Showing results by author "Stephen Baxter" in All Categories

A spaceship from Earth accidentally crossed through a hole in space-time to a universe where the force of gravity is one billion times as strong as the gravity we know. Somehow the crew survived, aided by the fact that they emerged into a cloud of gas surrounding a black hole, which provided a breathable atmosphere. Five hundred years later, their descendants still struggle for existence, divided into two main groups. The Miners live on the Belt, a ramshackle ring of dwellings orbiting the core of a dead star, which they excavate for raw materials.

The Wheel. A ring of ice and steel turning around a moon of Saturn, and home to a mining colony supplying a resource-hungry Earth. It's a bad place to grow up. The colony has been plagued by problems. Maybe it's just gremlins, just bad luck. But the equipment failures and thefts of resources have been increasing, and there have been stories among the children of mysterious creatures glimpsed aboard the Wheel. Many of the younger workers refuse to go down the warren-like mines anymore. And then sixteen-year-old Phee Laws, surfing Saturn's rings, saves an enigmatic blue box from destruction.

First there were good times: humankind reached glorious heights, even immortality. Then there were bad times: Earth was occupied by the faceless, brutal Qax. Immortality drugs were confiscated, the human spirit crushed. Earth became a vast factory for alien foodstuffs. Into this new dark age appears the end of a tunnel through time. Made from exotic matter, it is humanity's greatest engineering project in the pre-Qax era, where the other end of the tunnel remains anchored near Jupiter.

An alternative history of the US space programme, dramatised by Dirk Maggs. What if John F. Kennedy survived the assassination attempt and developed the space programme? President Nixon, with the help of former president JFK, has just green-lit NASA’s first manned expedition to Mars. Aboard the expedition is Natalie York, a geologist who risks everything she loves for the chance to go to space; Phil Stone, former X-15 test pilot; and Ralph Gershon, a Vietnam War hero intent on being the first African American to reach another planet.

Star humans were engineered to exist within the mantle of a star, mere tools of their Earth-evolved makers in a war against the Xeelee, owners of the universe. Stephen Baxter's third novel in his magnificent Xeelee Sequence is an exotic and endearing story of an abandoned people. Abandoned to their fate, their history lost along with contact with their makers, Star people survive in an environment that is possibly the strangest in science fiction.

By the middle of the 21st century, humanity has managed to overcome a series of catastrophic events and maintain some sense of stability. Space exploration has begun again. Science has led the way. But then one day, the sun goes out. Solar panels are useless, and the world begins to freeze. Earth begins to fall out of its orbit. The end is nigh. Someone has sent us a sign.

Michael Poole finds himself in a very strange landscape.... This is the centre of the Galaxy. And in a history without war with the humans, the Xeelee have had time to built an immense structure here. The Xeelee Belt has a radius 10,000 times Earth's orbital distance. It is a light-year in circumference. If it was set in the solar system, it would be out in the Oort Cloud, among the comets - but circling the sun. If it was at rest, it would have a surface area equivalent to about 30 billion Earths. But it is not at rest: it rotates at near light speed.

Trapped on an alternate Earth, the combined crews of a crashed Russian spaceship, a British expeditionary force and a group of strays from the future must work together to survive, escape and discover what led them to this point. All are from parallel universes where small changes in history led to different realities, and the tensions between the groups are rising.

Two apparently unrelated anomalies have disrupted operations at a mining colony on Mercury. A troubleshooting mission sent to investigate encounters peculiar events and even stranger findings.

This is an unabridged audio collection of the "best of the best" science fiction prose originally written in 2008 by current and emerging masters of the genre as narrated by top voice talents.

Short novels may well be the perfect length for science-fiction stories. They are movie-length tales that resonate with moxie while fully exploring characters, new worlds, and ideas. The stories in this unabridged audio collection are the best-of-the-best short science-fiction novels published in 2010 by current and emerging masters of this form.

Analog Science Fiction & Fact Magazine has provided four edgy stories about heroism, each exploring emotional dimensions uncommon in this or any other genre.

This audio collection presents the best-of-the-best short science fiction novels published in 2013 by current and emerging masters of this vibrant form. In Earth I, by Stephen Baxter, a search among the stars to ferret out the origins of mankind amidst the Xaian normalisation digs up many surprises. In Success, by Michael Blumlein, a brilliant but erratic biologist studying epigenetics struggles to hang onto his grip on everyday life as he writes his ground-breaking tome.

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Starships come in many shapes and sizes. Their crews and passengers are an eclectic lot. They venture into the deep voids of space on their assigned missions. Sometimes they succeed and sometimes they do not. This collection tells the stories of the crews and passengers aboard six of these starships.

Als Polizistin Monica Jansson im Jahr 2015 in den Ruinen eines Hauses auf diese Apparatur stößt, ahnt sie nicht, dass sie den Prototyp einer bahnbrechenden Erfindung in Händen hält. Der kleine Kasten ist ein Wechsler, mit dem es von nun an jedem möglich ist, mit einem kleinen Schritt in die "Lange Erde" hinauszutreten: eine Abfolge von Parallelwelten, der unseren mehr oder weniger ähnlich und von Menschen unbewohnt. Schnell setzt auf der alten Erde ein Goldrausch ein.

Seit seiner Kindheit wollte Reid Malenfant Astronaut werden, doch die NASA lehnte ihn ab. Seine Frau Emma ist erfolgreicher: Sie bricht 2004 mit einer Expedition zum Marsmond Phobos auf, um eine Anomalie zu erkunden. Doch ein Jahr später reißt der Kontakt ab, und Emma gilt seither als verschollen. Reid bekommt schließlich doch noch einen Platz als Space-Shuttle-Pilot, stürzt 2019 jedoch bei einem tragischen Unfall ab.

2070-71: Fast sechs Jahrzehnte nach der Entdeckung des Wechslers, der erstmals das Pendeln zwischen Parallelwelten ermöglichte, floriert auf der Langen Erde eine neue posthumane Gesellschaft. Doch gerät diese in Aufruhr, als eine geheimnisvolle Botschaft aus der Mitte der Galaxie eingeht: JOIN US. Die superintelligenten Next entdecken darin die Baupläne für eine künstliche Intelligenz von gewaltigen Ausmaßen.

2045 - 2059: Während sich die Menschheit auf der Datumerde, ihrem von Katastrophen heimgesuchten und in die Jahre gekommenen Heimatplaneten, weiterentwickelt, schreitet auch die Besiedelung der Parallelwelten der Langen Erde voran. Lobsang, der als künstliche Intelligenz über Jahrzehnte die Lange Erde erforschte, lebt inzwischen als Mensch getarnt auf einer weit entfernten Parallelwelt. Als sich die Anzeichen häufen, dass mit dieser etwas nicht stimmt, muss er seine alten Freunde, die Pioniere Joshua und Sally um Hilfe rufen.

Unterwegs in Pratchetts Welten. 2040-45: Das Universum der Langen Erde, dieser unendlichen Abfolge paralleler Welten, ist in Aufruhr. Nach einem Vulkanausbruch auf der ursprünglichen, der Datum-Erde suchen Flüchtlingswellen die Siedlungen auf den neuen Erden heim. Die erfahrenen Pioniere Joshua und Sally helfen, wo sie können. Doch dann meldet sich ein lang Verschollener zurück: Sallys Vater, der Erfinder der modifizierten Kartoffel, die das Wechseln zwischen den Welten erst ermöglichte. Er will seine Tochter mitnehmen auf eine Expedition in die Welten des Langen Mars. Allerdings verschweigt er Sally die wahren Gründe für diese gefährliche Reise.