeelee sequence novels.
I remember trying to read this once and giving up. Maybe I'll try later.
Just started this one.
Changed my life forever.
This book attempts to tell the story of the human race across nearly 5 million years of time. It is actually a collection of short stories, connected by a story Baxter wrote to tie them together into a semi-coherent whole. The stories are interesting on their own and in the context of human history, but it seemed disjointed and abrupt, with most of the stories ending before they had played out. Overall, I thought it was a fascinating attempt to condense 5 million years of events into a single bo...more
Incredible novel.
1, 6
Dec 04, 2007
Jason Kelley
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
sci-fi fans that have read some Baxter
Shelves:
sci-fi
A collection of short stories that form a time line synopsis of Baxter's Xeelee, Qax, Silver Ghosts, Human universe. I generally tend to shy away from short stories because I'll get all excited about the story and then suddenly it's over so soon, but Baxter's Vacuum Diagrams was different because it helped paint a more concrete picture of how this particular universe worked. And being a new fan of Baxter's, I've got a lot more to read of this particular universe.
I usually enjoy Baxcter's work, but this compilation of short stories poorly held together with a dream/vision storyline was a huge dissapointment.
It's like Baxter was trying to weave all the tales around the latest unified theory of the universe and became so engrossed in the science he was trying to demonstrate he totally lost the idea of creating a good story. And he did it over and over again!
It's like Baxter was trying to weave all the tales around the latest unified theory of the universe and became so engrossed in the science he was trying to demonstrate he totally lost the idea of creating a good story. And he did it over and over again!
I have loved all of Baxter's books, but this is a weird compilation of almost all his books that end up here as one story, summarized chapter by chapter. Some of the content is word for word from his others books. So while I am three-quarters done, as I am using it as a tool to put me to sleep at night, I will probably put it down and continue to read "The Ghost in Love."
It starts out as a collection of short stories, but then you find out they're all intertwined... Then some of the stories start to blend in elements of Baxter's prior books, and finally a new storyline emerges that takes you all the way to the end of our baryonic universe. Crazy stuff and a great read.
A great collection of stories and a fascinating future history of human beings. I have not read any of the other books set in this universe but this collection provides a great overview. I recommend this to fans of space opera that have an affinity for hard sci fi.
This is the book to read to get the whole overview of the Xeelee set of books by Baxter. It is made up of short stories. I would actually recommend saving this one for last and reading Flux, Raft, Timelike Infinity, and Ring first.
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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...more
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