Synopsis
Days after Venus inexplicably explodes, showering the Earth with radiation, the same rock-liquefying nanovirus that destroyed her sister planet reaches the Earth, catapulting the planet into a devastating extinction event.
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Review
Stephen Baxter established himself as a major British sci-fi author with tales of exotic, far-future technology. More recently, in Voyage, Titan and now Moonseed, he shows his love for the hardware of the real world's space programme. (Comparisons with Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff have been frequent.) Moonseed is a spectacular disaster novel whose threat to Earth comes from a long-forgotten Moon rock sample carrying strange silver dust that seems to be alien nanotechnology--molecule-sized machines. Accidentally spilt in Edinburgh, this "Moonseed" quietly devours stone and processes it into more Moonseed. Geology becomes high drama: when ancient mountains turn to dust, the lid is taken off seething magma below. Volcanoes return to Scotland, and Krakatoa-like eruptions spread Moonseed around the world... A desperate, improvised US/Russian space mission heads for the Moon to probe the secret of how our satellite has survived uneaten. Baxter convincingly shows how travel costs could be cut, with a hair-raising descent on a shoestring lunar lander that makes Apollo's look like a luxury craft. The climax brings literally world-shaking revelations and upheavals. Moonseed is a ripping interplanetary yarn. --David Langford
Review
‘This year’s great disaster novel’ Daily Mirror
‘Baxter handles a complex and gripping plot with his customary aplomb... The ending will blow your mind. Buy Titan, read it – and then go out and buy everything else that Baxter has ever written’
New Scientist
‘This is a tale of equivalent scope to 2001, while the visions of Titan life have that sense of Clarke-style cosmic sorrow’
SFX
‘A plausible tale of America’s last gasp at interplanetary exploration... Stephen Baxter proves what a cosmic thinker he is’
Washington Post Book World
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Moonseed
Seller: Gulf Coast Books, Cypress, TX, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Hardcover. Condition: Good. Seller Inventory # 006105044X-3-24433099
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Moonseed
Seller: World of Books (was SecondSale), Montgomery, IL, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Condition: Very Good. Item in very good condition! Textbooks may not include supplemental items i.e. CDs, access codes etc. Seller Inventory # 00100515129
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Moonseed
Seller: Once Upon A Time Books, Siloam Springs, AR, U.S.A.
Seller rating 4 out of 5 stars
Hardcover. Condition: Good. This is a used book in good condition and may show some signs of use or wear . This is a used book in good condition and may show some signs of use or wear . Seller Inventory # mon0003486218
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Moonseed
Seller: ThriftBooks-Dallas, Dallas, TX, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. No Jacket. May have limited writing in cover pages. Pages are unmarked. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less. Seller Inventory # G006105044XI4N00
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Moonseed
Seller: ThriftBooks-Atlanta, AUSTELL, GA, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. No Jacket. Missing dust jacket; May have limited writing in cover pages. Pages are unmarked. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less. Seller Inventory # G006105044XI4N01
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Moonseed
Seller: ThriftBooks-Dallas, Dallas, TX, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. No Jacket. Missing dust jacket; May have limited writing in cover pages. Pages are unmarked. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less. Seller Inventory # G006105044XI4N01
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Moonseed
Published by
HarperCollins Publishers Limited, 1998
ISBN 10: 006105044X
ISBN 13: 9780061050442
Used
Hardcover
First Edition
Seller: Better World Books, Mishawaka, IN, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Condition: Good. First Edition. Pages intact with minimal writing/highlighting. The binding may be loose and creased. Dust jackets/supplements are not included. Stock photo provided. Product includes identifying sticker. Better World Books: Buy Books. Do Good. Seller Inventory # 228356-75
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Moonseed
Seller: HPB-Ruby, Dallas, TX, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used books may not include companion materials, and may have some shelf wear or limited writing. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority! Seller Inventory # S_461901584
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Moonseed
Seller: Wonder Book, Frederick, MD, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Condition: Good. Good condition. Good dust jacket. A copy that has been read but remains intact. May contain markings such as bookplates, stamps, limited notes and highlighting, or a few light stains. Seller Inventory # C09K-01234
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Moonseed
Seller: Library House Internet Sales, Grand Rapids, OH, U.S.A.
Seller rating 4 out of 5 stars
Hardcover. Condition: Good. No Jacket. It started the night Geena and Henry broke up. What was that strange light in the sky? A new star? A comet? Neither. It was the death of Venus. As if to commemorate the end of NASA's golden couple, our neighbor planet exploded into a brilliant cloud of dust and debris, showering the Earth with radiation and bizarre particles as big as bacteria--wiping out all the crops and half the life in the oceans, frying the ozone layer, forcing survivors to wear protective suits on city streets. Days later, a few specks of moon rock kicked up from the last Apollo mission fell upon a lava crag in Scotland. That was all it took. The ground itself began to shimmer, forming pools of luminous, almost liquid dust. Pools that grow larger every day, as the cultists of Infinite Egress drum and chant with apocalyptic joy. So begins Stephen Baxter's most ambitious, most exciting, and ultimately most fascinating novel: Moonseed, the story of a menace that falls to Earth from an unimaginably distant past, pushing us to the brink of an extinction event unparalleled in our planet's history. For what has demolished Venus, and now threatens Earth itself, is part machine, part life form: a ten-dimensional superstring nanovirus that literally eats rock, transforming it into liquid, and then into molecule-size black holes that devour the very fabric of space time. Feasting on Edinburgh's primeval basalt, Moonseed is steadily eating its way toward Earth's core. The death toll rises by the hour as buildings collapse into streets that flow like water; as hundred-foot tsunamis obliterate Seattle and Vancouver; as volcanoes sprout like weeds across the planet's quickly decaying mantle. NASA "rock-jockey" Henry Meacher and his Japanese colleague, Blue, race to cut off the virus and save what is left of the Earth. Meanwhile Henry's ex, Geena, straps in with a Russian cosmonaut for a daredevil Moon voyage, ultimately reuniting with Henry and searching for the lunar ice deposits that might make possible the greatest evacuation since Noah braved the Flood. And a mother and her young son clamber for the last solid ground in the liquefying Scottish Highlands, under the baleful stars of a dying universe. Audacious beyond comparison, grand in conception, and gripping in execution, Moonseed is the first modern novel to do justice to the awesome terror and promise implicit in quantum physics. Like all of Baxter's work, it blazes new paths from which science fiction will surely follow in the years to come, and becomes required reading for anyone wishing to understand the awesome promise--and threat--revealed by modern science. Please note the image in this listing is a stock photo and may not match the covers of the actual item. Book. Seller Inventory # 123805168