Manifold: Space

by Stephen Baxter

Hardcover, 464 pages

English language

Published Jan. 30, 2001 by Del Rey.

ISBN:: 978-0-345-43077-9
OCLC Number:: 45892451

(13 reviews)

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 . . .

Part of the Manifold series.

6 editions

Andrew (andrewspink@mastadon.green) reviewed Manifold: Space by Stephen Baxter (Manifold (2))

Review of 'Manifold: Space' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

I quite enjoyed it but not as much as the previous one in the series (Time). It was a bit rambling in parts and the plot wasn't always so riveting. I didn't feel that the characters were that well developed either.
The stuff about the Neanderthals and other hominids was quite fun, but research since the book was written has shown that they were much more developed than we used to think, quite possibly with language, for instance. There was definitely interbreeding with Homo sapiens ; we all have some Neanderthal DNA in our genome.
In the end the story still comes back to human exceptionally, for exceptionally vage reasons ('faith'!), which is a bit disappointing.