Traces - Softcover

Baxter, Stephen

3.74

248 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0006498140 ISBN 13: 9780006498148

Publisher: Voyager, 1999

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Stories set in a variety of futures from the award-winning heir of Arthur C. Clarke: Traces gives a kaleidoscopic vision of the possibilities for humankind.

There are vision of histories which differ from our own, either through small changes – what if Germany had won WWI (‘Mittelwelt’) – or through a fundamental difference in physical laws – what if Archimedes had been right in his clockwork-like cosmological vision (‘No Longer Touch the Earth’).

There are visions of futures in which people struggle to survive in a variety of bizarre environments (‘Downstream’, ‘The Blood of Angels’), or, weakened and powerless, inhabit the end of worlds (‘Inherit the Earth’, ‘George and the Comet’).

There are explorations of astonishing events of our own lifetimes, in particular the grand expansion into space (‘Zemlya’, ‘Moon Six’, ‘Pilgrim 7’).

These visions give an impression of the contingency of our everyday here-and-now, surrounded as it is by an infinite array of possible pasts, presents, and futures.

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Review:

‘The most important living science-fiction writer in the country’
THE TIMES

‘The best SF writer in Britain’
SFX

Praise for Stephen Baxter’s short fiction:

‘The stories are the purest distillation of hard SF. They add up to an essential collection’
INTERZONE

‘A luminous collection . . . Baxter can overwhelm you with a traditional SF “sense of wonder” until your jaw drops’
SFX

‘Baxter sends into free-fall the most awesome ideas in science fiction today ... [He] reveals the mortal host in the machine.’
THE TIMES

From the Back Cover:

'TRACES' Stephen Baxter

Feeling secure in our everyday here-and-now? Then let Stephen Baxter reveal to you disturbing traces of other worlds: traces of other pasts, other presents, other futures. Here are vestiges of civilisations lost, long-gone, footprints of passing life-forms, visions of histories that differ from our own, some in small ways, some through a fundamental difference in physical laws. Here are twenty-one extraordinary stories from the best science fiction writer of his generation.

Praise for 'Vacuum Diagrams,' Stephen Baxter's first collection of short stories:

"The stories are the purest distillation of hard SF. They add up to an essential collection."
'Interzone'

"A luminous collection... Baxter can overwhelm you with a traditional SF 'sense of wonder' until your jaw drops"
'SFX'

"This book's depth almost produces vertigo – a classic in the making"
'Examiner'

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