Showing results by author "Stephen Baxter" in All Categories

For eons, Earth has been under observation by the Firstborn, beings almost as old as the universe itself. The Firstborn are unknown to humankind - until they act. In an instant, Earth is carved up and reassembled like a huge jigsaw puzzle. Suddenly the planet and every living thing on it no longer exist in a single timeline.

The Western Front, 1916. Private Percy Blakeney wakes up. He is lying on fresh spring grass. He can hear birdsong, and the wind in the leaves in the trees. Where have the mud, blood, and blasted landscape of No Man's Land gone? Madison, Wisconsin, 2015. Cop Monica Jansson is exploring the burned-out home of a reclusive - some said mad, others dangerous - scientist when she finds a curious gadget: a box containing some wiring, a three-way switch and a potato. It is the prototype of a life-changing invention....

Returned to the Earth of 2037 by the Firstborn, mysterious beings of almost limitless technological prowess, Bisesa Dutt is haunted by the memories of her five years spent on the strange alternate Earth called Mir, a jigsaw-puzzle world made up of lands and people cut out of different eras of Earth's history.

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.

Signs of 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 secrets of life’s origins and reach for a human destiny beyond their wildest dreams.

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 - a 10-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.

Twenty-seven years later, the Firstborn are back. This time, they have sent a "quantum bomb" speeding toward Earth, a device that human scientists can barely comprehend, let alone stop or destroy. But when shocking new insights emerge about the nature of the Firstborn and their plans, an unexpected ally appears from light-years away.

An epic saga of America’s might-have-been, Voyage is a powerful, sweeping novel of how, if President Kennedy had lived, we could have sent a manned mission to Mars in the 1980s. Imaginatively created from the true lives and real events, Voyage returns to the geniuses of NASA and the excitement of the Saturn rocket and includes historical figures from Neil Armstrong to Ronald Reagan who are interwoven with unforgettable characters whose dreams mirror the promise of a young space program that held the world in thrall.  

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.

It's 2045-2059. After the cataclysmic upheavals of Step Day and the Yellowstone eruption humanity is spreading farther into the Long Earth, and society, on a battered Datum Earth and beyond, continues to evolve. Now an elderly and cantankerous AI, Lobsang, lives in disguise with Agnes in an exotic, far-distant world. He’s convinced they’re leading a normal life in New Springfield - they even adopt a child - but it seems they have been guided there for a reason.

The years 2040 - 2045: After the cataclysmic Yellowstone eruption, there is massive economic dislocation as populations flee Datum Earth to myriad Long Earth worlds. Sally, Joshua, and Lobsang are all involved in this perilous work when, out of the blue, Sally is contacted by her long-vanished father and inventor of the original Stepper device, Willis Linsay. He tells her he is planning a fantastic voyage across the Long Mars and wants her to accompany him. But Sally soon learns that Willis has ulterior motives....

It's 2070-71. Nearly six decades after Step Day, and in the Long Earth the new Next posthuman society continues to evolve. For Joshua Valienté, now in his late 60s, it is time to take one last solo journey into the High Meggers: an adventure that turns into a disaster. Alone and facing death, his only hope of salvation lies with a group of trolls. But as Joshua confronts his mortality, the Long Earth receives a signal from the stars.

A generation after the events of The Long Earth, mankind has spread across the new worlds opened up by Stepping. Where Joshua and Lobsang once pioneered, now fleets of airships link the stepwise Americas with trade and culture. Mankind is shaping the Long Earth - but in turn the Long Earth is shaping mankind...

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

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.

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.

Eine Erde ist nicht genug. Die Lange Erde ist eine Abfolge von Parallelwelten, der unseren ähnlich. Seit eine zum Transporter modifizierte Kartoffel es Menschen ermöglicht, diese zu betreten, sind dort Siedlungen entstanden, verbunden durch eine Flotte von Luftschiffen. Doch Unruhen deuten sich an: Ein neues Amerika ist entstanden, das nach Unabhängigkeit verlangt, und alte Wesen der Langen Erde begehren gegen die menschlichen Siedler auf. Es droht ein Krieg, wie ihn noch nie jemand gesehen hat.

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.

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.