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From: Alex Michael Bonnici <bonnici@ix.netcom.com>
To: Carl Sagan List <carlsagan@craigerware.avalon.net>
Subject: Sagan: Stephen A. Baxter One Of The Best British Science Fiction Writers To Appear In Recent Years!!!
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Hello Gang,
One of my favourite hard science fiction writers, that has
emerged in recent years, is Stephen A. Baxter. He is a Mathematician by
trade who has a very good grasp of modern physics (super string theory,
cosmology etc, etc), astronomy, and space science. I am currently
reading his most recent book entitled "Moonseed" and I just finished
reading his other recent book entitled "Titan". Go out and buy
everything this guy has ever written, you will not be disappointed.
There is also a web site devoted to his work at:
http://www.sam.math.ethz.ch/%7Epkeller/Baxter-Page.html.
Below are some reviews concerning "Moonseed" and "Titan" from Amazon.Com
Reviews
Amazon.com
Stephen Baxter, the much lauded author of Voyage
and Titan, has been
praised as a sci-fi writer who gets the science
right. This rigor and
research are clearly evident in Moonseed, a tale
with high energy physics
and space travel technology in starring roles. It's
Baxter's boyish
enthusiasm for science especially space travel that
makes Moonseed
so involving.
A world class disaster epic worthy of any Saturday
matinee, Moonseed
opens with the spectacular, explosive death of
Venus, an event requiring
energy a thousand billion times the world's nuclear
arsenal. As the
radioactive blast from the late Venus reaches
Earth, scientists scramble to
attribute a cause, with massless black holes and
elementary particles the
size of bacteria pointing towards some sort of
superstring as the smoking
gun. The pace quickens when the substance that may
have caused the
demise of Venus is accidentally introduced to
Earth. This substance,
dubbed moonseed, acts as a geological lubricant:
processes that normally
take millions of years occur in mere months with
moonseed in the picture.
Once Scotland and the state of Washington get
gobbled up by this
rock eating, 10th-dimensional nano-lifeform, all
hell breaks loose and the
search turns towards finding safe refuge for
humanity on the Moon. The
book's second half is a seat-of-your-pants, what-if
exploration of space
travel and terraforming.
An over-the-top doomsday yarn by some measures,
Moonseed keeps
your feet on the ground with good science, good
characters, and a good
story. --Paul Hughes
From Kirkus Reviews , September 15, 1998
Another massive near future, near space yarn from
the author of Voyage
(1997). As NASA space jockey Geena Bourne
acrimoniously splits from
her geologist husband, Henry Meacher, Venus
explodes into nova like
brilliance. The explanation, scientists think,
involves superstrings: the
planet's wreckage produces massless black holes.
Geena returns to
work, while Henry travels to Edinburgh to
investigate a large Moon rock
gathered by the last Apollo mission 30 years ago
and left untouched
since. Silvery ``Moonseed'' dust escapes from the
lab, however, and
``infects'' the ancient volcanic rocks underlying
the city, converting them
into novel crystalline forms using superstring
energies. Within days,
Edinburgh is engulfed by volcanic eruptions.
Moonseed spreads rapidly
around the globe, chewing up the planet's crust,
and producing more
terrestrial turbulence. Henry, who's developing a
theory (is Moonseed
some sort of hive organism? or alien nanotechnology
that converts planets
into spaceships?) must get to the Moon to gather
crucial evidence.
Geena's the best pilot available, though rundown
NASA will need lots of
Russian hardware and technical help. Henry confirms
that the Moon, too,
is infected with Moonseed, but something massive is
inhibiting its full
development. With Earth doomed to meltdown, the
Moons clearly the
only safe haven for what's left of humanity. But
can it be made habitable
in time to receive millions of refugees? Baxter
revels in the gritty, practical
details of space flight and moon-walking; his alien
threat is an intriguing
and original one, though unconvincingly developed.
But the padding (too
many minor characters and unnecessary scenes) slows
the pace to a
crawl. (Movie rights to The Bridge Production
Company) -- Copyright
©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Locus
"A stunning talent!"
New Scientist
"Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein
succeeded...and
now Stephen Baxter joins their exclusive ranks,
writing science fiction in
which the science is right. A sheer pleasure to
read!"
Book Description of Titan.
Humankind's greatest and last adventure!
Possible signs of organic life have been found on
Titan, Saturn's largest
moon. A group of visionaries led by NASA's Paula
Benacerraf plan a
daring one-way mission that will cost them
everything. Taking nearly a
decade, the billion-mile voyage includes a
"slingshot" transit of Venus, a
catastrophic solar storm, and a constant struggle
to keep the ship and
crew functioning. But it is on the icy surface of
Titan itself that the true
adventure begins. In the orange methane slush the
astronauts will discover
the secret of life's origins and reach for a human
destiny beyond their
wildest dreams.
Enjoy,
Alex Michael Bonnici
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/8505
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