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Sunstorm

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Sunstorm

By: Arthur C. Clarke, Stephen Baxter
Narrated by: John Lee
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Returned to the Earth of 2037 by the Firstborn, mysterious beings of almost limitless technological prowess, Bisesa Dutt is haunted by the memories of her five years spent on the strange alternate Earth called Mir, a jigsaw-puzzle world made up of lands and people cut out of different eras of Earth’s history. Why did the Firstborn create Mir? Why was Bisesa taken there and then brought back on the day after her original disappearance?

Bisesa’s questions receive a chilling answer when scientists discover an anomaly in the sun’s core—an anomaly with no natural cause, evidence of alien intervention over two thousand years before. Now, plans set in motion millennia ago by inscrutable watchers light-years away are coming to fruition in a sunstorm designed to scour Earth of all life through a bombardment of deadly radiation.

Thus commences a furious race against a ticking solar time bomb. But even now, as the apocalypse looms, cooperation is not easy for the peoples and nations of Earth. Religious and political differences threaten to undermine every effort, and all the while, the Firstborn are watching.

©2005 Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter (P)2008 Blackstone Audio, Inc. Adventure Fantasy Fiction Science Fiction Space Opera
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Continue the series
Firstborn cover art
Firstborn By: Arthur C. Clarke, and others

Critic reviews

“Will especially appeal to fans of hard SF who appreciate well-grounded science and humans with a can-do attitude to problem solving…Will keep readers turning the pages.”

(Publishers Weekly)

“The best of disaster adventure fiction and hard SF combine in this compelling sequel to Time’s Eye.”

(Library Journal)

“Splendid…Sunstorm is [Baxter] and Clarke’s most seamless collaboration to date.”

(Booklist)

“An insidious vision of the future that’s sure to thrill fans of 2001: A Space Odyssey and other SF classics.”

(Bookmarks Magazine)
All stars
Most relevant
Aye, a decent bit of Sci-fi, fairly dry as is to be expected from A.C.Clarke but a bit more gripping that some. The feminist "progressive" narrative gets a bit clumsy but, Arthur was woke before woke eh.

Better Than The First I Think

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The first in the series was very original. This one, although it had some nice things about it, felt a bit plodding and didn’t have any surprises.

The first book was better

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A very fine story but the first book is required reading albeit there is no direct connection and they can stand alone.This is very Stephen Baxter ! Everywhere there are references to 'soft screens'a device that populates many of his previous books. It almost borders on an obsession and can get quite tedious with ''soft screen this and soft screen that'' but the book is nonetheless a first class tale. The dome referred to in the latter stages is a variation of a dome referred to in Time Ships, perhaps his best work to date and one that Audible Books should look to include.
I hope you enjoy this as much as I have.

Top stuff

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If you have indeed slogged through book #1, congratulations. Forget about that jumbled mess, here is where things start getting interesting again. and if you are fortunate enough not to have read book #1, congrats again. Just so you know, there is no need to have read part one to fully enjoy this romp.

This is a disaster movie. A good one. Of epic, epic proportions. Even better, it isn't about a towering inferno, it is about orbiting one. People aren't as important here as is the whole of humanity, which to me was the main protagonist here.

This is a hard-scifi story that I'm sure will not leave a fan of the gengre dissatisfied. Less experinced newcomers to scifi will still enjoy it. Like your Crighton or Deighton thriller? There is plenty to be thrilled about in this one. And it doesn't require as nuch suspension of belief as some space operas. (Star Wars it ain't). Liked Space odyssey 2001? This is set in the same universe.

There is a plethora of characters derived from the first book, but luckily it doesn't matter if one can't make heads nor tails of them. (I couldn't keep up with the cast in the first one either). As I said, the main protagonist is humanity and the many people whom we follow in the story are representatives, and the names aren't that important. Somehow to me, locations and classes of intelligence/awareness mattered more here.

The main motivator of this books seems to lie within gargantuan processes, how they shape the events and fates of the people involved.

i found this story to be a very good standalone book, also a much inproved sequel and perhaps I shall reserve my ultimate judgment until I have read/listened to the last one. So for now, I'll give it four and a half stars. That may yet become five later.

And Mr. Lee's narration is starting to grow on me. (Although his russian accent is still quite intolerable)

Well done, Sirs Clarke and Baxter (who isn't as deathly boring as in his solo novels)

Way better than the first book

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took quite a while to get into but worth it in the end. Certainly a very different story to the first book but they do your together well in the end

very different from the first book!

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