The Thousand Earths by Stephen Baxter

I have mixed feelings about this one, not least because Stephen Baxter is one of my favourite novelists. One of the strands of story, that of Mela in the extreme distant future, is very successful but that of Hackett, the traveller through space and time, is far less so. There is a Message in all of this and I'm not sure it's well resolved. If we could have had Mela's story alone then this would have been a better novel.

Good novel, two stories in one, ok characterisation but the plotting and pacing were well done. Not sure I'd like this future. But a satisfying read from an author at the top of his game.
I received this book from Orion Publishing Group and Netgalley for a review.

It's been a while since I have read any Stephen Baxter, I sort of fell out with the Xeelee novels and never fell back in. And there is something resolutely old school about what's going on here, which in some ways is refreshing, but ends up being a little anti-climactic. It's a little bit too pleased with its own big ideas which end up being somewhat trivial to the plot, while I think completely flubbing the personal stakes of what is going on. Which in itself is kind of old school.

We have two concurrent storylines going on here. John Hackett sets off on a dark-energy powered ramscoop ship (see Baxter's technical notes, not important) to visit the Andromeda galaxy because its going to crash into our galaxy. In 50 billion years or so. But OK, he's grieving and his personality is firmly one-dimensional middle-aged hard sci-fi lead. This means as the book progresses he pops back at billion-year intervals to check in on humanity. In the other strand, we are in what seems to be a broadly pre-industrial utopia with Mela, whose word is slowly being consumed from its rim forcing mass immigration from displaced people and existential issues about people knowing how long they will live.

Both stories are interesting and complement each other in as much as one has wild futurology, whilst the other is complex world-building. I'm never really convinced by far future humans though, Baxter might as well be Busted with his version of "not much has changed but we live underwater" being we're short and ultra-social" / "live on Mars and hang about in VR". Mela's story is fascinating, but its clear Baxter is trying to take a depoliticised take on forced migration, and in my opinion, he gets the physical right whilst ignoring the metaphysical (this is a society of people who all know they are going to die in twenty years or so). The fun in the book is trying to work out how both stories intersect, fun which is diminished considerably by the reveal (it is what you think, though the why and the how feel pretty dumb). And the biggest wow idea, that Mela is living with the Thousand Earth all hanging and visible in her night sky, is never plumbed as an idea for travel, or what it would mean psychologically to have other similar worlds to yours hanging in your night sky, with people living on it. There's a lot going on here, but beyond the journey, the revelations are rather quotidian.

This is two stories combined which only come together very near the end.

I must admit I am not really a time traveller but this certainly improves the further you read.

The second part of the story really pulls the whole thing together and makes sense of the time travelling.

A long read but worth it in the end.

Baxter’s Xeelee and Manifold novels are some of my favourite modern hard sci-fi, full of head-spinning notions about the universe’s nature and history. It’s a delight to report that The Thousand Earths sees him firmly pressing the ‘sense of wonder’ button again. The story is told in two timelines: one of which moves forward from a few centuries from now and tells the story of astronaut John Hackett, who leaves earth to chart the Andromeda Galaxy on the starship Perseus. Time dilation returns him to earth several times: first thousands, then billions then a trillion years into the future. In this plotline Baxter dwells on the familiar idea of the ‘man out of time’ (Hackett is joined by a variety of future humans but can never
fully re-connect with the earth he’s left), the future of the universe and the Fermi paradox of the lack of intelligent life elsewhere in the galaxy.

In the second timeline a young girl called Mela comes of age on an Earth threatened by an all-encompassing ecological catastrophe. Initially the two plotlines have nothing to do with one another, but the experienced multi-strand reader will be able to read across from links such as religious beliefs in the second earth being named Perseid and Starrists how the two relate.This is at once deeply old-fashioned, harking back to classics such as Ringworld, Macrolife and even Olaf Stapleton - and deeply contemporary. Baxter is preoccupied with climate change, migrant crises and authoritarian government and this work reflects it. If the final punch that brings the two stories together becomes ultimately predictable, the journey to it is deeply enjoyable.

Thanks to Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

What a ride and what excellent book. A book that kept me guessing, trying to understand how the two subplots were going to be joined and where we were running.
It's very satisfying, entertaining, and I loved the storytelling and world building
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

Never let it be said that Stephen Baxter does stories on a minor scale. His last novel <em>Galaxias</em> (reviewed <a href="https://www.sffworld.com/2021/11/galaxias-by-stephen-baxter/">HERE</a>) dealt with the dimming of the Sun. This time the scope is epic, both in space and time.

<em>The Thousand Earths</em> has initially two story strands. We have one whereby in 2145 John Hackett is one of a crew of a spaceship who are going to travel to Andromeda, a round trip of five million lightyears, but which will take 5 million years relatively.

Much of the first part of the book though seems to be smaller in scale, revolving around the lives of two sisters, Ish &amp; Mela. Told by focussing on Mela, it seems like a fairly typical space colonisation tale, which becomes much vaster when it is revealed that the girls and their parents are on an Earth-like planet surrounded by a thousand (well – 999, I guess) others.

This gives us a human aspect to the story, more so when we are told that their Earth is slowly disappearing into a void known as The Tide from which there is no return. There is a permanent flow of immigrants away from The Periphery where the land meets The Tide, but their landscape is shrinking, and the planet is expected to disappear altogether in 30 years.

Returning to Hackett, his story is similar to that of Reid Malenfant, last read of in <em>World Engines: Creator</em> (reviewed <a href="https://www.sffworld.com/2020/09/world-engines-creator-by-stephen-baxter/">HERE</a>), in that Hackett has returned to an Earth which is not his. Like Malenfant, he is a man out of time, adrift in a future that is increasingly difficult for him to comprehend - and in this case a future where his striving for change is seen as a threat to the human’s Eloi-like existence. Hackett, with fellow travellers Rava Pogee, another astronaut from the past (but Hackett’s future) and Icsoba, one of the people of this Earth five thousand years ahead of Hackett, decide to travel again, this time five billion years into the future.

As the plot develops, Hackett travels further in time and becomes a travelling observer, whose purpose seems to be to carry memories from the past into the far future so that they are remembered. Others join him in his journey. It is this human trait of a need to discover, a restlessness that can only be reduced by continuing that journey, that propels Hackett  billions of years through the novel.

I’ve mentioned before how much I love these big ideas that Stephen adds to his novels. In <em>The Thousand Earths</em> Stephen looks at the idea of the Fermi paradox <strong>– </strong>the conflict between the lack of clear, obvious evidence for extra-terrestrial life and various high estimates for their existence <strong>- </strong>and midway through this novel throws out an amazing answer that if you haven’t come across before (he has looked at this idea before in the <em>Manifold</em> Trilogy of <em>Time, Space</em> and <em>Origin</em>) may make you applaud at its ingenuity.

What impresses me most in this novel especially is that Stephen manages to do that tricky thing of combining what can be seen as big but unemotional science (see <em>The Cold Equations</em> by Tom Godwin, for example) with characters who have heart.

This human quality is shown through an interesting dichotomy between two religious factions on Mela’s planet, which become more important as the world’s end becomes imminent. It doesn’t help that Mela’s father Tenn is a Perseid, a religion with “a human warmth” determined to do their best for “the Immies”, whilst her estranged mother Salja is a Starrist, believing in “cosmic austerity” and involved in trading property before it disappears into The Tide. (How did those two ever get together?)

In covering deep space and time, Stephen manages to capture the epic grandeur and progression of the universe until its near-death, bogglingly Stapledonian in its scale, whilst simultaneously describing the smaller scale responses of the characters on one planet. Although there are a thousand Earth-like planets our focus is on one. There, the girls, and Mela especially, are a sign of optimism against adversity, whilst the comparatively emotionless Hackett is the scientific everyman, the capable and efficient pilot and scientist whose interest to explore often defines the genre’s idea of an SF protagonist. Hackett feels like a much more pleasant version of Reid Malenfant.

One of SF’s main tasks, often surreptitiously, is to get readers to examine current issues through a science-fictional lens. It will therefore be no great surprise that Baxter manages to explore, with a little remote distance, the issue of refugees and asylum seekers that is one of our own world’s major crises today.  As the issues become more acute on Mela’s Earth, I found that it was not too much of a leap to compare this with those crossing the Mediterranean or the English Channel today.

In a more universal manner, Hackett’s need to continue his journey of exploration and not rest seems to call to  a basic human urge, that of the need to explore, to discover – and to survive. The science behind the story is quite boggling, but as we travel billions of years it all connects nicely.

There are a couple of coincidences towards the end to tie things up, but they were not really deal-breakers, if a little convenient. I did question why Mela’s people, knowing the end was in sight, didn’t spend time developing spacecraft to escape their planet, although you can argue that they didn’t have the time or the resources. It may be down to human inertia, and the ignoring of the inevitable until it is too late.

Nevertheless, this is perhaps the most enjoyable novel of Stephen’s I have read in recent years. Once I started this one, it was difficult to put down. <em>The Thousand Earths</em> has big ideas presented in a human manner, one where the needs of individuals are examined under a galaxy-crossing, time-travelling backdrop. It is a winning riposte to those who have claimed before that Stephen writes big stories but cold characters, as here we have both characters to engage with and astonishing progression in time and space. Fans of Stephen’s books should love it..

Not gonna lie, This book is so boring at the fist pages, but then, boom!!! this is absolutely a masterpiece. After connecting the threads and finally understand.

(3.5 rolled up to 4.)

I enjoyed this book more after hitting around the 40% mark. Now, that's not to say that it wasn't good before then - it was - it's just that it became more of a 'comprehensive' read (for me).

I enjoyed Mela's tale more then John Hackett's, I'll be honest. That was probably because it was more 'human interest' and although there were more characters in Halkett's story, Mela's characters seemed fuller and more believable (to me). Halkett's story dragged on a wee bit in some parts. I can see why it was written the way it was. Perhaps it's because this is my first Stephen Baxter read and I'm clearly not fully au fait with his style. My husband enjoys his books very much, but points out that Baxter is a 'Marmite' author. You either love or dislike his work, there is no middle level.

It's a very good story, don't get me wrong, it just didn't fully 'gel' right for me. Sorry.

I chose this ARC from a selection. I voluntarily and honestly read and reviewed this book. All opinions are my own. My thanks to the publisher, NetGalley, and the author.

"The Thousand Earths" is one of the most satisfyingly frustrating books I have ever read! There are two threads to this story, and it was delicious agony trying to figure out how they were connected... And then the connection is revealed and the story exploded into fireworks in my brain. I loved the characters, the writing, the story (stories?!), and the settings were awesome. My one regret is that this book could have been stretched into a trilogy!

My thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley. This review was written voluntarily and is entirely my own, unbiased, opinion.

One of my favourite science fiction authors has blown me away with this novel. The scale of the story and setting set Stephen Baxter apart from other sci-fi authors. With brilliantly crafted settings that feel like they are futures just round the corner and characters that are like real people.

The thousand Earths by Stephen Baxter is a book of big ideas.

The story follows John Hackett, our intrepid adventurer, who travels far and wide and Mela, our unlikely protagonist, who has to fight for her survival from the end of the world. The story progresses in a twin narrative - from John's end we see the progression of humanity while Mela's story is a story of survival.

I wished I could have enjoyed the book but I had three big problems with the book.
One, the problem with the big ideas is that if they are not setup and then progressed properly then the entire premise becomes ludicrous. That's what happens with John Hackett's story. The premise for his "missions" was so ridiculous that everything else never made sense. On the other hand, Mela's story was much more ground to earth. Stephen Baxter had two good ideas - How would humanity progress in the far future and how would humanity react when the world around them is crumbling and coming to an end. Each one had a potential to churn out a great story. Unfortunately, the mashup of two ruined the story.

My sense is that Stephen Baxter first wrote Mela's story that was believable, evocative and had good characterization. Then came the end where Stephen had to explain the apocalypse so he wrote John Hackett's story with the end in mind. That's the key problem with multiple narrative books where the author has to bring together the multiple characters. Seems like even Stephen Baxter couldn't avoid the pitfall and that was my second problem with the book - not able to bring together the twin narratives.

My third problem with the book was characterization. While I enjoyed the bits in Mela's story, the characters in John's arc were very shallow and stock characters.

I think I would have enjoyed the book more if it was limited to Mela's arc with probably the reasons behind apocalypse explained in discovery form. That would have reduced the length of the book and made it much more readable and a beautiful story.

Thanks Orion publishing group and Netgalley for providing an advanced reader copy.

Stephen Baxter has to be one of the most prolific SF authors working today. Hardly had I bought Galaxias when I heard about The Thousand Earths coming out later this year. And then the friendly folks at Orion happily sent me an arc from NetGalley UK on the same day I requested it.

Baxter is a bit of an oddity in SF. More well-known in the UK than the US, he harks back to a different tradition of the genre where Big Ideas were everything. I’ve always thought of Baxter as the natural successor to the great Arthur C. Clarke. Apart from collaborating with Clarke himself, Baxter and fellow Brit Alastair Reynolds wrote one of my favourite hard SF novels of all time, The Medusa Chronicles (2016), based on Clarke’s own 1971 novella ‘A Meeting with Medusa’.

Well, I’m glad to say Baxter is firing on all cylinders with The Thousand Earths, probably his most cohesive and tightly plotted book in a long time. And it is a standalone story! (Though Baxter has been known to pull sequels out of some very improbable hats.)

Unfortunately, all the inherent weaknesses of the Big Ideas tradition are on full display here as well, namely stock characterisation and melodrama as a central plot device. Baxter is also cheerfully oblivious to gender politics, it seems, so has no qualms to describe John Hackett’s vigorous sex romps with a far future human female after he has travelled millions of light years to Andromeda and back. Oh, and it is only in a Baxter novel where such a mind-boggling feat is merely an aside to the main action.

The main focus here is the eventual collision between the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies. Although predicted to occur 4.5 billion years in the future, Baxter likens it to the current climate change crisis in that urgent action is better sooner rather than later, when we finally run out of options and there are no more roads left to be taken.

Apart from his beloved deep time and future history, Baxter tackles the Fermi Paradox again with renewed vigour and startling results. Think Stapledon and Herschel – that is all I am going to say about the plot, as it is best to go into the book cold. The two-strand narrative begins with John Hackett embarking on his epic voyage, before switching to Mela and her family on a distant iteration of earth (one of a thousand) that is succumbing to some incomprehensible apocalypse. (The savvy SF reader is likely to work out what is going on pretty quickly, but Baxter does have some nifty surprises up his authorial sleeve.)

I loved the evocative Mela sections, which represent some of the best writing in Baxter’s long career to date. The family dynamics are effectively portrayed, while the world-building behind this frontier-like earth is incredibly detailed, yet never gets in the way of the story. Yes, the brother is a bit of a stock villain, while John Hackett himself is yet another iteration of the Reid Malenfant trope. And the ending does hinge on one deus ex machina too many (literally, as it were).

But these are quibbles, as one reads Baxter for his sense of wonder and boundless enthusiasm for the possibilities and potential posed by science and technology, and not for his literary affectations. As per usual, Baxter includes a deft Afterword that references all of his speculation in the book. No matter how left field an idea, someone somewhere has thought seriously about it.

While writing this, I saw that the latest jaw-dropping photograph from the James Webb Telescope is of two galaxies colliding. Baxter must be so proud.