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Destiny's Children #2
Exultant
When it comes to cutting-edge science fiction, Stephen Baxter is in a league of his own. His mastery of hard science, his fearlessly speculative imagination, and his ability to combine grand philosophical questions with tales of rousing adventure make him essential reading for anyone concerned with the future of humankind. Now, in Exultant, Baxter takes us to a distant future of dazzling promise and deadly threat, in which a far-flung humanity battles for survival against an implacable alien foe.
Destiny’s Children
EXULTANT
For more than twenty thousand years, humans have been at war with the alien race of Xeelee. It is a war fought with armaments so advanced as to be godlike, a war in which time itself has become an ever-shifting battleground. At the cost of billions of lives, and with ruthless and relentless efficiency, the ruling Coalition has pushed the Xeelee back to the galactic core, where the supermassive black hole known as Chandra serves the Xeelee as both fortress and power source.
There, along a front millions of light-years long, a grisly stalemate reigns,
until a young pilot, Pirius, faced with certain death, disobeys orders and employs an innovative time-travel maneuver that, for the first time in the history of the war, results in the capture of a Xeelee fighter. But far from being hailed as a hero when he returns to base with his prize, Pirius is court-martialed, disgraced, and sentenced to penal servitude on a bleak asteroid.
It is not only Pirius who pays the price. In flying into the future and back again, Pirius returned to a time before he’d left, a time inhabited by his younger self. And that younger self, by the pitiless logic of Coalition justice, shares the older Pirius guilt and must be punished. Not everyone in the Coalition agrees. Commissary Nilis believes that the elder Pirius, whom he dubs Pirius Blue, may have found a way to defeat the Xeelee. But Nilis can do nothing for Pirius Blue. Instead, he takes charge of the younger Pirius (Pirius Red), and brings him back to Earth, the capital of a vast empire seething with intrigue.
There Pirius Red will discover truths that will shatter his preconceived notions of all that he is fighting for, even of what it means to be human. Pirius Blue, meanwhile, will learn truths harsher and more discomfiting still. Yet the most shocking revelation of all is still to come, waiting for them at a place called Chandra. . . .
From the Hardcover edition.
Destiny’s Children
EXULTANT
For more than twenty thousand years, humans have been at war with the alien race of Xeelee. It is a war fought with armaments so advanced as to be godlike, a war in which time itself has become an ever-shifting battleground. At the cost of billions of lives, and with ruthless and relentless efficiency, the ruling Coalition has pushed the Xeelee back to the galactic core, where the supermassive black hole known as Chandra serves the Xeelee as both fortress and power source.
There, along a front millions of light-years long, a grisly stalemate reigns,
until a young pilot, Pirius, faced with certain death, disobeys orders and employs an innovative time-travel maneuver that, for the first time in the history of the war, results in the capture of a Xeelee fighter. But far from being hailed as a hero when he returns to base with his prize, Pirius is court-martialed, disgraced, and sentenced to penal servitude on a bleak asteroid.
It is not only Pirius who pays the price. In flying into the future and back again, Pirius returned to a time before he’d left, a time inhabited by his younger self. And that younger self, by the pitiless logic of Coalition justice, shares the older Pirius guilt and must be punished. Not everyone in the Coalition agrees. Commissary Nilis believes that the elder Pirius, whom he dubs Pirius Blue, may have found a way to defeat the Xeelee. But Nilis can do nothing for Pirius Blue. Instead, he takes charge of the younger Pirius (Pirius Red), and brings him back to Earth, the capital of a vast empire seething with intrigue.
There Pirius Red will discover truths that will shatter his preconceived notions of all that he is fighting for, even of what it means to be human. Pirius Blue, meanwhile, will learn truths harsher and more discomfiting still. Yet the most shocking revelation of all is still to come, waiting for them at a place called Chandra. . . .
From the Hardcover edition.
480 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2004
89 people are currently reading
1236 people want to read
About the author
Stephen Baxter
403 books2,596 followersStephen 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 Year; he also won the John W. Campbell Award and the Philip K. Dick Award for his novel The Time Ships. He is currently working on his next novel, a collaboration with Sir Arthur C. Clarke. Mr. Baxter lives in Prestwood, England.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 93 reviews
April 24, 2019
This novel was something of a shocker to me. I actually expected a continuation of Coalescent with the hive-mind Romans even if they take place in the near future with more George Poole or perhaps a future Michael Poole, but nothing could be farther from this.
(Not ENTIRELY true, actually, the hive-mind humans and a remnant 20-thousand-year-old near-immortal in Exultant gave us some continuity.)
But in actual fact, Exultant reads more like a bonafide Xeelee novel. As in, pulling together all the Time-Like Infinity short stories, references to Flux, Ring, and even a hint of what could come in some of the others.
We jump right out of the past and into the deep future after two great expansions of humanity across the galaxy and 20k years into an ongoing rear-guard near-retreat against the inscrutable Xeelee project that herds stars into the center of the galaxy to make the super black hole in its center ever larger.
Humanity is losing the war. Barely bringing the Xeelee to a stalemate, we've bred ourselves into a race of children designed to fight a losing war. For 20 THOUSAND years.
Not everyone thinks this is admirable or smart, however, and this is where the novel starts. Expect all the timey-wimey stuff of Baxter's other novels. Closed Time-Like Loops are a major plot point and I think it's gorgeous. Closed-Time-Like computing, especially. Cuts down on the wear and tear of the computers. :)
Moreover, this novel gives us one of the most epic moments in all of Baxter's future history, the push and last hurrah against the super black hole, the big reveal about the Xeelee's purpose, and THEIR great enemy.
Since I was already familiar with some of these events explained in retrospect in the other novels, I thought it was something of a really cool treat to see it up close and personal.
I may have been surprised with this novel, expecting something else, but what I ACTUALLY got was better. It was just... kinda out of the blue. Maybe it should have been billed as a direct Xeelee novel, marketed as one of the great and gorgeous battles of a galaxy-spanning mankind against a race who thinks we're less than vermin and aren't to be bothered with communicating with us. :)
(Not ENTIRELY true, actually, the hive-mind humans and a remnant 20-thousand-year-old near-immortal in Exultant gave us some continuity.)
But in actual fact, Exultant reads more like a bonafide Xeelee novel. As in, pulling together all the Time-Like Infinity short stories, references to Flux, Ring, and even a hint of what could come in some of the others.
We jump right out of the past and into the deep future after two great expansions of humanity across the galaxy and 20k years into an ongoing rear-guard near-retreat against the inscrutable Xeelee project that herds stars into the center of the galaxy to make the super black hole in its center ever larger.
Humanity is losing the war. Barely bringing the Xeelee to a stalemate, we've bred ourselves into a race of children designed to fight a losing war. For 20 THOUSAND years.
Not everyone thinks this is admirable or smart, however, and this is where the novel starts. Expect all the timey-wimey stuff of Baxter's other novels. Closed Time-Like Loops are a major plot point and I think it's gorgeous. Closed-Time-Like computing, especially. Cuts down on the wear and tear of the computers. :)
Moreover, this novel gives us one of the most epic moments in all of Baxter's future history, the push and last hurrah against the super black hole, the big reveal about the Xeelee's purpose, and THEIR great enemy.
Since I was already familiar with some of these events explained in retrospect in the other novels, I thought it was something of a really cool treat to see it up close and personal.
I may have been surprised with this novel, expecting something else, but what I ACTUALLY got was better. It was just... kinda out of the blue. Maybe it should have been billed as a direct Xeelee novel, marketed as one of the great and gorgeous battles of a galaxy-spanning mankind against a race who thinks we're less than vermin and aren't to be bothered with communicating with us. :)
November 8, 2020
I first read this about a decade ago and it helped make Baxter my favorite hard science fiction author. The sequel to Coalescent does not share much with this one, although the human 'hives' play a small role, as does the name Michael Poole. Exultant takes us 25,000 years into the future, where humanity is locked (or deadlocked rather) with the Xeelee; a war that has been going on for 3000 years. Humanity has the Xeelee pushed back to the galactic core, surrounded by thousands of military bases and billions of soldiers. Our lead, Pirius, is a fighter pilot and in a tense dog-fight with the Xeelee, he utilizes (with another pilot) the FTL drive as a time machine to win, capturing for the first time a Xeelee 'nightfighter' or 'bat' as they are known in the process. When he returns to base, however, he arrives two years before he left (the time paradoxes in this novel may make your head spin!). He is quickly court marshaled for disobeying orders and sent to a penal colony. His younger self (call him Pirius Red) is also punished for a crime he has yet to commit. A member of the 'Commissary' takes an interest in the case and brings Pirius Red and his young lover to Earth. There they plan a new way to attach the Xeelee in what may be the final battle...
Exultant is brimming with ideas. As one reviewer put it: "Not content with one drop-dead hard-science idea, Baxter concatenates them, one building on the other; even his aliens represent ideas." In a metaphor Baxter himself uses often, this book is like an onion, with layers and layers and layers. First, we have the fascinating world building-- a galaxy at war, with all of humanity committed to the cause under the ancient teachings/mantra of an ancient liberator of humanity from an alien invasion, a man called Druz. Druz, after freeing humanity from the alien race basically declared a jihad on all aliens, and for the next 20,000 years plus, humanity has become a giant war machine established on countless worlds. Then we have several races of aliens-- the mysterious Xeelee, 'silver ghosts' and a whole array of others, from the birth of the universe onwards.
We also have deep introspection of the human condition, the impacts of social conditioning and so forth that tend to be a hallmark of good science fiction in general. Science with a capital S plays a much larger role than in the prequel, but still does not overshadow the character development, especially of Pirius Red. I would give this five glowing stars, but I had some issues toward the end that bumped it down a bit. 4.5 stars.
Exultant is brimming with ideas. As one reviewer put it: "Not content with one drop-dead hard-science idea, Baxter concatenates them, one building on the other; even his aliens represent ideas." In a metaphor Baxter himself uses often, this book is like an onion, with layers and layers and layers. First, we have the fascinating world building-- a galaxy at war, with all of humanity committed to the cause under the ancient teachings/mantra of an ancient liberator of humanity from an alien invasion, a man called Druz. Druz, after freeing humanity from the alien race basically declared a jihad on all aliens, and for the next 20,000 years plus, humanity has become a giant war machine established on countless worlds. Then we have several races of aliens-- the mysterious Xeelee, 'silver ghosts' and a whole array of others, from the birth of the universe onwards.
We also have deep introspection of the human condition, the impacts of social conditioning and so forth that tend to be a hallmark of good science fiction in general. Science with a capital S plays a much larger role than in the prequel, but still does not overshadow the character development, especially of Pirius Red. I would give this five glowing stars, but I had some issues toward the end that bumped it down a bit. 4.5 stars.
August 10, 2025
Xeelee stuff is always so cool.
August 29, 2008
There was a lot of really interesting stuff in this book! I don't understand all the reviews that say it doesn't tie into the first book of the series, Coalescent. It totally does! Lots of ways. I like the humans as insects analogies, all over the place. And the different types of social insects. The dark matter theorizing, and the idea of the monads was pretty cool. I also thought that Baxter really pulled out of his mold in this book. It feels much fresher and alive than the Manifold series, for example. I love the little links to his other books too. I'm starting to like him a lot more as a writer, the further along I get in his timeline. This guy's got a huge and roving mind, I can only imagine what having a beer with him must be like!
May 3, 2011
I would definitely call Stephen Baxter's Exultant an interesting book, but I would be hard-pressed to recommend it to anyone. It has some very exciting SF concepts, but they are buried in a plot that makes so litle sense and dialog that will make you cringe.
Baxter is a man of ideas, but it seems he is too busy pondering grand concepts to put them in the proper context of a good story. There are truly mind-boggling concepts; even too many, it seems, because some have barely a page or two of development. The most extreme was 'Concept space', a mind-boggling concept which is used merely to provide a deus ex machina solution to the protagonists.
If at least the hard SF was solid enough despite the weak plot... As it happens, some concepts are hastily thrown together, then conveniently circumvented when they are no longer required. The whole "FTL Foreknowledge" concept, for instance, at the heart of the story, can be waived by the author when he needs the protagonists to fool the Xeelee. Their solution? Use the time-honored but 'risky' 'anti-Tolman manoeuver', which is never explained nor used again. Sigh.
Another pet peeve I simply cannot let pass: Commissary Nilis. Nowhere is this guy made sympathetic, with his bumbling attitude, his obvious lack of oratory skills, his habit of walking barefoot everywhere and his smelly feet and armpits(!) Yet he is seen more often than any of the main characters, because he can send Virtuals of himself to annoy all of them at every corner of the Galaxy at the same time. Whenever he let slip a 'My eyes!', I was ready to gouge my own out of their sockets.
If you're wondering whether to pick up this book because it is the sequel to 'Coalescent', then don't. Only passing references are made to Coalescent, and the difference in quality between the two books is such that it seems Exultant was written by a 13 year-old who got excited at reading Coalescent.
If you must read a Stephen Baxter book, there are much better ones than this one. Coalescent and Manifold:Time are both excellent Baxter novels. This one is not.
Baxter is a man of ideas, but it seems he is too busy pondering grand concepts to put them in the proper context of a good story. There are truly mind-boggling concepts; even too many, it seems, because some have barely a page or two of development. The most extreme was 'Concept space', a mind-boggling concept which is used merely to provide a deus ex machina solution to the protagonists.
If at least the hard SF was solid enough despite the weak plot... As it happens, some concepts are hastily thrown together, then conveniently circumvented when they are no longer required. The whole "FTL Foreknowledge" concept, for instance, at the heart of the story, can be waived by the author when he needs the protagonists to fool the Xeelee. Their solution? Use the time-honored but 'risky' 'anti-Tolman manoeuver', which is never explained nor used again. Sigh.
Another pet peeve I simply cannot let pass: Commissary Nilis. Nowhere is this guy made sympathetic, with his bumbling attitude, his obvious lack of oratory skills, his habit of walking barefoot everywhere and his smelly feet and armpits(!) Yet he is seen more often than any of the main characters, because he can send Virtuals of himself to annoy all of them at every corner of the Galaxy at the same time. Whenever he let slip a 'My eyes!', I was ready to gouge my own out of their sockets.
If you're wondering whether to pick up this book because it is the sequel to 'Coalescent', then don't. Only passing references are made to Coalescent, and the difference in quality between the two books is such that it seems Exultant was written by a 13 year-old who got excited at reading Coalescent.
If you must read a Stephen Baxter book, there are much better ones than this one. Coalescent and Manifold:Time are both excellent Baxter novels. This one is not.
March 27, 2018
WOW! :o
June 24, 2025
Is June the month where I get my brain fucked because yeah that was insane.
Listen I am a huge lover of interstellar space opera war stuff with weird aliens and FTL and time travel and this one delievered - a very Reynold's book, somehow, but with all the themes and gimmicks of a great Baxter, meaning SCIENCE, lost people, smart kids, and hopes and dreams and in the end, above all, humanity.
I had doubts with Coalescent, they have been blown away to pieces with Exultant. It was just that good, maybe a bit on the long-ish side sometimes, it could have been slighlty shorter, but in the end, who fucking cares when the story is that great.
Listen I am a huge lover of interstellar space opera war stuff with weird aliens and FTL and time travel and this one delievered - a very Reynold's book, somehow, but with all the themes and gimmicks of a great Baxter, meaning SCIENCE, lost people, smart kids, and hopes and dreams and in the end, above all, humanity.
I had doubts with Coalescent, they have been blown away to pieces with Exultant. It was just that good, maybe a bit on the long-ish side sometimes, it could have been slighlty shorter, but in the end, who fucking cares when the story is that great.
June 12, 2019
What have we got here? Enough Big Ideas for several novels? Mind-bending physics? Characters that are just kinda there? The feeling that you just experienced something really cool that you can't completely explain? Must be a Stephen Baxter novel.
This is nominally a sequel to Baxter's Coalescent, which I read several years ago and enjoyed. Exultant takes place in the same universe over 20,000 years later, so I guess it's a sequel in roughly the same way that Dune is a sequel to Hamlet. Especially if you're looking for far-future space opera, you could skip Coalescent and dive right into Exultant. This is a bit of an overstatement: there are connections (the descendants of the "coalescents" or hive-like humans show up once or twice), but this is really another installment in Baxter's sprawling Xeelee sequence.
Our main character, Pirius, is a pilot in the war with the alien Xeelee, a war that has consumed humanity and slowed its progress for 20,000 years. Pirius captures a Xeelee spacecraft (something nobody has apparently done before), but he uses his FTL drive and finds himself two years in the past (for science reasons). He and his self from two years ago are put on trial for disobeying orders. He is sent to boot camp for army grunts while his past self is whisked away by a bumbling absent-minded professor type who has the radical idea that the war should be won and has an idea how to do it.
The rest of the plot is fairly simple, if a "simple" plot can involve two iterations of the main character in different parts of the galaxy (helpfully referred to as "Pirius Blue" and "Pirius Red"), plenty of helpings of mind-bending physics, several religions/philosophical persuasions, thoughts on war, bureaucracy, and politics, and several particularly mind-exploding chapters describing the evolution of life (but not as we know it) from the very beginning of the universe.
As a philosopher, I appreciate that Baxter refers to philosophy a lot. He even name drops Leibniz at one point - there are creatures called monads! Given that there are two iterations of the main character (and maybe one more...), of course personal identity issues abound. A lot of the characters seem to be confident that one is "real" and the other is a "copy." There's also a lot to think about with regard to war and its effect on society: does it hold us back, culturally, philosophically, scientifically? I would like a little more treatment of these issues, which Baxter brings up but doesn't delve much into. But then again there's a fine-to-nonexistent line between philosophy and all the super weird theoretical physics (this is something I say because it's true but also to annoy scientistic types). In any case, your mind will get a workout trying to keep up with Baxter. Be sure to stretch and drink plenty of fluids.
If you've read Baxter before, you have a pretty good idea what to expect from his brand of Big Ideas Hard SF. If you want interesting, fleshed out characters in your science fiction, read Lois McMaster Bujold or Stephen King. Baxter's characters are, as usual, really more vehicles for the ideas. I tend to read SF for the ideas, so I'm okay with that. Baxter is one of the best contemporary practitioners of Arthur C. Clarke-style Big Ideas SF working today, although the galactic empire stuff reminds me a lot of Asimov, too, especially the archetype of the bumbling professor with radical ideas.
So all in all, while I can't say I liked or enjoyed everything about this novel or that this is my favorite Stephen Baxter novel (that's probably either Evolution or Ultima), but there's enough of what I was hoping for from Baxter to keep me reading. That stuff on the evolution of life in the early universe in particular will probably stick with me for awhile.
(See also my blog review: https://examinedworlds.blogspot.com/2...)
This is nominally a sequel to Baxter's Coalescent, which I read several years ago and enjoyed. Exultant takes place in the same universe over 20,000 years later, so I guess it's a sequel in roughly the same way that Dune is a sequel to Hamlet. Especially if you're looking for far-future space opera, you could skip Coalescent and dive right into Exultant. This is a bit of an overstatement: there are connections (the descendants of the "coalescents" or hive-like humans show up once or twice), but this is really another installment in Baxter's sprawling Xeelee sequence.
Our main character, Pirius, is a pilot in the war with the alien Xeelee, a war that has consumed humanity and slowed its progress for 20,000 years. Pirius captures a Xeelee spacecraft (something nobody has apparently done before), but he uses his FTL drive and finds himself two years in the past (for science reasons). He and his self from two years ago are put on trial for disobeying orders. He is sent to boot camp for army grunts while his past self is whisked away by a bumbling absent-minded professor type who has the radical idea that the war should be won and has an idea how to do it.
The rest of the plot is fairly simple, if a "simple" plot can involve two iterations of the main character in different parts of the galaxy (helpfully referred to as "Pirius Blue" and "Pirius Red"), plenty of helpings of mind-bending physics, several religions/philosophical persuasions, thoughts on war, bureaucracy, and politics, and several particularly mind-exploding chapters describing the evolution of life (but not as we know it) from the very beginning of the universe.
As a philosopher, I appreciate that Baxter refers to philosophy a lot. He even name drops Leibniz at one point - there are creatures called monads! Given that there are two iterations of the main character (and maybe one more...), of course personal identity issues abound. A lot of the characters seem to be confident that one is "real" and the other is a "copy." There's also a lot to think about with regard to war and its effect on society: does it hold us back, culturally, philosophically, scientifically? I would like a little more treatment of these issues, which Baxter brings up but doesn't delve much into. But then again there's a fine-to-nonexistent line between philosophy and all the super weird theoretical physics (this is something I say because it's true but also to annoy scientistic types). In any case, your mind will get a workout trying to keep up with Baxter. Be sure to stretch and drink plenty of fluids.
If you've read Baxter before, you have a pretty good idea what to expect from his brand of Big Ideas Hard SF. If you want interesting, fleshed out characters in your science fiction, read Lois McMaster Bujold or Stephen King. Baxter's characters are, as usual, really more vehicles for the ideas. I tend to read SF for the ideas, so I'm okay with that. Baxter is one of the best contemporary practitioners of Arthur C. Clarke-style Big Ideas SF working today, although the galactic empire stuff reminds me a lot of Asimov, too, especially the archetype of the bumbling professor with radical ideas.
So all in all, while I can't say I liked or enjoyed everything about this novel or that this is my favorite Stephen Baxter novel (that's probably either Evolution or Ultima), but there's enough of what I was hoping for from Baxter to keep me reading. That stuff on the evolution of life in the early universe in particular will probably stick with me for awhile.
(See also my blog review: https://examinedworlds.blogspot.com/2...)
January 8, 2017
After the digression of Coalescent, Baxter returns to his familiar settings of mind-bending physics and far-flung futures. This book reminded me a bit of The Forever War, but is a bit better done. Where Forever has relativistic effects, in Exultant we get full-on time travel shenanigans. Both feature the disfunctions of military life, cover-your-ass bureaucracy, meaningless wars and pointless loss of life. However, Baxter does a better job with the physics and ideas. Neither do a particularly great job with the protagonist, but I liked Baxter's supporting cast with the mysterious prophet, the hand-wringing Commissar and the bloodthirsty immortal.
The parts about the true nature of quagmites and Xeelee were familiar to me from other works, so their big reveals lacked some of the punch I think they were meant to have. I guess this is one of the problems with linking so many books into a grand saga like the Xeelee Sequence; there are only so many big secrets the universe can be hiding.
One thing I really liked was the careful descriptions of the Galactic core. I was almost done with the book by the time I realized all the locations were real. Arches cluster, Quintuplet cluster, IRS-16, baby spiral: all real; look them up, they're so cool.
One thing I didn't like so much was the physics of the gravastar shield. As a physicist, I can assure you that But we can allow that when the rest of the story does such a fine job exploring the wonderful history of our universe and its physics.
The parts about the true nature of quagmites and Xeelee were familiar to me from other works, so their big reveals lacked some of the punch I think they were meant to have. I guess this is one of the problems with linking so many books into a grand saga like the Xeelee Sequence; there are only so many big secrets the universe can be hiding.
One thing I really liked was the careful descriptions of the Galactic core. I was almost done with the book by the time I realized all the locations were real. Arches cluster, Quintuplet cluster, IRS-16, baby spiral: all real; look them up, they're so cool.
One thing I didn't like so much was the physics of the gravastar shield. As a physicist, I can assure you that But we can allow that when the rest of the story does such a fine job exploring the wonderful history of our universe and its physics.
February 26, 2019
Exultant, the second book in the Destiny's Children series felt a lot better than Coalescent. Not without its own flaws, it made the entire experience better, but maybe that's just me.
The book describes a universe twenty thousand years into the future, when human kind has infested the galaxy, destroying all sentient races they encountered with their immense war machine. They are currently at war with a technologically superior enemy called the Xeelee, which are trapped at the core of the galaxy, pushed back by the sheer size of human forces. The war has waged for 3000 years and continues with no advancement of any kind, with the entire human philosophy focused on spewing more and more cannon fodder for a war that is neither to be won or lost, just endured.
A rather bleak vision of the future, but fear not, there comes hope! Somehow, an eccentric aristocrat comes with all the ideas and resources to create the ultimate weapon that will destroy the Xeelee! And in the pages of the book it is described how they go at it. This is where the book actually fails, because at a such immense space and time scale, a solution of this simplicity is just not believable. You don't feel it in your GUT! But the book is well written, the style bringing memories of Asimov, and the ideas in it pretty interesting.
Stephen Baxter is again applying Universal Darwinism to his universe, bringing more and more species and types of lifeforms out of his magician hat. The ending of the book is terribly naive, but without a bit of naivete, you cannot finish great space sagas in a single book.
Bottom line: if you like space fights, military stratagems, character development, time travel, large scale galactic intrigues and a lot of techno babble (and I know I do! :) ) you will love this book. I do think that some of the great ideas in the book would have mixed nicely with late David Feintuch's writing. Anyway, on with the next book in the series: Transcendent
The book describes a universe twenty thousand years into the future, when human kind has infested the galaxy, destroying all sentient races they encountered with their immense war machine. They are currently at war with a technologically superior enemy called the Xeelee, which are trapped at the core of the galaxy, pushed back by the sheer size of human forces. The war has waged for 3000 years and continues with no advancement of any kind, with the entire human philosophy focused on spewing more and more cannon fodder for a war that is neither to be won or lost, just endured.
A rather bleak vision of the future, but fear not, there comes hope! Somehow, an eccentric aristocrat comes with all the ideas and resources to create the ultimate weapon that will destroy the Xeelee! And in the pages of the book it is described how they go at it. This is where the book actually fails, because at a such immense space and time scale, a solution of this simplicity is just not believable. You don't feel it in your GUT! But the book is well written, the style bringing memories of Asimov, and the ideas in it pretty interesting.
Stephen Baxter is again applying Universal Darwinism to his universe, bringing more and more species and types of lifeforms out of his magician hat. The ending of the book is terribly naive, but without a bit of naivete, you cannot finish great space sagas in a single book.
Bottom line: if you like space fights, military stratagems, character development, time travel, large scale galactic intrigues and a lot of techno babble (and I know I do! :) ) you will love this book. I do think that some of the great ideas in the book would have mixed nicely with late David Feintuch's writing. Anyway, on with the next book in the series: Transcendent
September 18, 2017
Aaaa, so this is why the author had us read the boring "Coalescent" beforehand... No, really, we could've lived without it.
"Exultant" is back in force to kick-ass far-future starship battles, hard-science, warring empires, cool concepts, even some cool character dilemmas. The action time-wise falls somewhere in the middle of "Ring" and finally shows humans engaged in battle with the Xeelee. The speculations on black hole physics here are so very cool. Can't help but 5* this guilty pleasure of mine.
"Exultant" is back in force to kick-ass far-future starship battles, hard-science, warring empires, cool concepts, even some cool character dilemmas. The action time-wise falls somewhere in the middle of "Ring" and finally shows humans engaged in battle with the Xeelee. The speculations on black hole physics here are so very cool. Can't help but 5* this guilty pleasure of mine.
November 24, 2025
Stephen Baxter’s Exultant is a monumental achievement in "deep time" science fiction, earning a brilliant 5-star rating by out-scaling even the genre’s giants. While Peter F. Hamilton matches the space opera scope and Alastair Reynolds captures similar gothic dread, Baxter surpasses them in sheer temporal ambition. If Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Children of Time explores evolution over thousands of years, Exultant treats twenty millennia as a mere tactical window in a war stretching back to the Big Bang. It echoes the vast, strange future-history of Brian Aldiss but grounded in rigorous, crushing physics.
The shift from the intimate, present-day setting of Coalescent to this combat-ravaged future is jarring but masterful, effectively selling the Destiny’s Children trilogy as a history of human endurance. Surprisingly, this is Baxter at his most optimistic; amidst the nihilistic grind of the Xeelee war, he argues that individual bravery still dictates the fate of the cosmos. It is a thrilling, brain-expanding bridge that sets the stage perfectly for the final act, dropping tantalizing hints that the legendary Michael Poole’s origins will finally be revealed in Transcendent.
What Happens At the End of the Universe? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IP8LD...) This video provides a comprehensive overview of the Xeelee Sequence's timeline and major events, helping to contextualize the massive scale of the war depicted in Exultant.
The shift from the intimate, present-day setting of Coalescent to this combat-ravaged future is jarring but masterful, effectively selling the Destiny’s Children trilogy as a history of human endurance. Surprisingly, this is Baxter at his most optimistic; amidst the nihilistic grind of the Xeelee war, he argues that individual bravery still dictates the fate of the cosmos. It is a thrilling, brain-expanding bridge that sets the stage perfectly for the final act, dropping tantalizing hints that the legendary Michael Poole’s origins will finally be revealed in Transcendent.
What Happens At the End of the Universe? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IP8LD...) This video provides a comprehensive overview of the Xeelee Sequence's timeline and major events, helping to contextualize the massive scale of the war depicted in Exultant.
January 17, 2016
For someone slightly interested in theoretical physics and space operas, this book is it. Stephen Baxter takes all kinds of physics theories and thinking and puts it to work in the story. The evolution of the universe and how it all came to be is a consistent plot in the books he made. This story plays at the end of time in his space opera, the big showdown fight between humanity and its big enemie in the Galaxy, the Xeelee. And somehow the fight is about sacrificing young soldiers on rocks in the center of the Galaxy. And although the plot of young people in war is a known subject in all types of fiction, here it feels awkward at the beginning. We are here, 20k years in the future and all we do is let us slingshot into battle fighting a superior foe. The ways of thinking and acting are stuck for eons and people do not want to change the status quo. And there is the difference between the "decadent" ruling class on earth and the young expendable soldiers at the front. Somehow, it feels a little bit too artificial, despite Baxter putting down several reasons to believe. Personally I would have thought that hunanities greatest (and most horrible inventions) are done in wartime, and the inventions the protagonist invent out of the blue would have been made thousands of years earlier.
Anyway. That was all theoretical rational thinking, since I liked the book a lot. World building is great and you are part of the war during story, you feel the stuck society and I liked the various players and their interactions: The old witch, the naive scientist, the youngsters the aliens. The writing sucked me into the story and this re-read was as rewarding as my first read years ago. Four stars!
Anyway. That was all theoretical rational thinking, since I liked the book a lot. World building is great and you are part of the war during story, you feel the stuck society and I liked the various players and their interactions: The old witch, the naive scientist, the youngsters the aliens. The writing sucked me into the story and this re-read was as rewarding as my first read years ago. Four stars!
March 16, 2012
This was definitely an interesting read, especially me being someone who is not only a science fiction fan but also a quantum physics fan. This books utilizes many current theories of quantum physics, and even builds a few of its own, and paints a universe more colorful and full of diversity than I had ever imagined.
The story is long, so if you're looking for an action-packed experience, this isn't for you. The story seems unnecessarily convoluted, and drags on in many cases, leaving the reader to wonder how everything connects, and if it would really matter all that much if he or she skipped around a bit. But if you are patient and read through these slow moments, you are repaid in the end. All the major threads wrap up nicely at the end of the book, but after it's all over, I was still left with a few unanswered questions.
Dull storyline aside, the science lessons embedded in this book makes me feel like I've just taken an introductory course in theoretical physics. It was a mind-expanding experience, and makes me want to dust off my science books and crack them open again.
This book--as well as others in this series, is recommended for fans of hard science fiction. It's reminiscent of the work of Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clark, Ben Bova, and to a lesser extent, Frederick Pohl. If you enjoyed their books, you'll enjoy this one.
The story is long, so if you're looking for an action-packed experience, this isn't for you. The story seems unnecessarily convoluted, and drags on in many cases, leaving the reader to wonder how everything connects, and if it would really matter all that much if he or she skipped around a bit. But if you are patient and read through these slow moments, you are repaid in the end. All the major threads wrap up nicely at the end of the book, but after it's all over, I was still left with a few unanswered questions.
Dull storyline aside, the science lessons embedded in this book makes me feel like I've just taken an introductory course in theoretical physics. It was a mind-expanding experience, and makes me want to dust off my science books and crack them open again.
This book--as well as others in this series, is recommended for fans of hard science fiction. It's reminiscent of the work of Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clark, Ben Bova, and to a lesser extent, Frederick Pohl. If you enjoyed their books, you'll enjoy this one.
August 9, 2016
Any Stephen Baxter book with the enigmatic Xeelee automatically goes on my "must read" list. This book was no exception. I was very disappointed in the previous book in the series "Coalescent". The themes of that book didn't gel for me and I frankly found the subject matter disturbing. This book was an entirely different case. It took me longer to read than most of my books, simply because Baxter does not write what we would consider page turners. As with his other Xeelee sequence books, I would read a few chapters then take the time to absorb the science and how it related to the story and its characters. Overall, this was a very satisfying read. I love that the Xeelee are always off-stage, yet a huge presence which humanity is fatally obsessed with. Hands down, some of the best hard science fiction I've ever read. If you're looking for Star Trek/Star Wars like space opera. Baxter is not it, and thank goodness for that.
November 8, 2025
Our war-weary heroes are in a death struggle with the strange Xeelee for control of the Galaxy, and it's been going on for 20,000 years. Occasional asides describe the earliest history of the Universe and the hyperfast-living creatures that evolved and flourished in its first three minutes. (Their remote descendants are the Xeelee.) Of course, our heroes have the secret weapon that will secure humanity's survival. The book has Baxter's trademark deep rooting in actual astrophysics (except he just shrugs off faster-than-light travel's paradoxes of causality). But otherwise it seems less original and more formulaic than his other works. Some war-is-hell pieces seem transposed from All Quiet on the Western Front, others from Twelve O'Clock High. Most of the minor characters die.
February 19, 2011
My husband got this as part of a white elephant gift and the only reason I read it was because I was snowed in from work and bored. I was happily surprised! I liked how he handled the complications and paradoxes of time travel as well as the emotions, struggles, growth of the characters. Good book all around.
June 5, 2022
“I’m so far ahead it feels like I’ve already been here.”
— Juvenile
In Stephen Baxter’s novel Exultant, humanity is engaged in a millennia-spanning crusade against an alien species called the Xeelee, who evolved at hyperspeed, seconds after the Big Bang; who build armadas composed of dark matter and spacetime; and who habitually travel back in time (this fictional universe simply “ignores” time paradoxes by authorial fiat) both to alter their own history as a species and to (almost) unerringly predict every tactic and maneuver of every battle.
Humans are only able to fight the Xeelee by a) drowning Xeelee home-space in a ceaseless flood of assaults from every direction, b) using superintelligent A.I.s to calculate their maneuvers by the nanosecond, and c) habitually traveling back in time to predict what the Xeelee will do.
This invites an intriguing plot twist: One powerful human, situated somewhere safe (maybe back on dull old Earth) could use faster-than-light (FTL) travel to send an arbitrary number of copies of himself back in time, and integrate them all into a superconsciousness composed of versions of himself from all throughout his lifetime. The level of insight to be derived from such a superconsciousness is beyond imagining, but somehow no one in 10,000+ straight years of war manages to conceive of a plan remotely like this.
Also, the novel describes “configuration space,” a pluri-dimensional space containing all the possible matter configurations of the universe - presumably our universe; the question of whether configuration spaces exist for other universes isn’t broached - throughout every instant of spacetime. Causality is formed as configurationally similar configurations of the universe are attracted together, presumably via a some sort of directional principle akin to electron flow.
So here’s another intriguing plot twist not addressed in the book: If you could build the equivalent of a three-dimensional FTL ship in configuration space, and you made the equivalent of FTL “jumps” to arbitrarily distant positions within that space - wouldn’t that mean you could travel to any arbitrary possible configuration of the universe? Would it be possible to create paradoxes far more fundamental than those implied by time-travel - such as landing in a universal space-time configuration where you simultaneously did and did not exist?
For a degreed physicist, Stephen Baxter is intellectually lazy.
— Juvenile
In Stephen Baxter’s novel Exultant, humanity is engaged in a millennia-spanning crusade against an alien species called the Xeelee, who evolved at hyperspeed, seconds after the Big Bang; who build armadas composed of dark matter and spacetime; and who habitually travel back in time (this fictional universe simply “ignores” time paradoxes by authorial fiat) both to alter their own history as a species and to (almost) unerringly predict every tactic and maneuver of every battle.
Humans are only able to fight the Xeelee by a) drowning Xeelee home-space in a ceaseless flood of assaults from every direction, b) using superintelligent A.I.s to calculate their maneuvers by the nanosecond, and c) habitually traveling back in time to predict what the Xeelee will do.
This invites an intriguing plot twist: One powerful human, situated somewhere safe (maybe back on dull old Earth) could use faster-than-light (FTL) travel to send an arbitrary number of copies of himself back in time, and integrate them all into a superconsciousness composed of versions of himself from all throughout his lifetime. The level of insight to be derived from such a superconsciousness is beyond imagining, but somehow no one in 10,000+ straight years of war manages to conceive of a plan remotely like this.
Also, the novel describes “configuration space,” a pluri-dimensional space containing all the possible matter configurations of the universe - presumably our universe; the question of whether configuration spaces exist for other universes isn’t broached - throughout every instant of spacetime. Causality is formed as configurationally similar configurations of the universe are attracted together, presumably via a some sort of directional principle akin to electron flow.
So here’s another intriguing plot twist not addressed in the book: If you could build the equivalent of a three-dimensional FTL ship in configuration space, and you made the equivalent of FTL “jumps” to arbitrarily distant positions within that space - wouldn’t that mean you could travel to any arbitrary possible configuration of the universe? Would it be possible to create paradoxes far more fundamental than those implied by time-travel - such as landing in a universal space-time configuration where you simultaneously did and did not exist?
For a degreed physicist, Stephen Baxter is intellectually lazy.
November 14, 2019
Now this is how you write cosmic sci-fi! As a sequel to Coalescent it is a bit of a let-down (not really referring the events of the last book beyond a few throwaway references to coalescents being a nonstandard-but-fairly-common form of societal organisation), but it feels like a much tighter sci-fi story overall.
I always get an iffy feeling when I read a story about military operations written by someone with no military background, so the pure military parts of Exultant reads a bit like John Scalzi, but given the society depicted I feel like slightly dumb strategy (or rather, dumb tactics) kind of fits.
Exultant reads a bit like "What if the Imperium in Warhammer 40K was an actual functional society?". The 3rd Expansion is a dystopian hellscape from a modern POV, but it is presented in a kind of similar way to how the Third Reich is presented in Fatherland, that is, a society that we would never want to exchange for our own, but that isn't obviously dystopian from the point of view of most people in it because they know nothing else. Since the society in Exultant is thousands of years old (as opposed to the 40-ish years of the Reich's proclaimed 1000 in Fatherland), it feels very much like how it would actually be.
The world-building is spartan, but well-executed: You don't get a lot of detail about the world, but you do get the sense that it is as grand in scope as the narrative claims. You get a real sense that things have happened before in this universe, you get a sense that things continue to happen beyond the scope of what the characters see and hear about, and it all serves to strengthen the central idea that I won't tell you about because I don't want to spoil it.
Setting presentation, design and originality (how cool is the setting?): 3
Setting verisimillitude and detail (how much sense does the setting make?): 3
Plot design, presentation and originality (How well-crafted was the plot, in the dramaturgic sense?): 4
Plot and character verisimillitude (How much sense did the plot and motivations make? Did events follow from motivations?): 4
Characterization and character development: 5
Character sympatheticness: 5
Prose: 4
Page turner factor: 5
Mind blown factor: 5
Final (weighted) score: 4.4
I always get an iffy feeling when I read a story about military operations written by someone with no military background, so the pure military parts of Exultant reads a bit like John Scalzi, but given the society depicted I feel like slightly dumb strategy (or rather, dumb tactics) kind of fits.
Exultant reads a bit like "What if the Imperium in Warhammer 40K was an actual functional society?". The 3rd Expansion is a dystopian hellscape from a modern POV, but it is presented in a kind of similar way to how the Third Reich is presented in Fatherland, that is, a society that we would never want to exchange for our own, but that isn't obviously dystopian from the point of view of most people in it because they know nothing else. Since the society in Exultant is thousands of years old (as opposed to the 40-ish years of the Reich's proclaimed 1000 in Fatherland), it feels very much like how it would actually be.
The world-building is spartan, but well-executed: You don't get a lot of detail about the world, but you do get the sense that it is as grand in scope as the narrative claims. You get a real sense that things have happened before in this universe, you get a sense that things continue to happen beyond the scope of what the characters see and hear about, and it all serves to strengthen the central idea that I won't tell you about because I don't want to spoil it.
Setting presentation, design and originality (how cool is the setting?): 3
Setting verisimillitude and detail (how much sense does the setting make?): 3
Plot design, presentation and originality (How well-crafted was the plot, in the dramaturgic sense?): 4
Plot and character verisimillitude (How much sense did the plot and motivations make? Did events follow from motivations?): 4
Characterization and character development: 5
Character sympatheticness: 5
Prose: 4
Page turner factor: 5
Mind blown factor: 5
Final (weighted) score: 4.4
March 26, 2024
As far as Baxter's books go that are purely a way of 'conferring a scientific idea onto his audiences' go, this one's really good. Because it has decent characters, with characterisation and character growth. And a very good plot. And a very interesting dynamic between a set of twins.
Honestly, if there's anything Baxter does really well, it's conveying the scale of a galaxy-wide war. You don't have 1 person responsible for every major disicion. You have commities and subcommities and people doing their part, not really knowing why or what they're doing in the grand sceme of things.
For Nylus' operation, Pirius doesn't lead it, he's just in charge of the flight and crews. Everyone's got their responsibilities, and different roles. Something that I don't see often this realistically in scifi, where a few heroes decide the fate of the galaxy. Star Wars especially is a horrible example of this.
Honestly, if there's anything Baxter does really well, it's conveying the scale of a galaxy-wide war. You don't have 1 person responsible for every major disicion. You have commities and subcommities and people doing their part, not really knowing why or what they're doing in the grand sceme of things.
For Nylus' operation, Pirius doesn't lead it, he's just in charge of the flight and crews. Everyone's got their responsibilities, and different roles. Something that I don't see often this realistically in scifi, where a few heroes decide the fate of the galaxy. Star Wars especially is a horrible example of this.
August 28, 2025
I liked this. Major whiplash in tone from Coalescent, this doesn't feel like the sequel to that at all aside from some world building consistencies. Some moments did feel like he was throwing a ton of concepts on the wall and seeing what sticked. The final part of this book is awesome and has some really cool space stuff. I like Timelike Infinity and Ring more, those are a bit tighter narratives. I also think I like Coalescent more as it was a very different style from the rest of the series and the characters felt more fleshed out there.
This has the big sci-fi concepts we come to expect to Baxter and it uses a lot of the world building from the many Xeelee books before to great effect as well as telling an interesting new story about mankind and Xeelee going toe to toe, which we don't really get to see in the main series.
This has the big sci-fi concepts we come to expect to Baxter and it uses a lot of the world building from the many Xeelee books before to great effect as well as telling an interesting new story about mankind and Xeelee going toe to toe, which we don't really get to see in the main series.
May 24, 2023
While I deeply love Baxter’s early Xeelee novels, it it interesting to see how much he’s improved as a writer in the Destiny’s Children series so far. I do think Exultant is a great book for hard sci-fi fans, and while I think it’s a better book than his early stuff, I didn’t quite enjoy it as much. Mostly I think this comes down to the fact that Exultant is very much military sci-fi, the first mil sci-fi book in the series, and frankly I’m just not all that interested in military plots. That being said, there’s still a lot to like here. I loved that Baxter dove into the origins and background of the Xeelee, something that he typically shrouds in total mystery, and even though I usually love that the Xeelee are often more illusive, Baxter doesn’t hold back when it comes to their crazy, astrophysic-heavy lore.
September 20, 2019
I'll say up front that I'm a big fan of Stephen Baxter. However, he definitely has a tendency to cover some similar themes and styles in his stories. Therefore, I was happy to find that this book was a little bit of a refreshing change from his typical offerings (while still retaining most of what makes his style distinct). This book has a fairly tight plot, rather than being a sprawling epic which he sometimes wanders off into. Not only that, but the book doesn't end with there only being one member of humanity left alive! *shock*
This particular book does fit very easily into Baxter's common universe, and nicely covers an era that hadn't yet seen much detail.
This particular book does fit very easily into Baxter's common universe, and nicely covers an era that hadn't yet seen much detail.
July 5, 2018
J'hésite entre lamentable et ridicule. On ne croit à rien, ni aux personnages, ni aux péripéties, ni aux motivations. L'auteur nous fait du grand copier/coller : à chaque nouveauté, une phase d'essai qui foire suivie de la réussite enfin (5 ou 6 fois dans le romans). Les personnages sont vides et pâles. Absence totale du moindre sens de la psychologie des héros de l'histoire. Du très mauvais Baxter. Dans le même genre, relisons Reynolds ou le cycle d'Ender.
February 16, 2021
As there was little sci-fi in the first book (Coialescent), this one is chocked full with it. And no wonder, as all of the action takes place 20,000 years in mankind's future. This is much more of an action book with, I suppose, quite a bit of space opera about it. Nonetheless, it was a really enthralling book to read, almost un-put-down-able, but I did have to put int down occasionally, even if it was to draw breath and recount what Stephen Baxter had written.
November 20, 2019
From before the beginning of time
A gripping tour d'force of modern cosmology and understandable quantum physics in a compelling matrix of life, lust and galactic conflict. Complex but entertaining.
A gripping tour d'force of modern cosmology and understandable quantum physics in a compelling matrix of life, lust and galactic conflict. Complex but entertaining.
February 6, 2021
The Best of Destiny's Children
Good story line, cosmic wrap up. The science fiction was better than the sociological fiction, and the warfare fiction was suspenseful but was reminescent of WW1 trenches.
Good story line, cosmic wrap up. The science fiction was better than the sociological fiction, and the warfare fiction was suspenseful but was reminescent of WW1 trenches.
February 18, 2018
Vast in scope, a ton of big ideas here, from time travel to FTL speeds, a fun read.
July 11, 2018
not at all bad- good space opera.....
January 31, 2019
I liked it, but "trench warfare in space" kept breaking my suspension of disbelief.
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