New Releases by Stephen Baxter

In the year 2255, of all the sentient beings in her universe, it was a woman named Salma, twenty years old, who was the first fully to see the object called Planet Nine. See with her own eyes, albeit moderated by her ship''s instruments. If not to recognise what it was, not yet. Not that the object turned out to be a planet, or the ''ninth'' of anything. Briefly thought to be a black hole, it suddenly changes, expands and sends a message. There is something waiting on its service. Something not quite human. As the ramifications of this event spread across the fracturing elements of humanity, it is clear that the small crew on the spot are at the centre of the most dramatic discovery in history. But theirs is not the only inexplicable event happening - impossibly, at exactly the same moment, a quasar appeared twenty-five thousand light years away, and now is heating up the solar system. If the enigma of the creation node is not solved quickly, there may be no one left to investigate it . . .

In 2145AD John Hackett''s adventure is just beginning. In Year 30, Mela''s story is coming to a close. Hackett, in his trusty ship the Perseus, is not just a space traveller - beginning his travels with an expedition to Neptune and back - but, thanks to the time-dilation effect, a time traveller as well. His new mission will take him to Andromeda, to get a close-up look at the constellation which will eventually crash into the Milky Way, and give humanity a heads-up about the challenges which are coming. A mission which will take him five million years to complete. Not only is Hackett exploring unknown space, but he will return to a vastly different time. Mela''s world is coming to an end. Erosion is eating away at the edges of every landmass - first at a rate of ten metres a year, but fast accelerating, displacing people and animals as the rising Tide destroys everything in its path. Putting more and more pressure on the people - and resources - which remain. She and her people have always known that this long-predicted end to their home, one of the Thousand Earths, is coming - but that makes their fight to survive, to protect each other, no less desperate . . . and no less doomed. A beautiful, page-turning story which interweaves the tale of these two characters, separated by both space and time, in a hopeful exploration of humanities'' future, this is Stephen Baxter at his best.

Trapped on an alternate Earth, the combined crews of a crashed Russian spaceship, a British expeditionary force and a group of strays from the future must work together to survive, escape, and discover what led them to this point. All are from parallel universes where small changes in history led to different realities, and the tensions between the groups are rising. But some changes were not small. The solar system has been altered, changed, shaped in the various realities, and the World Engineers - unspeakably powerful, completely unknown - are still active. Why have they populated this planet with humanity''s ancestors and dinosaurs? What is on the moon of Saturn that gives off such an odd light? And even if they can be found, can they be stopped - and should they be? Malenfant, Deidra and the rest of their party must find a way off the planet, back into space, and into the many dimensions seeking the answer...

Half a million years in the future, on a dead, war-ravaged world at the centre of the Galaxy, there is a mile-high statue of Michael Poole. Poole, born on Earth in the fourth millennium, was one of mankind''s most influential heroes. He was not a warrior, not an emperor. He was an engineer, a builder of wormhole transit systems. But Poole''s work would ultimately lead to a vast and destructive conflict, a million-year war between humanity and the enigmatic, powerful aliens known as the Xeelee. The Xeelee won, but at a huge cost. And, defeated in a greater war, the Xeelee eventually fled the universe. Most of them. A handful were left behind, equipped with time travel capabilities, their task to tidy up: to reorder history more to the Xeelee''s liking. That million-year war with humankind was one blemish. It had to be erased. And in order to do that, a lone Xeelee was sent back in time to remove Michael Poole from history . . .

Originally published: London: Gollancz, 2017.

A sequel to Sir Arthur C. Clarke’s Nebula Award–winning novella “A Meeting with Medusa,” this novel continues the thrilling adventure of astronaut Howard Falcon, humanity’s first explorer of Jupiter from two modern science fiction masters. Howard Falcon almost lost his life in an accident as the first human astronaut to explore the atmosphere of Jupiter—and a combination of human ingenuity and technical expertise brought him back. But he is no longer himself. Instead, he has been changed into an augmented human: part man, part machine, and exceptionally capable. With permission from the Clarke Estate, Stephen Baxter and Alastair Reynolds continue this beloved writer’s enduring vision and have created a fresh story for new readers. The Medusa Chronicles charts Falcon’s journey through the centuries granted by his new body, but always back to mysteries of Jupiter and the changing interaction between humanity and the universe. A compelling read full of incredible action right from the beginning, this is a modern classic in the spirit of 2001 and The Martian.

Return to the eon-spanning and universe-crossing conflict between humanity and the unknowable alien Xeelee in this collection of stories, available in ebook for the first time! Baxter''s future history, known as the Xeelee sequence, is an exemplar of the form: it comprises his first four novels - Raft, Timelike Infinity, Flux and Ring - and these marvellous linked stories, as well as those in the new collection XEELEE: ENDURANCE. Contains 21 short stories, all set in the XEELEE universe.

« C’est à l’inauguration de la Nouvelle Grande Exposition, le 18 juillet 1870, que je fis la connaissance de Josiah Traveller en personne, même si j’avais entendu pendant mon enfance les histoires que racontait mon frère Hedley sur les diableries perpétrées par l’anti-glace de ce célèbre ingénieur au cours de la campagne...

The third novel in legendary author and Discworld creator Terry Pratchett and award-winning science fiction writer Stephen Baxter''s “Long Earth” series, which Io9 calls “a brilliant science fiction collaboration.” 2040. The Long Earth is in chaos. . . . The cataclysmic Yellowstone eruption is shutting down civilization. Whole populations flee to the relative safety of myriad stepwise Earths. Sally Linsay, Joshua Valiente, and Lobsang have all been involved in the perilous post-eruption clean-up. But Joshua faces a crisis close to home. From a long childhood hidden deep in the Long Earth, a new breed of young, super-bright post-humans is emerging—but "normal" human society is turning against them, driven by ignorance and fear. For Joshua, caught up in the conflict, a dramatic showdown seems inevitable. Meanwhile, U.S. Navy Commander Maggie Kauffman embarks on an incredible journey, leading an expedition to the unexplored limits of the far Long Earth. And Sally is contacted by her long-vanished father, Willis Linsay, inventor of the original Stepper device. Ever the maverick, he is planning a fantastic voyage of his own—across the Long Mars. But what is his true motivation? For Joshua, for humankind, for the Long Earth itself—everything is different now. Joshua becomes embroiled in the plight of the Next: the super-bright post-humans who are beginning to emerge from their “long childhood” in the community called Happy Landings, located deep in the Long Earth. Ignorance and fear have caused “normal” human society to turn against the Next. A dramatic showdown seems inevitable. . . . The complete list of books in the Long Earth series include: The Long Earth The Long War The Long Mars The Long Utopia The Long Cosmos

Praised as “not only a gifted storyteller but also a master of speculative fiction” (Library Journal), bestselling author Stephen Baxter brings his epic Northland trilogy to a close as a once-thriving civilization faces winter without end.... Many generations ago, the Wall was built to hold back the sea. A simple dam, it grew into a vast linear city, home to scholars, builders, and merchants. Northland’s prosperity survived wars and unrest—and brought the whole of Europe together. But now darkness is falling. Days grow shorter, temperatures colder, and in the wake of long winters come famine, destruction, and terror. As a mass exodus to warmer climes threatens to fracture Northland, one man believes he can outwit the cold, and even salvage some scraps of the great civilization—before interminable gloom settles over the land; before the fires of war lay waste to an empire; before the ice comes....

The Long War by legendary author and Discworld creator Terry Pratchett and award-winning science fiction novelist Stephen Baxter follows the adventures and travails of heroes Joshua Valiente and Lobsang in an exciting continuation of the extraordinary journey begun in the New York Times bestseller The Long Earth. War has come to the Long Earth.... Humankind has spread across the new worlds opened up by stepping, which Joshua and Lobsang explored a mere decade ago. Now "civilization" flourishes, and fleets of airships link the multiple Earths through exploration, trade, and culture. Humankind is shaping the Long Earth, but in turn the Long Earth is shaping humankind. A new America that has christened itself "Valhalla" has emerged more than a million steps from the original Datum Earth. And like the American revolutionaries of old, the Valhallans resent being controlled from afar by the Datum government. In the intervening years, the song of the trolls—graceful, hive-mind humanoids—has suffused the Long Earth. But in the face of humankind''s inexorable advance, they are beginning to fall silent . . . and gradually disappear. Joshua, now married and a father, is summoned by Lobsang. It seems that he alone can confront the perfect storm of crises that threatens to plunge all of the Long Earth into war. A war unlike any that has been waged before... The full list of books in the Long Earth series include: The Long Earth The Long War The Long Mars The Long Utopia The Long Cosmos

Timelike Infinity: the strange region at the end of time where the Xeelee, owners of the universe, are waiting... The second novel in Stephen Baxter''s Xeelee sequence. First there were good times: humankind reached glorious heights, even immortality. Then there were bad times: Earth was occupied by the faceless, brutal Qax. Immortality drugs were confiscated, the human spirit crushed. Earth became a vast factory for alient foodstuffs. Into this new dark age appears the end of a tunnel through time. Made from exotic matter, it is humanity''s greatest engineering project in the pre-Qax era, where the other end of the tunnel remains anchored near Jupiter. When a small group of humans in a makeshift craft outwit the Qax to escape to the past through the tunnel, it is not to warn the people of Earth against the Qax, who are sure to follow them. For these men and women from the future are themselves dangerous fanatics in pursuit of their own bizarre quantum grail. Michael Poole, architect of the tunnel, must boldly confront the consequences of his genius.

Stephen Baxter''s highly acclaimed first novel and the beginning of his stunning Xeelee Sequence finally enters the SF Masterwork series! A spaceship from Earth accidentally crossed through a hole in space-time to a universe where the force of gravity is one billion times as strong as the gravity we know. Somehow the crew survived, aided by the fact that they emerged into a cloud of gas surrounding a black hole, which provided a breathable atmosphere. Five hundred years later, their descendants still struggle for existence, divided into two main groups. The Miners live on the Belt, a ramshackle ring of dwellings orbiting the core of a dead star, which they excavate for raw materials. These can be traded for food from the Raft, a structure built from the wreckage of the ship, on which a small group of scientists preserve the ancient knowledge which makes survival possible. Rees is a Miner whose curiosity about his world makes him stow away on a flying tree - just one of the many strange local lifeforms - carrying trade between the Belt and the Raft. And what he finds will change his world...

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.

The Wheel. A ring of ice and steel around a moon of Saturn, and home to a mining colony supplying Earth. It’s a bad place to grow up. The colony has been plagued by problems and there are stories of mysterious creatures glimpsed aboard the Wheel. Many of the younger workers refuse to go down the warren-like mines anymore. And then young Phee Laws, surfing Saturn’s rings, saves an enigmatic blue box from destruction. Aboard the Wheel, the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe find themselves caught in a mystery that goes right back to the creation of the solar system. A mystery that could kill them all.

2015: Astronaut Reid Malenfant is flying over the African continent, intent on examining a mysterious glowing construct in Earth’s orbit.

2010. More than a century of ecological damage, industrial and technological expansion, and unchecked population growth has left the Earth on the brink of devastation.

Venus has exploded.

The first novel in a brilliant collaboration between the visionary Discworld® creator Terry Pratchett and acclaimed science fiction novelist Stephen Baxter, The Long Earth transports readers to an infinity of new worlds—a series of parallel “earths" with doorways leading to adventure, intrigue, excitement, and an escape into the furthest reaches of the imagination. All it takes is a single step. . . . The possibilities are endless. (Just be careful what you wish for. . . .) 1916: The Western Front. Private Percy Blakeney wakes up. He is lying on fresh spring grass. He can hear birdsong and the wind in the leaves. Where have the mud, blood, and blasted landscape of no-man''s-land gone? For that matter, where has Percy gone? 2015: Madison, Wisconsin. Police officer Monica Jansson is exploring the burned-out home of a reclusive—some say mad, others allege dangerous—scientist who seems to have vanished. Sifting through the wreckage, Jansson finds a curious gadget: a box containing some rudimentary wiring, a three-way switch, and . . . a potato. It is the prototype of an invention that will change the way humankind views the world forever. The Long Earth is an adventure of the highest order and will captivate science fiction fans of all stripes, readers of Kurt Vonnegut, Douglas Adams, and Carl Hiaasen, and anyone who enjoyed the Terry Pratchett/Neil Gaiman collaboration Good Omens. Other books in the Long Earth series include: The Long War The Long Mars The Long Utopia The Long Cosmos

Audiences around the world have been enchanted by James Cameron''s visionary Avatar, with its glimpse of the Na''vi on the marvelous world of Pandora. But the movie is not entirely a fantasy; there is a scientific rationale for much of what we saw on the screen, from the possibility of travel to other worlds, to the life forms seen on screen and the ecological and cybernetic concepts that underpin the ''neural networks'' in which the Na''vi and their sacred trees are joined, as well as to the mind-linking to the avatars themselves. From popular science journalist and acclaimed science fiction author Stephen Baxter, The Science of Avatar is a guide to the rigorous fact behind the fiction. It will enhance the readers'' enjoyment of the movie experience by drawing them further into its imagined world.

The Wheel. A ring of ice and steel around a moon of Saturn, and home to a mining colony supplying Earth. Itâe(tm)s a bad place to grow up. The colony has been plagued by problems and there are stories of mysterious creatures glimpsed aboard the Wheel. Many of the younger workers refuse to go down the warren-like mines anymore. And then young Phee Laws, surfing Saturnâe(tm)s rings, saves an enigmatic blue box from destruction. Aboard the Wheel, the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe find themselves caught in a mystery that goes right back to the creation of the solar system. A mystery that could kill them all.

Arc, a new publication from the makers of New Scientist, explores the future through cutting-edge science fiction and forward-looking essays by some of the world’s most celebrated authors, alongside columns by thinkers and practitioners from the worlds of books, design, gaming, film and more.

Short novels may well be the perfect length for science fiction. They are movie length tales that resonate with moxie while exploring characters, new worlds, and ideas. The stories in this unabridged collection are the best-of-the best short science fiction novels published in 2010 by current and emerging masters of this form. “Return to Titan,” by Stephen Baxter, is set in his Xeelee sequence. Michael Poole and his father search one of Saturn’s moons for sentient life that would interfere with their plans to build a gateway to the stars. In this year’s Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award winner for best short fiction, “The Sultan of the Clouds,” by Geoffrey A. Landis, a terraforming expert is inexplicably invited to Venus by the child who owns most of the planet’s habitable floating cities. “Seven Cities of Gold,” by David Moles, tells the story of a Japanese relief worker charged with tracking down the renegade Christian leader responsible for detonating a nuclear device in an Islam-occupied North American city. In “Jackie’s-Boy,” by Steven Popkes, an orphaned child befriends an uplifted elephant from the abandoned St. Louis Zoo as they trek south across a sparsely populated North America to find sanctuary. “A History of Terraforming,” by Robert Reed, involves a young boy’s ambition to take up his father’s work of terraforming Mars and then much of the solar system and discovers that much more than planets have been altered. In “Troika,” by Alastair Reynolds, the lone survivor of a mission that explored a massive alien object attempts to reveal what he discovered despite the wishes of the Second Soviet Union. Set in the author’s S’hdonni universe, “Several Items of Interest,” by Rick Wilber, the Earth ruling aliens ask a human collaborator to help quell a human insurrection led by the collaborator’s brother.

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.

The universe shifts and changes: suddenly you understand, you get it, and are filled with wonder. That moment of understanding drives the greatest science-fiction stories and lies at the heart of Engineering Infinity. Whether it’s coming up hard against the speed of light – and, with it, the enormity of the universe – realising that terraforming a distant world is harder and more dangerous than you’d ever thought, or simply realizing that a hitchhiker on a starship consumes fuel and oxygen with tragic results, it’s hard science-fiction where a sense of discovery is most often found and where science-fiction’s true heart lies. This exciting and innovative science-fiction anthology collects together stories by some of the biggest names in the field, including Gwyneth Jones, Stephen Baxter and Charles Stross.

It''s the year 2030. The oceans have risen rapidly, and soon the entire planet will be submerged. But the discovery of another life-sustaining planet light years away gives those who remain alive hope. Only a few will be able to make the journey-Holle Groundwater is one of the candidates. If she makes the cut, she will live. If not, she will be left to face a watery death...

Quantum wormhole technology brings about the end of human privacy in a novel “fizzing with ideas” by two of science fiction’s most acclaimed authors (Kirkus Reviews). From Arthur C. Clarke, the brilliant mind that brought us 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Stephen Baxter, the Philip K. Dick Award–winning author of The Time Ships, comes a novel of a day, not so far in the future, when the barriers of time and distance have suddenly turned to glass. When a brilliant, driven industrialist harnesses cutting-edge physics to enable people everywhere, at trivial cost, to see one another at all times—around every corner, through every wall—the result is the sudden and complete abolition of human privacy, forever. Then the same technology proves able to look backward in time as well. The Light of Other Days is a story that will change your view of what it is to be human.

The Philip K. Dick Award-winning saga of humankind’s next five million years: “Mind-stretching science fiction at its boldest.” —Orlando Sentinel And everywhere the Humans went, they found life . . . This dazzling future history, the most ambitious and exciting since Asimov’s classic Foundation saga, tells the story of Humankind—all the way to the end of the Universe itself. Here, in luminous and vivid narratives spanning five million years, are the first Poole wormholes spanning the solar system; the conquest of Human planets by Squeem; GUTships that outrace light; the back-time invasion of the Qax: the mystery and legacy of the Xeelee, and their artifacts as large as small galaxies; photino birds and Dark Matter; and the Ring, where Ghost, Human, and Xeelee contemplate the awesome end of Time. “It’s old-fashioned 1950s-style science fiction . . . and it’s also lots of fun.” —Cleveland Plain Dealer “Enormously impressive.” —Locus

The concluding volume of the acclaimed Time''s Tapestry series. "This is the climax of one of the most thoughtful and involving series of novels that have brought history alive like no other."—Fantastic Fiction It is a war that has been fought throughout the centuries—the fate of Rome, the fate of Christendom, the fate of the young country called America—all were at stake down through the ages. Now, in the early days of WWII, as Germany launches a successful invasion of England, nothing less than the fate of the 20th century is to be determined. For the Nazi’s have a secret plan, far grander than simply subjugating an enemy. In the middle of that plan, tangled up in the strands of history, are Mary Wooler, an American historian caught in the Blitz; her son Gary, fighting a ruthless invader at civilization’s frontier; and Ben Kaman, a Jewish refugee whose dreams place him at the heart of the conspiracy that is threatening the fabric of the tapestry of time…

The third novel in Stephen Baxter''s Time''s Tapestry series. “We’ve come to expect excellence from Stephen Baxter and that’s what we get it in Navigator.”—SciFiDimensions As William the Conqueror’s men attempt to stamp out the flames of rebellion, a prophecy is uttered. A bedraggled woman in a ruined chapel speaks of civilizations in conflict, armed by the engines of God… And that prophecy proves to be true as the fearsome war between Christianity and Islam leaves its mark across the land. In Spain, a rogue priest dreams of the final defeat of Islam, for he has found a rent in the tapestry of time, a point where agents from the future used diabolical weapons of destruction to change history. Centuries later, in 1492, as men of vision weary of the strife and are drawn to the unknown West, one such explorer seeks the funding for his voyage—while a mysterious Weaver plots to unravel the strands of time and stop him…