Moonseed - Hardcover

Baxter, Stephen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 006105044X ISBN 13: 9780061050442

Publisher: Harper Prism, 1998

Synopsis

Essef - Geologist Henry Meacher is given a sample of Moon Bedrock to analyze. The deadly Moon rock accidentally comes into contact with the Earth's core in the form of lava. Soon perhaps the whole world will be infected.

About this title

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

About this edition

• Publisher: Harper Prism
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 006105044X
• ISBN 13: 9780061050442
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 534