New Releases by Stephen Baxter

Next year. Sea levels begin to rise. The change is far more rapid than any climate change predictions; metres a year. Within two years London, only 15 metres above the sea, is drowned. New York follows, the Pope gives his last address from the Vatican, Mecca disappears beneath the waves. Where is all the water coming from? Scientists estimate that the earth was formed with seas 30 times in volume their current levels. Most of that water was burnt off by the sun but some was locked in the earth''s mantle. For the tip of Everest to disappear beneath the waters would require the seas to triple their volume. That amount of water is still much less than 1% of the earth''s volume. And somehow it is being released. The world is drowning. The biblical flood has returned. And the rate of increase is building all the time. Mankind is on the run, heading for high ground. Nuclear submarines prowl through clouds of corpses rising from drowned cities, populations are decimated and finally the dreadful truth is known. Before 50 years have passed there will be nowhere left to run. FLOOD tells the story of mankind''s final years on earth. The stories of a small group of people caught up in the struggle to survive are woven into a tale of unimaginable global disaster. And the hope offered for a unlucky few by a second great ark . . .

The second novel in Stephen Baxter''s Time''s Tapestry series. Inscribed in Latin, the ancient scroll known as The Prophecy has remained in the hands of a single family for generations, revealing secrets about the world to come, and guiding them to wealth and power... Three centuries have passed since Rome fell, as foretold by The Prophecy—which is now in the hands of a young girl who lives disguised as a boy among the monks on the isle of Lindisfarne. When the Vikings come, deliberately destroying the final copies of the scroll, it will still live on—in the memory of one family. And when William of Normandy, whom history will call the Conqueror, rises to power, once more the fate of the land rests on actions inspired by the ancient words. But as time passes, memories dim—and the surviving member of the family struggles to understand his heritage before all knowledge of the future will be lost to the past…

The first novel in Stephen Baxter''s acclaimed Time''s Tapestry series. “EPIC HISTORICAL FICTION laced with a science fiction premise...a vividly convincing picture of a past world.”—SFX It is The Prophecy. Inscribed in Latin, the ancient scroll has resided in the hands of a single family for generations, revealing secrets about the world that is to come, and guiding them to wealth and power. It begins when a Celtic noble betrays his people at the behest of his mother’s belief in The Prophecy—and sides with the conquering Roman legions. For the next 400 years, Britannia thrives, as does the family while Rome rules over the island. But loyalties are torn when Constantine, most powerful Emperor of them all, comes to Britannia. And even as the sun begins to set on the Roman Empire, the Prophecy is renewed—a message from an unknowable future promising the world to those who can decipher its cryptic words...

“Breathtaking . . . brilliantly conducted . . . Far-future philosophic space opera and near-future eco-thriller combine effectively.”—Locus It is the year 2047, and nuclear engineer Michael Poole is mourning the death of his beloved wife and doubting his own sanity. But he must stave off a looming catastrophe: vast reservoirs of toxic gases lie beneath the melting poles, threatening to contaminate the atmosphere and destroy all life on Earth. Though born five hundred thousand years after the death of Michael Poole, Alia knows him intimately. Every person in Alia’s world is entrusted with Witnessing one life from the past by means of a technology able to traverse time. Alia’s subject is Michael Poole. Chosen to become a Transcendent, a member of the group mind that is shepherding humanity toward an evolutionary apotheosis, Alia discovers a dark side to the Transcendent’s plans. Somehow, Michael holds the fate of the future in his hands, and to save that future, Alia must undertake a desperate journey into the past. “Stunning . . . engaging . . . a contrasting mix of Baxter’s customary skill at presenting a very realnear future, and his talent for high-level hardscience fiction.”—Starburst

“Clarke and Baxter have mastered the art of saving the world in blockbuster style.”—Entertainment Weekly Returned to the Earth of 2037 by the mysterious and powerful Firstborn, Bisesa Dutt is haunted by 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. Why did the Firstborn create Mir? Why was Bisesa taken there and then brought back just a day after her disappearance? Bisesa’s questions are answered when scientists discover an unnatural anomaly in the sun’s core—evidence of alien intervention more than two thousand years ago. Now plans set in motion by inscrutable observers light-years away are coming to fruition in a sunstorm designed to eradicate all life on Earth in a bombardment of radiation. As the apocalypse looms, religious and political differences on Earth threaten to undermine every countereffort. And all the while, the Firstborn are watching. . . . Praise for Sunstorm “An absolute must for science fiction fans.”—All Things Considered, NPR “Enthralling . . . highly satisfying.”—The New York Times Book Review “Will keep readers turning pages.”—Publishers Weekly

“Lean, taut storytelling . . . breakneck stuff . . . Arguably his most accessible book to date—Baxter [is] resplendent.”—SFX magazine When his father dies suddenly, George Poole stumbles onto a family secret: He has a twin sister he never knew existed, who was raised by an enigmatic cult called the Order. The Order is a hive—a human hive with a dominant queen—that has prospered below the streets of Rome for almost two millennia. After Poole enters the Order’s vast underground city and meets the disturbing inhabitants, he uncovers evidence that they have embarked on a divergent evolutionary path. These genetically superior humans are equipped with the tools necessary to render modern Homo sapiens as extinct as the Neanderthals. And now they are preparing to leave their underground realm. “[Excels] at both action-packed storytelling and philosophical speculation.”—Library Journal “Utterly fascinating . . . constantly surprising . . . Coalescent reveals a new side to Baxter’s vast talent.”—Locus

“Magisterial and uplifting . . . A brilliant, grandscale sampling of sixty-five million years of human evolution . . . It shows the sweep and grandeur of life in its unrelenting course.” —The Denver Post Stretching from the distant past into the remote future, from primordial Earth to the stars, Evolution is a soaring symphony of struggle, extinction, and survival; a dazzling epic that combines a dozen scientific disciplines and a cast of unforgettable characters to convey the grand drama of evolution in all its awesome majesty and rigorous beauty. Sixty-five million years ago, when dinosaurs ruled the Earth, there lived a small mammal, a proto-primate of the species Purgatorius. From this humble beginning, Baxter traces the human lineage forward through time. The adventure that unfolds is a gripping odyssey governed by chance and competition, a perilous journey to an uncertain destination along a route beset by sudden and catastrophic upheavals. It is a route that ends, for most species, in stagnation or extinction. Why should humanity escape this fate? Praise for Evolution “Spectacular.”—The New York Times Book Review “Strong imagination, a capacity for awe, and the ability to think rigorously about vast and final things abound in the work of Stephen Baxter. . . . [Evolution] leaves the reader with a haunting portrayal of the distant future.”—Times Literary Supplement “A breath of fresh air . . . The miracle of Evolution is that it makes the triumph of life, which is its story, sound like the real story.”—The Washington Post Book World

“As always, [Stephen] Baxter plays with space and time with consummate skill. . . . He continues to be one of the leading writers of hard science fiction, and one of the most thought-provoking as well.”—Science Fiction Chronicle The year is 2020. Fueled by an insatiable curiosity, Reid Malenfant ventures to the far edge of the solar system, where he discovers a strange artifact left behind by an alien civilization: A gateway that functions as a kind of quantum transporter, allowing virtually instantaneous travel over the vast distances of interstellar space. What lies on the other side of the gateway? Malenfant decides to find out. Yet he will soon be faced with an impossible choice that will push him beyond terror, beyond sanity, beyond humanity itself. Meanwhile on Earth the Japanese scientist Nemoto fears her worst nightmares are coming true. Startling discoveries reveal that the Moon, Venus, even Mars once thrived with life—life that was snuffed out not just once but many times, in cycles of birth and destruction. And the next chilling cycle is set to begin again . . . “When the travel bug bites and usual planets don’t excite, perhaps it’s time to burst the bounds of this old solar system and really see the sights. . . . Baxter’s expansive new novel is just the ticket.”—The Washington Times “Breathtaking in its originality and scope.”—The Washington Post

Detailed research, empathy with his characters, an ecological perspective and his trademark flare for epic narrative sweep make Baxter¿s Mammoth series very much key works in his canon. ICEBONES takes the action to a stunningly realised partially terraformed Mars in the far future and sees the epic Mammoth story cycle come to fruition.

Science fiction roman.

2000 years in the future, the solar system has fallen under the domination of an alien species, the Quax. But into this world appears a spaceship launched over 1500 years ago, intended to establish a link through which time travel is possible. To the humans this is a chance to reverse time.

Michael Poole''s wormholes constructed in the orbit of Jupiter had opened the galaxy to humankind. Then Poole tried looping a wormhole back on itself, tying a knot in space and ripping a hole in time. It worked. Too well. Poole was never seen again. Then from far in the future, from a time so distant that the stars themselves were dying embers, came an urgent SOS--and a promise. The universe was doomed, but humankind was not. Poole had stumbled upon an immense artifact, light-years across, fabricated from the very string of the cosmos. The universe had a door. And it was open...

There is a secret passage through time ...and it leads all the way to the end of Eternity. But the journey has a terrible cost. It alters not only the future but he "present" in which we live. A century after the publication of H. G. Wells'' immortal The Time Machine, Stephen Baxter, today''s most acclaimed new "hard SF" author, and the acknowledged Clarke, returns to the distant conflict between the Eloi and the Morlocks in a story that is at once an exciting expansion, and a radical departure based on the astonishing new understandings of quantum physics.