***1/2
The Earth dies hard in this novel, puking lava, belching toxic gases, crying acid rain; all because of the Moonseed infection. What will mankind do if the Earth dies completely?
This is a hard Sci-fi novel that is:
(1) weak on characterization; after 662 pages I still don't know who Henry is as a person, other than a cardboard cut-out of The Scientist, and I don't care about him
(2) has too many throw-away characters (some of which are introduced simply to die and illicit some sort of emotion from the reader, which Baxter fails to do; he could take lessons from Ben Bova who is a master at creating whole life-story-filled characters in a few paragraphs only to kill them off in a page or two and make you feel bad about it!)
(3) is TOO LONG by about 200 pages
(4) has themes that are not carried through the narrative successfully (I am thinking of the Venus radiation/protection from it)
(5) Baxter leaves characters for 100-200 pages before returning to them; a more even cross-cutting between characters/scenes would have helped the narrative flow.
Baxter has an easy, conversational writing style that doesn't get bogged-down in long descriptive paragraphs or technical dissertations. If only he knew how to self-edit.
I enjoyed his origin story for the Moonseed; and, I thoroughly enjoyed his detailed description of spaceflight. Now I understand what the astronauts went through.
Finally, his omnipresent view cataloging the dying Whole Earth was chilling and sad.