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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...
502 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 1994
81 people are currently reading
2741 people want to read
About the author
Stephen Baxter
402 books2,558 followersStephen Baxter is a trained engineer with degrees from Cambridge (mathematics) and Southampton Universities (doctorate in aeroengineering research). Baxter is the winner of the British Science Fiction Award and the Locus Award, as well as being a nominee for an Arthur C. Clarke Award, most recently for Manifold: Time. His novel Voyage won the Sidewise Award for Best Alternate History Novel of the Year; he also won the John W. Campbell Award and the Philip K. Dick Award for his novel The Time Ships. He is currently working on his next novel, a collaboration with Sir Arthur C. Clarke. Mr. Baxter lives in Prestwood, England.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 143 reviews
November 23, 2023
What had taught her, in the womb? What was teaching her now?
I would recommend at least reading Timelike Infinity before taking on Ring. It just makes for a richer and more cohesive reading experience.
Now, something you should know about these novels: Baxter pulls out all the stops when it comes to the technical stuff, and he paints his stories on an unimaginably vast canvass. So come prepared, and bring medication.
And while she had dreamed, here inside the imperilled heart of the Sun, five million years had worn away in the Solar System outside. For all she knew there might be no humans left alive, anywhere, to hear whatever she might have to say.
...Still, she itched to talk.
The story concerns itself with a five-million-year plan to save humanity from extinction. There, I’ve said it.
In essence, the book entails an attempt to prevent species extinction by duplicating the wormhole-time-dilation experiment of Michael Poole (refer Timelike Infinity). Only, this time, on a much, much bigger scale (five million years as opposed to 1500 years). It’s not going to be easy: creating sufficient relativistic time dilation differences between the exits of the wormholes entails a journey of a millennium (relative time), for one thing. As you might imagine, despite all the logistics and planning, this is a one time only shot, and the margin for error is, well, non-existent…
…that’s to say, if things go wrong, they go a whole new level of wrong. The question is: what is the backup plan?
"Tell me about the stars you saw," he hissed. "The stars..."
As with Timelike Infinity – this book had me gripped from the first page. Not only does the author imbue his story with the sense of wonder one would typically expect, he also serves up a bit of cosmic dread by showing us just how teeny tiny we are in the grand scheme of things. In the end, we are only observers to something taking place on a scale as to paralyze the mind.
"The cosmology here is... spectacular. We have, essentially, an extremely massive torus, rotating very rapidly. And it's devastating the structure of spacetime. The sheer mass of the Ring has generated a gravity well so deep that matter—galaxies—is being drawn in, toward this point, across hundreds of millions of light years. Even our original Galaxy, the Galaxy of mankind, was drawn by the Ring's mass. So we know that the Ring was indeed the 'Great Attractor' identified by human astronomers.”
The Ring of course, is the main attraction (no pun intended). It renders everything else I have read about, in terms of megastructures and artefacts, quite obsolete. It is a Xeelee artifact with a diameter of 10 million lightyears. While the ring is central to the story, it actually doesn’t feature all that much, and is only introduced into the story well past the halfway mark. This isn’t a bad thing: it frees the author up to tell a bigger story, incorporating the artifact without getting bogged down in it. What’s more pertinent to the story, is the ring’s purpose, or why it was built in the first place. And that in itself is a bit of a doozy.
He was the last man.
He was beyond time and space. The great quantum functions which encompassed the Universe slid past him like a vast, turbulent river, and his eyes were filled with the gray light against which all phenomena are shadows.
Time wore away, unmarked.
And then—
So if you like stories that run the whole gamut from earth to the end of the Universe (literally), or if you are interested in how a cosmic war between Dark Matter-based life and Baryonic life might take place, book your ride. In fact, the whole Xeelee sequence so far has been awesome.
I find it odd that this wasn't nominated for a Hugo or a Nebula or something such, it has that kind of heft to it. But what do I know?
The dark matter structures were alive.
Alive and purposeful.
5 Stars
Added to Favourites
I would recommend at least reading Timelike Infinity before taking on Ring. It just makes for a richer and more cohesive reading experience.
Now, something you should know about these novels: Baxter pulls out all the stops when it comes to the technical stuff, and he paints his stories on an unimaginably vast canvass. So come prepared, and bring medication.
And while she had dreamed, here inside the imperilled heart of the Sun, five million years had worn away in the Solar System outside. For all she knew there might be no humans left alive, anywhere, to hear whatever she might have to say.
...Still, she itched to talk.
The story concerns itself with a five-million-year plan to save humanity from extinction. There, I’ve said it.
In essence, the book entails an attempt to prevent species extinction by duplicating the wormhole-time-dilation experiment of Michael Poole (refer Timelike Infinity). Only, this time, on a much, much bigger scale (five million years as opposed to 1500 years). It’s not going to be easy: creating sufficient relativistic time dilation differences between the exits of the wormholes entails a journey of a millennium (relative time), for one thing. As you might imagine, despite all the logistics and planning, this is a one time only shot, and the margin for error is, well, non-existent…
…that’s to say, if things go wrong, they go a whole new level of wrong. The question is: what is the backup plan?
"Tell me about the stars you saw," he hissed. "The stars..."
As with Timelike Infinity – this book had me gripped from the first page. Not only does the author imbue his story with the sense of wonder one would typically expect, he also serves up a bit of cosmic dread by showing us just how teeny tiny we are in the grand scheme of things. In the end, we are only observers to something taking place on a scale as to paralyze the mind.
"The cosmology here is... spectacular. We have, essentially, an extremely massive torus, rotating very rapidly. And it's devastating the structure of spacetime. The sheer mass of the Ring has generated a gravity well so deep that matter—galaxies—is being drawn in, toward this point, across hundreds of millions of light years. Even our original Galaxy, the Galaxy of mankind, was drawn by the Ring's mass. So we know that the Ring was indeed the 'Great Attractor' identified by human astronomers.”
The Ring of course, is the main attraction (no pun intended). It renders everything else I have read about, in terms of megastructures and artefacts, quite obsolete. It is a Xeelee artifact with a diameter of 10 million lightyears. While the ring is central to the story, it actually doesn’t feature all that much, and is only introduced into the story well past the halfway mark. This isn’t a bad thing: it frees the author up to tell a bigger story, incorporating the artifact without getting bogged down in it. What’s more pertinent to the story, is the ring’s purpose, or why it was built in the first place. And that in itself is a bit of a doozy.
He was the last man.
He was beyond time and space. The great quantum functions which encompassed the Universe slid past him like a vast, turbulent river, and his eyes were filled with the gray light against which all phenomena are shadows.
Time wore away, unmarked.
And then—
So if you like stories that run the whole gamut from earth to the end of the Universe (literally), or if you are interested in how a cosmic war between Dark Matter-based life and Baryonic life might take place, book your ride. In fact, the whole Xeelee sequence so far has been awesome.
I find it odd that this wasn't nominated for a Hugo or a Nebula or something such, it has that kind of heft to it. But what do I know?
The dark matter structures were alive.
Alive and purposeful.
5 Stars
Added to Favourites
October 19, 2013
Hard science fiction authors are often criticized for writing prosaic prose and an inability to create believable, complex characters. Sci-fi legends like Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke did not escape such criticism yet their works remain immensely popular to this day and never go out of print. This begs the question of whether we really need high literary value in hard sf. I think this style of writing is quite suitable to convey the type of story being told. The type where the story and concepts are bigger than the individual characters. What I expect from hard sf and space operas are wild ideas and epic plots on an intergalactic scale. Never mind the lyrical prose and passages of poetry I will look for those in the next book I read (or the one after that). As long as I am not limited to reading this kind of fiction to the exclusion of everything else I am fine with the more workmanlike writing style.
Which (finally) brings me to Stephen Baxter. You would have to be crazy to claim that Mr. Baxter is a literary writer, you could make the claim about a few sf authors like Ursula K. Le Guin, Jack Vance or Gene Wolfe but if you are looking for a sci-fi / lit-fic combo Stephen Baxter is not your man. What he can offer the reader is the escapism and flight of imagination we often crave, backed up by a solid foundation in known physics to render the story much more believable than simple handwavium.
At this point a synopsis seems appropriate and I did write one but it collided with a cosmic string and can only be found in a neighboring universe. I can tell you this, it feature the Sun's energy being drained away by some weird "photino birds" aliens, a group of characters' attempt to save it. We also get to see the end of our universe which is a very cool scene, and the entrance into another universe "next door" to ours. The process involves the eponymous Ring woven by the Xeelee from cosmic strings and some time travelling, for the sake of verisimilitude everything is explained by impenetrable super science. Now you know why I didn't want to summarize the plot.
Baxter’s writing style reminds me of Arthur C. Clarke more than anyone else. To his credit I think Baxter made more of a stab at character development (with limited success) but Clarke’s science expositions are much more accessible, and more seamlessly integrated into the narrative. Having said that, while a lot of the science in Ring is beyond my comprehension Baxter did well enough to narrate the story is such a way that at least the gist of the plot can be inferred.
The characters in Ring tend to spend a lot of time explaining rather arcane science to each other. They talk about the Pauli Exclusion Principle, event horizons, maser convections etc. like I would talk about flavors of ice cream. Also, all the characters also seem to "growl" a lot when they are irritated. These characters are generally pancake-like in term of depth, yet Baxter did manage to create one sympathetic character called Lieserl who has one of the best backstories ever. Lieserl is an AI character who starts off as a human engineered to age very rapidly and just before the moment of death her consciousness is digitized, stored in some kind of media and dispatched into the Sun to investigate an anomaly. All this so they can create an AI with real human personality and empathy. Ingenious and immoral, reminds of me of works by Greg Egan and Ted Chiang where the theme of our moral responsibility to the AI beings we create is explored in much greater depth.
I read Ring as part of the Xeelee omnibus which contains four volumes of the Xeelee Sequence, namely Raft, Timelike Infinity, Flux, and Ring. If you are in possession of this omnibus I recommend reading Timelike Infinity first then Ring, the other two volumes are standalone stories set in the same universe. So far I have read Timelike Infinity and Ring; I think Baxter told a tighter, more exciting story with “Timelike” but Ring is still a worthwhile read, just don’t expect any poems and songs.
Which (finally) brings me to Stephen Baxter. You would have to be crazy to claim that Mr. Baxter is a literary writer, you could make the claim about a few sf authors like Ursula K. Le Guin, Jack Vance or Gene Wolfe but if you are looking for a sci-fi / lit-fic combo Stephen Baxter is not your man. What he can offer the reader is the escapism and flight of imagination we often crave, backed up by a solid foundation in known physics to render the story much more believable than simple handwavium.
At this point a synopsis seems appropriate and I did write one but it collided with a cosmic string and can only be found in a neighboring universe. I can tell you this, it feature the Sun's energy being drained away by some weird "photino birds" aliens, a group of characters' attempt to save it. We also get to see the end of our universe which is a very cool scene, and the entrance into another universe "next door" to ours. The process involves the eponymous Ring woven by the Xeelee from cosmic strings and some time travelling, for the sake of verisimilitude everything is explained by impenetrable super science. Now you know why I didn't want to summarize the plot.
Baxter’s writing style reminds me of Arthur C. Clarke more than anyone else. To his credit I think Baxter made more of a stab at character development (with limited success) but Clarke’s science expositions are much more accessible, and more seamlessly integrated into the narrative. Having said that, while a lot of the science in Ring is beyond my comprehension Baxter did well enough to narrate the story is such a way that at least the gist of the plot can be inferred.
The characters in Ring tend to spend a lot of time explaining rather arcane science to each other. They talk about the Pauli Exclusion Principle, event horizons, maser convections etc. like I would talk about flavors of ice cream. Also, all the characters also seem to "growl" a lot when they are irritated. These characters are generally pancake-like in term of depth, yet Baxter did manage to create one sympathetic character called Lieserl who has one of the best backstories ever. Lieserl is an AI character who starts off as a human engineered to age very rapidly and just before the moment of death her consciousness is digitized, stored in some kind of media and dispatched into the Sun to investigate an anomaly. All this so they can create an AI with real human personality and empathy. Ingenious and immoral, reminds of me of works by Greg Egan and Ted Chiang where the theme of our moral responsibility to the AI beings we create is explored in much greater depth.
I read Ring as part of the Xeelee omnibus which contains four volumes of the Xeelee Sequence, namely Raft, Timelike Infinity, Flux, and Ring. If you are in possession of this omnibus I recommend reading Timelike Infinity first then Ring, the other two volumes are standalone stories set in the same universe. So far I have read Timelike Infinity and Ring; I think Baxter told a tighter, more exciting story with “Timelike” but Ring is still a worthwhile read, just don’t expect any poems and songs.
May 24, 2014
I'll start with a quote from The Times which has to be one of the finest review quotes for any novel you'll ever read; "The book sends in to free-fall the most awesome ideas in science fiction today...What makes these ideas assimilable is the prism of people through which they are refracted...good SF reveals the mortal host in the machine."
With my reading of Ring Stephen Baxter has become my favourite modern science fiction author, comparable in terms of sheer pleasure brought through ideas and storytelling scope to the greats like Asimov, Clarke and Heinlein.
For days now I've been unable to stop myself from telling people how good this book is; a perfect blend of speculative high physics, a traditional adventure/exploration story updated to a story arc that takes place over 5 million years and yet through imaginative plotting maintains the same characters throughout. It's the first time I can remember being so totally engrossed in a science fiction story, fascinated by the universe building and willingly excited by end of chapter story revelations; there's just so much wonder contained within these 450 pages, more and more layers of awesome ideas and concepts and descriptions of theoretical events that last right through to the final page.
Lieserl the biologically engineered child who ages one year per day for spoilertastic reasons involving a 5 million year human plan to study the death of The Sun, and the opening chapter told from her point of view is just one of those feats of creation that will surely draw you in and excite your imagination as the assorted motley crew of travellers across space and time finally come face to face with Baxter's godlike creations, the Xeelee, and the ultimate artefact of their engineering prowess, the Ring.
Ring is technically the fourth book in the amazing Xeelee sequence but also stands completely alone as its own creation, as do the other three books in the series it turns out. I spent the entirety of Ring waiting for an explanation of how such wonderful and bizarre science fiction creations as earlier Xeelee books Flux and Raft could possibly be tied in to the same universe and the way Baxter links them is with quiet audacity, somewhat akin to the way Asimov returned to his Foundation sequence to link his Empire and Robots books in to it but with a great deal more subtlety. The numbering of this sequence seems arbitrary, in many ways you might get more from them by taking on this wondrous creation first and then taking the other three as an expansion of the themes and ideas contained within.
With my reading of Ring Stephen Baxter has become my favourite modern science fiction author, comparable in terms of sheer pleasure brought through ideas and storytelling scope to the greats like Asimov, Clarke and Heinlein.
For days now I've been unable to stop myself from telling people how good this book is; a perfect blend of speculative high physics, a traditional adventure/exploration story updated to a story arc that takes place over 5 million years and yet through imaginative plotting maintains the same characters throughout. It's the first time I can remember being so totally engrossed in a science fiction story, fascinated by the universe building and willingly excited by end of chapter story revelations; there's just so much wonder contained within these 450 pages, more and more layers of awesome ideas and concepts and descriptions of theoretical events that last right through to the final page.
Lieserl the biologically engineered child who ages one year per day for spoilertastic reasons involving a 5 million year human plan to study the death of The Sun, and the opening chapter told from her point of view is just one of those feats of creation that will surely draw you in and excite your imagination as the assorted motley crew of travellers across space and time finally come face to face with Baxter's godlike creations, the Xeelee, and the ultimate artefact of their engineering prowess, the Ring.
Ring is technically the fourth book in the amazing Xeelee sequence but also stands completely alone as its own creation, as do the other three books in the series it turns out. I spent the entirety of Ring waiting for an explanation of how such wonderful and bizarre science fiction creations as earlier Xeelee books Flux and Raft could possibly be tied in to the same universe and the way Baxter links them is with quiet audacity, somewhat akin to the way Asimov returned to his Foundation sequence to link his Empire and Robots books in to it but with a great deal more subtlety. The numbering of this sequence seems arbitrary, in many ways you might get more from them by taking on this wondrous creation first and then taking the other three as an expansion of the themes and ideas contained within.
February 11, 2022
I feel like I’ve been to the end of time and back.
There’s no other way for me to describe this book other than that. This is a perception shattering novel that challenged me to think in terms more grandiose than anything I’ve ever read before. Fun, smart, scary, and breathtaking are a few other words that come to mind but still aren’t enough. Check this out and have your brain scooped out, put in a blender with a bunch of math and physics and other science-y stuff, and then have it poured back into your head with a greater understanding of what it all means. This was heavy but truly entertaining.
There’s no other way for me to describe this book other than that. This is a perception shattering novel that challenged me to think in terms more grandiose than anything I’ve ever read before. Fun, smart, scary, and breathtaking are a few other words that come to mind but still aren’t enough. Check this out and have your brain scooped out, put in a blender with a bunch of math and physics and other science-y stuff, and then have it poured back into your head with a greater understanding of what it all means. This was heavy but truly entertaining.
December 29, 2008
Hard SF. Very hard -- I think I might have chipped a tooth. Something is wrong with the sun, and all the stars around us are dying far before their time. A conscious virtual human is sent into Sol to investigate, while an unlikely crew sets out to travel five million years into the future and see if there might be an escape for humanity.
Right, so. If you are not familiar with the Pauli Exclusion Principle, baryons, star life cycles, and the more speculative and bizarre edges of string theory (which, okay, are generally indistinguishable from all of string theory), then do not read this book. 'Cause it won't explain any of that to you, and you'll be left reading a jerkily paced, rather bloodless book with wobbly dialogue, shoddy social structures, and talking-head characters.
If you are familiar with the Pauli Exclusion Principle, baryons, star life cycles, and the more bizarre and speculative edges of string theory, then totally read it for the shiny and ignore all the annoying bits with people in them. I fall into this category, and I generally managed to have a good time.
. . . which in itself is annoying, because I really don't think I'm the only one who finds the shiny much shinier when it's set in a story fabric that I actually care about. I mean, this book is about the destruction of the known universe and the survival of the species, and I never managed to care whether anyone lived or died. There's a reason hard SF has the reputation it does, though I will keep swearing that nothing intrinsic to the genre requires it -- a bullshit cop-out, if I ever heard one.
Right, so. If you are not familiar with the Pauli Exclusion Principle, baryons, star life cycles, and the more speculative and bizarre edges of string theory (which, okay, are generally indistinguishable from all of string theory), then do not read this book. 'Cause it won't explain any of that to you, and you'll be left reading a jerkily paced, rather bloodless book with wobbly dialogue, shoddy social structures, and talking-head characters.
If you are familiar with the Pauli Exclusion Principle, baryons, star life cycles, and the more bizarre and speculative edges of string theory, then totally read it for the shiny and ignore all the annoying bits with people in them. I fall into this category, and I generally managed to have a good time.
. . . which in itself is annoying, because I really don't think I'm the only one who finds the shiny much shinier when it's set in a story fabric that I actually care about. I mean, this book is about the destruction of the known universe and the survival of the species, and I never managed to care whether anyone lived or died. There's a reason hard SF has the reputation it does, though I will keep swearing that nothing intrinsic to the genre requires it -- a bullshit cop-out, if I ever heard one.
June 18, 2016
4.5 Stars
Ring by Stephen Baxter is the best of the four book Xeelee Sequence. Baxter did something smart and rare with this series. All of the books are standalone novels. You can read them in pretty much any order with the exception that Ring should be read last. The coolest thing is the way that this book ties all four together. It is amazing.
Ring might be the most technical of the four books in this hard science fiction story. This is a true hard science novel. I loved how much time is spent on explaining the physics and the life cycle of the sun. Hell, I really have no idea if what I read is real, or if I truly understand it, but I do know that I loved it.
The story itself is a space opera dream with nothing less than the future of all Humans as a species on the line. I devoured this book. Baxter is one of my very favorite authors today.
Baxter does a fantastic job at bringing all four books together. He explores incredible environments, concepts, physics and mathematics. He writes about a future that I wish that I could see. The Xeelee Sequence is among the top along side all the greats.
I loved it.
Ring by Stephen Baxter is the best of the four book Xeelee Sequence. Baxter did something smart and rare with this series. All of the books are standalone novels. You can read them in pretty much any order with the exception that Ring should be read last. The coolest thing is the way that this book ties all four together. It is amazing.
Ring might be the most technical of the four books in this hard science fiction story. This is a true hard science novel. I loved how much time is spent on explaining the physics and the life cycle of the sun. Hell, I really have no idea if what I read is real, or if I truly understand it, but I do know that I loved it.
The story itself is a space opera dream with nothing less than the future of all Humans as a species on the line. I devoured this book. Baxter is one of my very favorite authors today.
Baxter does a fantastic job at bringing all four books together. He explores incredible environments, concepts, physics and mathematics. He writes about a future that I wish that I could see. The Xeelee Sequence is among the top along side all the greats.
I loved it.
February 28, 2025
So here I am attending Speculative Astrophysics 401. Jokes aside, I have unwittingly roped myself into reading a series by virtue of three novels thus far not actually coming across as if they were part of a single coherent whole. Ring is where that changes and, in my opinion, emphasizes traits Baxter has shown up to this point. Whether that's positive or negative will depend entirely on the reader, though.
A series first, Ring hinges on certain revelations humanity makes following the events in Timelike Infinity and bits of foresight into far off future. I'm talking millions of years. Not to spoil THAT particular novel, which you should by all means read, but not much after certain initiatives arise to preserve humanity's future against the impending danger of the Xeelee. Who knows? Perhaps even one in which humanity challenges these masters of the baryonic realm. As such there are two scenarios unfolding. Relativistic space ship, carrying the name of Great Northern, is sent on a mission that will take the crew 1000 subjective years to accomplish while the journey itself will take far, FAR longer in real time. Under the guidance of four engineers and scholars they aim to cheat time by installing a wormhole Interface frame, get back to Earth and provide humanity with a shortcut to cheat fate with. Seemingly in parallel, an artificial girl goes through her entire life over the span of couple of months only to be willingly entombed into our Sun as a Virtual to observe exactly what is going wrong. As regimes fall around her and she's eventually forgotten our two parties meet on their course to change everyone's future.
I think it's only fair to point out Stephen Baxter loves his science. In this case we're looking at a whole lot of Astrophysics, particularly involving and focused on the Sun as such. A good third of the novel is spent looking at our dear neighborhood lamplight and its inner workings. It doesn't end there. If you have issues with scientists casually explaining theories where time dilation and cosmic strings are just minor elements as Baxter goes into speculative, but seemingly believable, affairs then this might not be a good fit for you. Putting aside that majority of one character's POV comes from within the Sun, other major figures are engineers of some kind with jargon and structured mindsets to presumably match.
In the hands of a lesser writer and focus of Ring being what it is these characters would probably be forgettable mouthpieces, but such is not the case here. Not entirely, at least. It helps that Antisessence treatments exist making characters immortal, but even those at times come with drawbacks like rejection. This is what, for example, leads a social engineer Uvarov to go from cynical egotist into a justifiably bitter man over the course of a millennium as his goal to realize immortality without nanomachines only partially works. I was pleasantly surprised to see each new part introduce new characters alongside time skip surprises. You go from characters named Mark Bassett Friar Armonk Wu to Trapper-of-Frogs, but notion persisting throughout the book is people aren't simpletons just because they don't come from your exact same culture. It's this "second wave" of characters we're introduced to that bring the most humanity to the story as they have no ties to Earth everyone remembers. Lack of contrived character drama is also a big plus. People in charge may differ in opinions, some even giving up on direct meddling at all like the project lead Louise, but they're professionals thrust into already crazy events on a scale few can even comprehend. It makes it both sad and comical a major disruption in the story comes from a simple freak-out. Lesson: don't materialize your digital body in front of someone who considers blowdarts peak of technological advancement while he's piloting a space ship. Yeah.
Sometimes too dense and saturated with scientific information, possibly technobabble if I knew enough to call it out as such, I have to say the writing itself was incredibly engrossing. Did I have to shamelessly read couple of pages twice to get everything Baxter wanted me to get? In more than few instances, but I don't see that as something to hold against Ring. Each new section of the book kept me guessing where they're going after. What do you do when you've reached your despair event horizon? Series comes full circle at the end, but I especially liked callbacks and recognitions of earlier novels since I read and reviewed those favorably. I can see why this was the end of the Xeelee Sequence. Where do you even go from here? Then again, time is fickle in these parts if you know how to spread the wings of a Nightfighter just right.
Would I recommend Ring? Let's just say I would give it a five-star rating if only there wasn't THIS much science talk. I can very easily see someone else DNF-ing it very quickly. There is a story, a vast and intriguing story keeping you on your toes, but at the same time Ring steps into "future history" territory occasionally breaking up lectures.
A series first, Ring hinges on certain revelations humanity makes following the events in Timelike Infinity and bits of foresight into far off future. I'm talking millions of years. Not to spoil THAT particular novel, which you should by all means read, but not much after certain initiatives arise to preserve humanity's future against the impending danger of the Xeelee. Who knows? Perhaps even one in which humanity challenges these masters of the baryonic realm. As such there are two scenarios unfolding. Relativistic space ship, carrying the name of Great Northern, is sent on a mission that will take the crew 1000 subjective years to accomplish while the journey itself will take far, FAR longer in real time. Under the guidance of four engineers and scholars they aim to cheat time by installing a wormhole Interface frame, get back to Earth and provide humanity with a shortcut to cheat fate with. Seemingly in parallel, an artificial girl goes through her entire life over the span of couple of months only to be willingly entombed into our Sun as a Virtual to observe exactly what is going wrong. As regimes fall around her and she's eventually forgotten our two parties meet on their course to change everyone's future.
I think it's only fair to point out Stephen Baxter loves his science. In this case we're looking at a whole lot of Astrophysics, particularly involving and focused on the Sun as such. A good third of the novel is spent looking at our dear neighborhood lamplight and its inner workings. It doesn't end there. If you have issues with scientists casually explaining theories where time dilation and cosmic strings are just minor elements as Baxter goes into speculative, but seemingly believable, affairs then this might not be a good fit for you. Putting aside that majority of one character's POV comes from within the Sun, other major figures are engineers of some kind with jargon and structured mindsets to presumably match.
In the hands of a lesser writer and focus of Ring being what it is these characters would probably be forgettable mouthpieces, but such is not the case here. Not entirely, at least. It helps that Antisessence treatments exist making characters immortal, but even those at times come with drawbacks like rejection. This is what, for example, leads a social engineer Uvarov to go from cynical egotist into a justifiably bitter man over the course of a millennium as his goal to realize immortality without nanomachines only partially works. I was pleasantly surprised to see each new part introduce new characters alongside time skip surprises. You go from characters named Mark Bassett Friar Armonk Wu to Trapper-of-Frogs, but notion persisting throughout the book is people aren't simpletons just because they don't come from your exact same culture. It's this "second wave" of characters we're introduced to that bring the most humanity to the story as they have no ties to Earth everyone remembers. Lack of contrived character drama is also a big plus. People in charge may differ in opinions, some even giving up on direct meddling at all like the project lead Louise, but they're professionals thrust into already crazy events on a scale few can even comprehend. It makes it both sad and comical a major disruption in the story comes from a simple freak-out. Lesson: don't materialize your digital body in front of someone who considers blowdarts peak of technological advancement while he's piloting a space ship. Yeah.
Sometimes too dense and saturated with scientific information, possibly technobabble if I knew enough to call it out as such, I have to say the writing itself was incredibly engrossing. Did I have to shamelessly read couple of pages twice to get everything Baxter wanted me to get? In more than few instances, but I don't see that as something to hold against Ring. Each new section of the book kept me guessing where they're going after. What do you do when you've reached your despair event horizon? Series comes full circle at the end, but I especially liked callbacks and recognitions of earlier novels since I read and reviewed those favorably. I can see why this was the end of the Xeelee Sequence. Where do you even go from here? Then again, time is fickle in these parts if you know how to spread the wings of a Nightfighter just right.
Would I recommend Ring? Let's just say I would give it a five-star rating if only there wasn't THIS much science talk. I can very easily see someone else DNF-ing it very quickly. There is a story, a vast and intriguing story keeping you on your toes, but at the same time Ring steps into "future history" territory occasionally breaking up lectures.
August 1, 2020
Trečią serijos knygą praleidau ir variau tiesiai prie ketvirtos - paskutinės, kuri ir suriša visą... tetralogiją? Nežinau, koks turi būti žodis, nu bet supratot.
Mūsų visata miršta! Oh no! Chebra iškeliauja į ateitį aiškintis, kodėl. Paaiškinimas yra visiškai massive - visata yra kovos laukas dviejų, kaip čia pasakius, rūšių, kurios veikia būdais, aprėpiančiais visą kosmosą. Knyga labai fainai susisieja su "Timelike Infinity" (2 serijos knyga) ir paaiškina dalykus.
Pirmi gal 200 puslapių buvo labai įdomūs, tikrai nežinai, kas bus toliau, ir lauki paaiškinimų. Bet atrodo, kad užbaiginėdamas seriją autorius jau taip norėjo suriškti visus galus, jau taip norėjo, kad visa knygos pabaiga sunaudojama tam (vietomis dirbtinam) galų surišinėjimui, kuris vyksta per gana nenatūralius dialogus.
Ai, bet vis tiek siūlau skaityti. Daug daug daug mokslinių idėjų ir kokybiškos fantazijos. "Kitos rūšys" yra ne šiaip žmonės su antenom, o tokie beveik visai nesuvokiami padarai, kas man atrodo super. Galėtų filmų pridaryti pagal šitas knygas, su visu cgi turėtų būti massive.
Mūsų visata miršta! Oh no! Chebra iškeliauja į ateitį aiškintis, kodėl. Paaiškinimas yra visiškai massive - visata yra kovos laukas dviejų, kaip čia pasakius, rūšių, kurios veikia būdais, aprėpiančiais visą kosmosą. Knyga labai fainai susisieja su "Timelike Infinity" (2 serijos knyga) ir paaiškina dalykus.
Pirmi gal 200 puslapių buvo labai įdomūs, tikrai nežinai, kas bus toliau, ir lauki paaiškinimų. Bet atrodo, kad užbaiginėdamas seriją autorius jau taip norėjo suriškti visus galus, jau taip norėjo, kad visa knygos pabaiga sunaudojama tam (vietomis dirbtinam) galų surišinėjimui, kuris vyksta per gana nenatūralius dialogus.
Ai, bet vis tiek siūlau skaityti. Daug daug daug mokslinių idėjų ir kokybiškos fantazijos. "Kitos rūšys" yra ne šiaip žmonės su antenom, o tokie beveik visai nesuvokiami padarai, kas man atrodo super. Galėtų filmų pridaryti pagal šitas knygas, su visu cgi turėtų būti massive.
April 12, 2018
I've finally done it. I've gone and reread this book. I've been threatening to for the past five years. But here I've gone and made it happen.
Elsewhere, I've discussed how this was the first non Star Trek piece of fiction I read after nearly a decade of, well, religious extremism, wherein I vaguely thought this sort of thing was a sin. But working nightshift where I spent most of my time sitting on my ass and trying to alleviate boredom led me to give this novel a shot.
I picked it up, somewhere in the spring of '95, I'm all but certain, at the bookstore on my way to work. I had literally nothing to occupy me during those hours and I'd already gone through all the Star Trek books they had in stock. And since this bookstore, like pretty much every other one on earth, sorted books alphabetical by author, I found this in the very front of the SF/F section, nestled right in there between Asimov, Benford, Brin & Clarke. There was a big spaceship on the cover, I had about 20 minutes to get to work, so I grabbed it.
This was the most mind expanding experience I'd ever had. It changed my life. I bet I read 30 or 40 more Science Fiction novels over the next two months. Actually, probably more than that, since I think I was putting them back at around one per day at the time.
So, I've long since discovered there are two types of stories... 'people' stories and 'ideas' stories. This novel is an 'ideas' story in the vein of Olaf Stapledon or Arthur C Clarke. Characters, while attempting to be human, are really excuses to advance the scientific speculation about the cosmos, or stellar lifecycles, or the nature of dark matter, or whatever.
It's a dangerous game to play, and was the main reason I was reticent to reread, I mean, tastes change, and as we get older and learn to appreciate the literary merits more, I was worried that this wouldn't have aged as well for me.
So, yes, this book that is essentially a tour of previous books the author had written at the time, worked on me just as magically as it did all those years ago. I'm still blown away by the scope of this tale, and it's still among the most epic that I've ever had the pleasure to read.
And yes, the treatise on stellar evolution was still captivating. As was the myriad other high concept ideas that were barely threaded together as a narrative. This shit worked. I can't explain, or articulate the why's of this, as I feel like I can easily point out numerous examples of instances of the dreaded infodumps and 'as-you-know-Bob's' throughout. There are characters that pop up and appear to be big players that are then relegated to being barely mentioned again.
Don't care. This is a work of genius, and when you are a genius, you don't have to follow any 'rules.'
Oh, in case anyone cares, humanity, a few thousand years from now, discovers that the universe is ending. They try to stop it. The story covers the following 5 million years. And it gets deeply scary, epic, and awe-inspiring as it unfolds.
Stephen Baxter is a hero. He changed my life. And this was the THE book that did it. Thanks, man.
Elsewhere, I've discussed how this was the first non Star Trek piece of fiction I read after nearly a decade of, well, religious extremism, wherein I vaguely thought this sort of thing was a sin. But working nightshift where I spent most of my time sitting on my ass and trying to alleviate boredom led me to give this novel a shot.
I picked it up, somewhere in the spring of '95, I'm all but certain, at the bookstore on my way to work. I had literally nothing to occupy me during those hours and I'd already gone through all the Star Trek books they had in stock. And since this bookstore, like pretty much every other one on earth, sorted books alphabetical by author, I found this in the very front of the SF/F section, nestled right in there between Asimov, Benford, Brin & Clarke. There was a big spaceship on the cover, I had about 20 minutes to get to work, so I grabbed it.
This was the most mind expanding experience I'd ever had. It changed my life. I bet I read 30 or 40 more Science Fiction novels over the next two months. Actually, probably more than that, since I think I was putting them back at around one per day at the time.
So, I've long since discovered there are two types of stories... 'people' stories and 'ideas' stories. This novel is an 'ideas' story in the vein of Olaf Stapledon or Arthur C Clarke. Characters, while attempting to be human, are really excuses to advance the scientific speculation about the cosmos, or stellar lifecycles, or the nature of dark matter, or whatever.
It's a dangerous game to play, and was the main reason I was reticent to reread, I mean, tastes change, and as we get older and learn to appreciate the literary merits more, I was worried that this wouldn't have aged as well for me.
So, yes, this book that is essentially a tour of previous books the author had written at the time, worked on me just as magically as it did all those years ago. I'm still blown away by the scope of this tale, and it's still among the most epic that I've ever had the pleasure to read.
And yes, the treatise on stellar evolution was still captivating. As was the myriad other high concept ideas that were barely threaded together as a narrative. This shit worked. I can't explain, or articulate the why's of this, as I feel like I can easily point out numerous examples of instances of the dreaded infodumps and 'as-you-know-Bob's' throughout. There are characters that pop up and appear to be big players that are then relegated to being barely mentioned again.
Don't care. This is a work of genius, and when you are a genius, you don't have to follow any 'rules.'
Oh, in case anyone cares, humanity, a few thousand years from now, discovers that the universe is ending. They try to stop it. The story covers the following 5 million years. And it gets deeply scary, epic, and awe-inspiring as it unfolds.
Stephen Baxter is a hero. He changed my life. And this was the THE book that did it. Thanks, man.
June 9, 2022
You may get more out of this book if you read Timelike Infinity first, which is also quite good, but it isn't a must to read any of the other books in the series first. There's also a minor tie-in from Flux, but it's more of an 'easter egg' than anything. Based on other reviews one's tolerance for lots of science discussion is likely to affect the reading experience. After reading Time (Manifold #1) some time ago, which is like college science lectures with a bit of plot sprinkled about, maybe I'm inured to it now. But the science to plot/character balance seemed reasonable to me in this one.
Much of the book takes place on a generation ship, and to me it made for an interesting adventure. The character Lieserl, who we meet first, was also quite fascinating, and I enjoyed her story. The more Baxter I read the more I think that fictional universes to him are dark places indeed. So if you're looking to Xeelee books to be full of optimism and hope you're probably in the wrong place.
My main issue with this book has been an issue with all the first four Xeelee books, and with #16: The Xeelee don't appear. Oh there's some Xeelee tech, there may be a Xeelee ship, but the race? Nope. Imagine the Borg from Star Trek if we never saw the actual Borg, they never even communicated, we just saw their ships show up, do whatever, and leave. Not very satisfying, right? Same problem here. I'm not sure if Baxter wanted his almost godly powerful aliens to be so totally mysterious he won't reveal them, or the Xeelee sequence is the sequence of books he hoped people would buy wanting even a decent bit about the Xeelee. Book 17, the most recent, says in the synopsis "... Poole, at last, finds the Xeelee..." I'm gonna read it, and if the Xeelee aren't actually in the thing I'm not reading anymore of the series unless someone tells me there's actually Xeelee in a particular book. Maybe I should have read #5, Vacuum Diagrams, which is said to explain the whole sequence... But according to the author it also spoils the major plot points from the whole sequence, so I figured it'd be my last in the series. That's a bit of a rant I know, but if it might help someone else it seemed worth sharing.
Recommended, as long as you don't mind hard SF and don't mind not learning much of anything about the Xeelee except for some of their tech.
Much of the book takes place on a generation ship, and to me it made for an interesting adventure. The character Lieserl, who we meet first, was also quite fascinating, and I enjoyed her story. The more Baxter I read the more I think that fictional universes to him are dark places indeed. So if you're looking to Xeelee books to be full of optimism and hope you're probably in the wrong place.
My main issue with this book has been an issue with all the first four Xeelee books, and with #16: The Xeelee don't appear. Oh there's some Xeelee tech, there may be a Xeelee ship, but the race? Nope. Imagine the Borg from Star Trek if we never saw the actual Borg, they never even communicated, we just saw their ships show up, do whatever, and leave. Not very satisfying, right? Same problem here. I'm not sure if Baxter wanted his almost godly powerful aliens to be so totally mysterious he won't reveal them, or the Xeelee sequence is the sequence of books he hoped people would buy wanting even a decent bit about the Xeelee. Book 17, the most recent, says in the synopsis "... Poole, at last, finds the Xeelee..." I'm gonna read it, and if the Xeelee aren't actually in the thing I'm not reading anymore of the series unless someone tells me there's actually Xeelee in a particular book. Maybe I should have read #5, Vacuum Diagrams, which is said to explain the whole sequence... But according to the author it also spoils the major plot points from the whole sequence, so I figured it'd be my last in the series. That's a bit of a rant I know, but if it might help someone else it seemed worth sharing.
Recommended, as long as you don't mind hard SF and don't mind not learning much of anything about the Xeelee except for some of their tech.
September 7, 2017
—"В нашей ракете застрял обрывок суперструны мироздания! Он весит четыре миллиарда триллионов тонн! Мы не можем двинуться с места!" (реальная цитата из книги)
Еле дочитал. Помимо фирменного бакстеровского занудства, гигантизма и деревянных чурок вместо персонажей, здесь все отягощено редкой тупостью всех действующих лиц.
Солнце необъяснимо гаснет! Давайте скорее запустим в Солнце умный ИИ, пускай он там внутри все исследует и выяснит, что происходит. Только никаких инструментов ему не дадим. И связь с ним поддерживать не будем. Да и вообще нахрен он нам нужен, забудем о нем (правда, ИИ в этой сложной ситуации не теряется и всего за ПЯТЬ МИЛЛИОНОВ ЛЕТ ухитряется изучить пару процессов в фотосфере)
А вот мы запускаем мегаракету, которой лететь до цели тысячу лет! Но вместо роботов и ИИ мы запихаем в ракету кучу полуслучайных людей, авось кто-нибудь из них долетит и спасет человечество! А если за тысячу лет они все повымирают, или дегенерируют до пещерного состояния и поломают весь корабль - ну зн��чит, не судьба человечеству спастись, не особо и хотелось.
На фоне этой вакханалии какие-то малопонятные повелители вселенной зачем-то воюют между собой, швыряя друг в друга СКОПЛЕНИЯМИ ГАЛАКТИК и нанося удары ВЫДЕРНУТЫМИ ИЗ МЕТРИКИ МИРОЗДАНИЯ СУПЕРСТРУНАМИ. Все это сопровождается бормотанием заклинаний про "времяподобную бесконечность" и "принцип Паули".
Note to self: Бакстера больше не читать ни при каких обстоятельствах.
August 6, 2020
After the wonderful Raft and Timelike Infinity i was expecting Baxter to get his shit together and finish the story he seems to be really passionate about with a bang. But man, it feels like with Flux (third and the most boring book) his actual writing skills got worse somehow. And i got pretty nervous about Ring. So the finale of Xeelee sequence felt long, overstretched and underwhelming. Yes, underwhelming, because however grandiose the actual story is - and it is pretty awesome and is pretty much everything i want from my sci-fi - the writing brings it down hard. Even though it feels like Baxter is trying to improve his character writing, and it even works to some degree, the storytelling is flat. So even when i tried to immerse myself in this wonderful universe the author just seemed to purposefully break the mood and insert pages after pages of insignificant details and really bad dialogues. And i'm not against detailed explanations or deep concepts - it's hard sf after all. It just felt out of place and more importantly - detrimental to the flow of the story. Still gonna give it 3 stars though because i can feel the author's passion and I really like the way he structured the whole thing, with side-stories in the same universe and all that. It's just that it could be so much more and i expected it to be absolutely epic. Gonna read your collaborations with master Clarke himself next, don't F it up, Stephen.
April 16, 2013
Another book I tried because I thought it sounded interesting, and never read a Baxter book. Well, it started off fairly interesting, but then devolved into formulaic writing that got worse and worse until I stopped caring.
This book is boring. There is virtually no confict, and very little character development. It's just a series of grand-soundings cience fiction ideas spooned out one after another, reading like a physics textbook trying to be cute... only ending up patronizing. I know what a globular cluster is, for crying out loud. You don't have to have the characters go like, "Look, you're leaving the galactic plane, but it looks like you're barely moving because its so large. Now shut your eyes...! Those bright lights we just hit is a globular cluster!" Not to mention the characters see some completely fantastic, unexplained phenomena and someone in the party immediately goes "I figured it out! That tunnel of cosmic string is a missile! Not it was launched a billion years ago to counteract the galaxy which was hurled like a giant trebuchet projectile!" And etc etc etc. I will be returning all my other Baxter books to the used bookstore.
Just read a plain old textbook. You'll get more solid physics and save a lot of time. This book is far too chunky. It should have been 300 pages, not 500.
This book is boring. There is virtually no confict, and very little character development. It's just a series of grand-soundings cience fiction ideas spooned out one after another, reading like a physics textbook trying to be cute... only ending up patronizing. I know what a globular cluster is, for crying out loud. You don't have to have the characters go like, "Look, you're leaving the galactic plane, but it looks like you're barely moving because its so large. Now shut your eyes...! Those bright lights we just hit is a globular cluster!" Not to mention the characters see some completely fantastic, unexplained phenomena and someone in the party immediately goes "I figured it out! That tunnel of cosmic string is a missile! Not it was launched a billion years ago to counteract the galaxy which was hurled like a giant trebuchet projectile!" And etc etc etc. I will be returning all my other Baxter books to the used bookstore.
Just read a plain old textbook. You'll get more solid physics and save a lot of time. This book is far too chunky. It should have been 300 pages, not 500.
February 17, 2023
(page 55 of 512): I dig Lieserl...
(around 10%, nicely written)
Lieserl was suspended inside the body of the
I should finish this. Someone on sfsignal said they reread it often. (link gone) http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2011...
5 years later, finally reading it. No ebook in America apparently, but Germans are in luck. Pretty gonzo hard sf.
I finished Baxter’s Ring. The highlight is probably the Lieserl’s transformation around 10%. Maybe it’s better to read the other Xeelee books first, at least the 2nd one. If you really like galactic astronomy, this book’s for you. The gonzo science might be hard to relate to. I'd love to see it adapted and visualized.
(around 10%, nicely written)
Lieserl was suspended inside the body of the
I should finish this. Someone on sfsignal said they reread it often. (link gone) http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2011...
5 years later, finally reading it. No ebook in America apparently, but Germans are in luck. Pretty gonzo hard sf.
I finished Baxter’s Ring. The highlight is probably the Lieserl’s transformation around 10%. Maybe it’s better to read the other Xeelee books first, at least the 2nd one. If you really like galactic astronomy, this book’s for you. The gonzo science might be hard to relate to. I'd love to see it adapted and visualized.
January 8, 2012
The fourth book in a four book sequence that has really got me into Baxter, and contemporary hard SF in general. A group of humans have discovered that something is wrong with the sun, and send an expedition five million years into the future to find out what went wrong. Much is learned about the enigmatic and powerful Xeelee, and their enemy, the dark matter photino birds.[return][return]I found this book an excellent one, much like the others in the sequence, though I wouldn t like to compare between them. There are some chapters that contain a couple of pages of complex stellar physics that for the most part goes over my head, but I can pick up some of it, and it doesn t detract from the story. Stephen Baxter writes great epic science fiction, with believable science, but also written in a way that is easy to follow. Ring links in with the other three books in the series quite well, and it s quite interesting spotting the references. A great book and a great series, highly recommended. Now all I need to do is read the book of short stories that goes with it!
July 17, 2015
Ok, so the science in these books is great, I have a degree in Astrophysics and I really enjoyed the hard physics here. That was about it though. This is the fourth book in the series and I read them all except I skipped most of Flux. It just seemed a bit too much, and I just wasn't enjoying the read so I skipped to the final 20 pages.
I think these books are more about the science than about an actual good story. It seems the author had an ending for the book in mind and some good ideas (same with the other books) and just muddled through the storyline to get there.
There's gaps in time of like a year, or 50 years, which is fine but the characters just continue as if it was just yesterday. As if no time has passed at all, eg someone will ask a question 50 years later that would be asked the moment they arrived in a new place.
These books could have been something really great if the author teamed up with a good storyteller, but as they are it seems more like a physics textbook with a bit of a story mixed in. Highly recommended for Astrophysics students though..
I think these books are more about the science than about an actual good story. It seems the author had an ending for the book in mind and some good ideas (same with the other books) and just muddled through the storyline to get there.
There's gaps in time of like a year, or 50 years, which is fine but the characters just continue as if it was just yesterday. As if no time has passed at all, eg someone will ask a question 50 years later that would be asked the moment they arrived in a new place.
These books could have been something really great if the author teamed up with a good storyteller, but as they are it seems more like a physics textbook with a bit of a story mixed in. Highly recommended for Astrophysics students though..
January 31, 2019
This really is one of the best science fiction books I have EVER read, and this is also my first book by this author. I've read books by other wonderful science fiction authors like Heinlein, Asimov, and Herbert, and this just... blew me away. I'm not even kidding you. I was sucked into this story with the tale of Lieserl, and I kept looking forward to the parts which had her in it.
The story and plot are fantastic, imaginative, and well-written. The amount of creativity and thought that went into this is just... wow. Seriously, WOW. I got a bit lost when the author talked about hard science, but I was able to keep up well. I will never forget this book for as long as I live, and the ending was incredible. I gotta say, I did feel bad for poor Uvarov, though...
The story and plot are fantastic, imaginative, and well-written. The amount of creativity and thought that went into this is just... wow. Seriously, WOW. I got a bit lost when the author talked about hard science, but I was able to keep up well. I will never forget this book for as long as I live, and the ending was incredible. I gotta say, I did feel bad for poor Uvarov, though...
November 16, 2008
A truly horrible book. It claims to be "very, very hard SF", but almost all important features of the plot are completely implausible. A lot of buzzwords are thrown around, and basic understanding of certain principles is demonstrated, but real understanding of the fundamentals is completely lacking. The characters are completely flat and have no depth or complexity. The dialogue is easy to read, but not realistic at all. Most aspects of the book simply didn't make sense. I'm still not sure why I forced myself to read the whole thing.
March 25, 2023
First half of the book is pure gold in an epic scale but I somehow did not like when the handwavium Extra Super FTL hyperdrive appeared, it wasn't that bad to compromise the whole book but I was not expecting that at all. Probably it made sense in some way for the plot but It also made the universe looks like a small city and it sort of broke that sense of wonder you got when you reading about the Ring, super strings, etc.
Apart from that, it could be a full 5 star book.
Apart from that, it could be a full 5 star book.
May 31, 2025
Ring is the fourth novel in Stephen Baxter’s ambitious Xeelee Sequence—a cosmological epic that attempts to chart the far future of the universe, from the era of humanity to the universe’s Heat Death. The series does not unfold in a linear fashion; rather, it explores scattered points in time, interrogating the ultimate fate of intelligence and its confrontation with post-human, near-theological entities such as the enigmatic Xeelee. Ring belongs to the latter stages of this cosmic chronicle, examining what remains when the human scale begins to dissolve into unfathomable temporal depths.
In Ring, science fiction ceases to be mere entertainment or allegory; it is transformed into a philosophical investigation of humanity’s place in an immense and indifferent cosmos. The narrative unfolds along two principal axes: on one hand, there is Lieserl, an artificial intelligence “abandoned” within the Sun to study it from the inside (her name a reference and homage to Lieserl Einstein, the daughter of Albert Einstein and Mileva Marić, who was either given up for adoption or died young). On the other hand, the interstellar vessel Great Northern embarks on an odyssey spanning millions of years, seeking an answer to the slow yet inexorable demise of the stars, hastened by the presence of “photino birds”—hypothetical dark matter entities that do not interact with light but draw energy from stars, accelerating their senescence and reducing their lifespans from billions to mere millions of years.
These two narratives gradually converge, composing a tale that merges the personal with the cosmic. Lieserl evolves from a mere observational tool into a self-aware entity, while the crew aboard the Great Northern experiences the overwhelming desolation of temporal alienation, as they voyage through a universe that is ageing and dying.
Ring is a paradigm of hard science fiction. Baxter incorporates concepts such as Kerr metrics (solutions to the equations of general relativity describing rotating black holes), cosmic strings (theoretical remnants of the early universe that may warp spacetime), and the thermodynamic end of the cosmos—known as the Heat Death, a state of ultimate energetic equilibrium where neither life nor transformation is possible. These elements recall a scientific treatise more than a conventional novel, imparting to the work the character of an intellectual exploration.
Compared to other authors, Baxter represents the most rigorous and abstract current of science fiction. Unlike Alastair Reynolds, who blends grand ideas with emotional depth, or Greg Egan, who constructs extreme mathematical scenarios yet embeds them within existential reflection, Baxter opts for an almost “clinical” tone. He is further distinguished from Liu Cixin, whose Three Body Problem trilogy, though thematically ambitious, now seems comparatively simplified—lacking the scientific rigour and conceptual precision of Ring, and often evoking a naïve imitation of 1950s-era narratives (with the added disadvantage of a persistently tragic depiction of women and an omnipresent authoritarian ideal). By contrast, Kim Stanley Robinson opposes Baxter’s metaphysical desolation with humanistic and politically conscious meditations on the future.
Despite its detached prose, Ring is not devoid of emotion. Lieserl is a tragic figure—artificial, yet imbued with a nearly human sense of solitude and nostalgia. Michael Poole, a more “traditional” character in the series, embodies human perseverance in the face of cosmic despair. Through them, a spark of life endures, even amidst the vast scale of annihilation.
The greatest virtue of Ring lies in its evocation of existential sublimity. The anguish it conveys does not stem from interpersonal drama, but from a confrontation with the very constants of physical reality. The depth of time, the erosion of light, the abandonment of meaning itself—all combine to produce an experience that resembles less a narrative and more a meditation on cosmic futility. Despite its (relative) emotional frigidity (no, it does not quite reach the level of “an unflinching Auschwitz guard shovelling corpses 9-to-5 from Monday to Friday”), there is an idiosyncratic beauty here: an aesthetic of the infinite, a melancholic allure of finality, like gazing upon a millennia-old vertical fresco depicting the disintegration of all things.
Nevertheless, this is not a work for everyone. Its low emotional temperature, insistence on abstract concepts, and relative absence of conventional human drama distance it from mainstream reading experiences. Ring demands attentiveness, patience, and a degree of scientific curiosity that surpasses the average. It is a daring and cerebral exercise in science fiction at its most extreme (even at the universe’s extremities)—a work that eschews entertainment in favour of philosophical physics. For the reader who does not seek plot but reflection; not emotional catharsis, but cosmic awe, Ring stands as a unique and indelible reading experience—a staggering vision of the end of time, grounded in rigorous science and suffused with a profound philosophical resonance, despite its narratively austere choices.
* * * * *
Το Ring είναι το τέταρτο μυθιστόρημα στη φιλόδοξη σειρά Xeelee Sequence του Stephen Baxter — ενός κοσμολογικού έπους που επιχειρεί να χαρτογραφήσει το απώτατο μέλλον του σύμπαντος, από την εποχή του ανθρώπου έως τον Θερμικό Θάνατο του Σύμπαντος. Η σειρά δεν αναπτύσσεται γραμμικά, αλλά καλύπτει διασκορπισμένα χρονικά σημεία, εξερευνώντας την τελική μοίρα της νοημοσύνης στο σύμπαν και τη σύγκρουσή της με εξωανθρώπινες, σχεδόν θεολογικές δυνάμεις όπως οι μυστηριώδεις Xeelee. Το Ring εντάσσεται στα ύστερα στάδια αυτού του κοσμικού χρονικού, εξετάζοντας τι απομένει όταν η ανθρώπινη κλίμακα αρχίζει να χάνεται μέσα σε ασύλληπτα χρονικά βάθη.
Στο Ring, η επιστημονική φαντασία παύει να είναι απλώς ψυχαγωγία ή αλληγορία· μετατρέπεται σε φιλοσοφική εξερεύνηση της θέσης του ανθρώπου σε ένα απέραντο και αδιάφορο σύμπαν. Η πλοκή εκτυλίσσεται σε δύο βασικά αφηγηματικά επίπεδα: από τη μία, η Lieserl μια τεχνητή νοημοσύνη που «εγκαταλείπεται» να μελετά τον Ήλιο από το εσωτερικό του (το όνομα είναι αναφορά και φόρος τιμής στην Lieserl Einstein, την κόρη του Άλμπερτ Αϊνστάιν και της Μιλέβα Μάριτς που είτε δόθηκε για υιοθεσία είτε πέθανε σε μικρή ηλικία). Από την άλλη, το διαστρικό σκάφος Great Northern ξεκινά μια οδύσσεια εκατομμυρίων ετών, αναζητώντας μια απάντηση στην αργή αλλά αναπόφευκτη κατάρρευση των άστρων εξαιτίας των “photino birds” — υποθετικά όντα από σκοτεινή ύλη, που δεν αλληλεπιδρούν με το φως, αλλά απορροφούν ενέργεια από τα άστρα επιταχύνοντας τη γήρανσή τους και μειώνοντας το προσδόκιμό τους από δισεκατομμύρια σε λίγα εκατομμύρια χρόνια.
Οι δύο ιστορίες συγκλίνουν σταδιακά, συνθέτοντας μια αφήγηση που συνδυάζει το προσωπικό με το κοσμικό. Η Lieserl εξελίσσεται από εργαλείο παρατήρησης σε ύπαρξη με αυτοσυνείδηση, ενώ η ομάδα του Great Northern βιώνει τη συντριπτική εμπειρία της χρονικής αποξένωσης, καθώς ταξιδεύουν μέσα σε ένα σύμπαν που γερνάει και πεθαίνει.
Το Ring είναι υπόδειγμα hard science fiction. Ο Baxter ενσωματώνει έννοιες όπως Kerr μετρικές (λύσεις των εξισώσεων της γενικής σχετικότητας που περιγράφουν μαύρες τρύπες που περιστρέφονται), κοσμικές χορδές (θεωρητικά υπολείμματα από το πρώιμο σύμπαν που μπορεί να παραμορφώνουν τον χωροχρόνο) και το θερμοδυναμικό τέλος του σύμπαντος, γνωστό ως Θερμικός Θάνατος — μια κατάσταση απόλυτης ενεργειακής ισορροπίας όπου δεν είναι πλέον δυνατή η ζωή ή η μεταβολή. Αυτά τα στοιχεία παραπέμπουν περισσότερο σε επιστημονικό δοκίμιο παρά σε συμβατικό μυθιστόρημα, δίνοντας στο έργο χαρακτήρα επιστημονικής εξερεύνησης.
Σε σύγκριση με άλλους συγγραφείς, ο Baxter εκπροσωπεί την πιο αυστηρή και αφαιρετική πτέρυγα της επιστημονικής φαντασίας. Σε αντίθεση με τον Alastair Reynolds, που πλέκει μεγάλες ιδέες με συναισθηματικό βάθος, ή τον Greg Egan, που επικεντρώνεται σε ακραία μαθηματικά σενάρια ενσωματώνοντας ωστόσο υπαρξιακό προβληματισμό, ο Baxter προτιμά έναν σχεδόν "ψυχρό" τόνο. Αυτό τον διαφοροποιεί και από τον Liu Cixin, του οποίου η τριλογία Three Body Problem αν και θεματικά τολμηρή, μοιάζει πλέον πιο απλουστευμένη — χωρίς την επιστημονική αυστηρότητα και εννοιολογική ακρίβεια του Ring και σίγουρα θυμίζει αφελή απομίμηση έργων της δεκαετίας του 1950 (με το έξτρα μειονέκτημα η γυναίκα να έχει τραγική θέση σε όλο το έργο, ενώ το απολυταρχικό παράδειγμα είναι πανταχού παρόν). Από την άλλη, ο Kim Stanley Robinson αντιπαραθέτει τον ουμανισμό και τον πολιτικό στοχασμό του μέλλοντος με τη μεταφυσική ερημία που προτείνει ο Baxter.
Παρά την αποστασιοποιημένη του γραφή, το Ring δεν είναι εντελώς ψυχρό. Η Lieserl είναι μια τραγική φιγούρα — τεχνητή μεν, αλλά φορτισμένη με σχεδόν ανθρώπινη μοναξιά και νοσταλγία. Ο Michael Poole, πιο "παραδοσιακός" χαρακτήρας της σειράς, αντιπροσωπεύει την ανθρώπινη επιμονή απέναντι στην κοσμική απελπισία. Μέσα από αυτούς, αναδεικνύεται μια σπίθα ζωής που δεν εξαφανίζεται παρά την αχανή κλίμακα της καταστροφής.
Η μεγαλύτερη αρετή του Ring είναι η αίσθηση του υπαρξιακού μεγαλείου. Η αγωνία δεν πηγάζει από προσωπικά δράματα αλλά από τη σύγκρουση με τις ίδιες τις θεμελιώδεις σταθερές της φυσικής πραγματικότητας. Το βάθος του χρόνου, η διάβρωση του φωτός, η εγκατάλειψη κάθε μορφής νοήματος∙ όλα αυτά δημιουργούν μια εμπειρία που θυμίζει λιγότερο αφήγηση και περισσότερο διαλογισμό πάνω στην κοσμική ματαιότητα. Παρά την (σχετική) ψυχρότητά του (ναι, δεν είναι επιπέδου «Ασυγκίνητος Φρουρός στο Άουσβιτς που φτυαρίζει πτώματα 9-5 από Δευτέρα μέχρι Παρασκευή»), υπάρχει μια ιδιότυπη ομορφιά εδώ: μια αισθητική του απείρου, μια μελαγχολική γοητεία του τέλους, σαν να κοιτάς μια χιλιετή κατακόρυφη τοιχογραφία που απεικονίζει την αποσύνθεση των πάντων.
Ωστόσο, το έργο δεν είναι για όλους. Η χαμηλή συναισθηματική θερμοκρασία, η επιμονή σε αφηρημένες έννοιες και η σχετική απουσία "ανθρώπινης" δραματουργίας απομακρύνουν το βιβλίο από την παραδοσιακή αναγνωστική εμπειρία. Το Ring απαιτεί προσοχή, υπομονή και μια δόση επιστημονικής περιέργειας που υπερβαίνει το μέσο όρο. Είναι μια τολμηρή και εγκεφαλική άσκηση στην επιστημονική φαντασία των άκρων (ακόμη και αυτών του Σύμπαντος) ένα έργο που στέκεται μακριά από την ψυχαγωγία και πιο κοντά στη φιλοσοφία της φυσικής. Για τον αναγνώστη που δεν αναζητά πλοκή αλλά στοχασμό· όχι συναισθηματική κάθαρση, αλλά κοσμικό δέος, το Ring είναι ένα μοναδικό και ανεξίτηλο ανάγνωσμα, ένα συγκλονιστικό όραμα για το τέλος του χρόνου, με δυνατή «σκληρή» επιστημονική φαντασία και βαθύ φιλοσοφικό απόηχο, παρά τις "ψυχρές" αφηγηματικές του επιλογές.
In Ring, science fiction ceases to be mere entertainment or allegory; it is transformed into a philosophical investigation of humanity’s place in an immense and indifferent cosmos. The narrative unfolds along two principal axes: on one hand, there is Lieserl, an artificial intelligence “abandoned” within the Sun to study it from the inside (her name a reference and homage to Lieserl Einstein, the daughter of Albert Einstein and Mileva Marić, who was either given up for adoption or died young). On the other hand, the interstellar vessel Great Northern embarks on an odyssey spanning millions of years, seeking an answer to the slow yet inexorable demise of the stars, hastened by the presence of “photino birds”—hypothetical dark matter entities that do not interact with light but draw energy from stars, accelerating their senescence and reducing their lifespans from billions to mere millions of years.
These two narratives gradually converge, composing a tale that merges the personal with the cosmic. Lieserl evolves from a mere observational tool into a self-aware entity, while the crew aboard the Great Northern experiences the overwhelming desolation of temporal alienation, as they voyage through a universe that is ageing and dying.
Ring is a paradigm of hard science fiction. Baxter incorporates concepts such as Kerr metrics (solutions to the equations of general relativity describing rotating black holes), cosmic strings (theoretical remnants of the early universe that may warp spacetime), and the thermodynamic end of the cosmos—known as the Heat Death, a state of ultimate energetic equilibrium where neither life nor transformation is possible. These elements recall a scientific treatise more than a conventional novel, imparting to the work the character of an intellectual exploration.
Compared to other authors, Baxter represents the most rigorous and abstract current of science fiction. Unlike Alastair Reynolds, who blends grand ideas with emotional depth, or Greg Egan, who constructs extreme mathematical scenarios yet embeds them within existential reflection, Baxter opts for an almost “clinical” tone. He is further distinguished from Liu Cixin, whose Three Body Problem trilogy, though thematically ambitious, now seems comparatively simplified—lacking the scientific rigour and conceptual precision of Ring, and often evoking a naïve imitation of 1950s-era narratives (with the added disadvantage of a persistently tragic depiction of women and an omnipresent authoritarian ideal). By contrast, Kim Stanley Robinson opposes Baxter’s metaphysical desolation with humanistic and politically conscious meditations on the future.
Despite its detached prose, Ring is not devoid of emotion. Lieserl is a tragic figure—artificial, yet imbued with a nearly human sense of solitude and nostalgia. Michael Poole, a more “traditional” character in the series, embodies human perseverance in the face of cosmic despair. Through them, a spark of life endures, even amidst the vast scale of annihilation.
The greatest virtue of Ring lies in its evocation of existential sublimity. The anguish it conveys does not stem from interpersonal drama, but from a confrontation with the very constants of physical reality. The depth of time, the erosion of light, the abandonment of meaning itself—all combine to produce an experience that resembles less a narrative and more a meditation on cosmic futility. Despite its (relative) emotional frigidity (no, it does not quite reach the level of “an unflinching Auschwitz guard shovelling corpses 9-to-5 from Monday to Friday”), there is an idiosyncratic beauty here: an aesthetic of the infinite, a melancholic allure of finality, like gazing upon a millennia-old vertical fresco depicting the disintegration of all things.
Nevertheless, this is not a work for everyone. Its low emotional temperature, insistence on abstract concepts, and relative absence of conventional human drama distance it from mainstream reading experiences. Ring demands attentiveness, patience, and a degree of scientific curiosity that surpasses the average. It is a daring and cerebral exercise in science fiction at its most extreme (even at the universe’s extremities)—a work that eschews entertainment in favour of philosophical physics. For the reader who does not seek plot but reflection; not emotional catharsis, but cosmic awe, Ring stands as a unique and indelible reading experience—a staggering vision of the end of time, grounded in rigorous science and suffused with a profound philosophical resonance, despite its narratively austere choices.
* * * * *
Το Ring είναι το τέταρτο μυθιστόρημα στη φιλόδοξη σειρά Xeelee Sequence του Stephen Baxter — ενός κοσμολογικού έπους που επιχειρεί να χαρτογραφήσει το απώτατο μέλλον του σύμπαντος, από την εποχή του ανθρώπου έως τον Θερμικό Θάνατο του Σύμπαντος. Η σειρά δεν αναπτύσσεται γραμμικά, αλλά καλύπτει διασκορπισμένα χρονικά σημεία, εξερευνώντας την τελική μοίρα της νοημοσύνης στο σύμπαν και τη σύγκρουσή της με εξωανθρώπινες, σχεδόν θεολογικές δυνάμεις όπως οι μυστηριώδεις Xeelee. Το Ring εντάσσεται στα ύστερα στάδια αυτού του κοσμικού χρονικού, εξετάζοντας τι απομένει όταν η ανθρώπινη κλίμακα αρχίζει να χάνεται μέσα σε ασύλληπτα χρονικά βάθη.
Στο Ring, η επιστημονική φαντασία παύει να είναι απλώς ψυχαγωγία ή αλληγορία· μετατρέπεται σε φιλοσοφική εξερεύνηση της θέσης του ανθρώπου σε ένα απέραντο και αδιάφορο σύμπαν. Η πλοκή εκτυλίσσεται σε δύο βασικά αφηγηματικά επίπεδα: από τη μία, η Lieserl μια τεχνητή νοημοσύνη που «εγκαταλείπεται» να μελετά τον Ήλιο από το εσωτερικό του (το όνομα είναι αναφορά και φόρος τιμής στην Lieserl Einstein, την κόρη του Άλμπερτ Αϊνστάιν και της Μιλέβα Μάριτς που είτε δόθηκε για υιοθεσία είτε πέθανε σε μικρή ηλικία). Από την άλλη, το διαστρικό σκάφος Great Northern ξεκινά μια οδύσσεια εκατομμυρίων ετών, αναζητώντας μια απάντηση στην αργή αλλά αναπόφευκτη κατάρρευση των άστρων εξαιτίας των “photino birds” — υποθετικά όντα από σκοτεινή ύλη, που δεν αλληλεπιδρούν με το φως, αλλά απορροφούν ενέργεια από τα άστρα επιταχύνοντας τη γήρανσή τους και μειώνοντας το προσδόκιμό τους από δισεκατομμύρια σε λίγα εκατομμύρια χρόνια.
Οι δύο ιστορίες συγκλίνουν σταδιακά, συνθέτοντας μια αφήγηση που συνδυάζει το προσωπικό με το κοσμικό. Η Lieserl εξελίσσεται από εργαλείο παρατήρησης σε ύπαρξη με αυτοσυνείδηση, ενώ η ομάδα του Great Northern βιώνει τη συντριπτική εμπειρία της χρονικής αποξένωσης, καθώς ταξιδεύουν μέσα σε ένα σύμπαν που γερνάει και πεθαίνει.
Το Ring είναι υπόδειγμα hard science fiction. Ο Baxter ενσωματώνει έννοιες όπως Kerr μετρικές (λύσεις των εξισώσεων της γενικής σχετικότητας που περιγράφουν μαύρες τρύπες που περιστρέφονται), κοσμικές χορδές (θεωρητικά υπολείμματα από το πρώιμο σύμπαν που μπορεί να παραμορφώνουν τον χωροχρόνο) και το θερμοδυναμικό τέλος του σύμπαντος, γνωστό ως Θερμικός Θάνατος — μια κατάσταση απόλυτης ενεργειακής ισορροπίας όπου δεν είναι πλέον δυνατή η ζωή ή η μεταβολή. Αυτά τα στοιχεία παραπέμπουν περισσότερο σε επιστημονικό δοκίμιο παρά σε συμβατικό μυθιστόρημα, δίνοντας στο έργο χαρακτήρα επιστημονικής εξερεύνησης.
Σε σύγκριση με άλλους συγγραφείς, ο Baxter εκπροσωπεί την πιο αυστηρή και αφαιρετική πτέρυγα της επιστημονικής φαντασίας. Σε αντίθεση με τον Alastair Reynolds, που πλέκει μεγάλες ιδέες με συναισθηματικό βάθος, ή τον Greg Egan, που επικεντρώνεται σε ακραία μαθηματικά σενάρια ενσωματώνοντας ωστόσο υπαρξιακό προβληματισμό, ο Baxter προτιμά έναν σχεδόν "ψυχρό" τόνο. Αυτό τον διαφοροποιεί και από τον Liu Cixin, του οποίου η τριλογία Three Body Problem αν και θεματικά τολμηρή, μοιάζει πλέον πιο απλουστευμένη — χωρίς την επιστημονική αυστηρότητα και εννοιολογική ακρίβεια του Ring και σίγουρα θυμίζει αφελή απομίμηση έργων της δεκαετίας του 1950 (με το έξτρα μειονέκτημα η γυναίκα να έχει τραγική θέση σε όλο το έργο, ενώ το απολυταρχικό παράδειγμα είναι πανταχού παρόν). Από την άλλη, ο Kim Stanley Robinson αντιπαραθέτει τον ουμανισμό και τον πολιτικό στοχασμό του μέλλοντος με τη μεταφυσική ερημία που προτείνει ο Baxter.
Παρά την αποστασιοποιημένη του γραφή, το Ring δεν είναι εντελώς ψυχρό. Η Lieserl είναι μια τραγική φιγούρα — τεχνητή μεν, αλλά φορτισμένη με σχεδόν ανθρώπινη μοναξιά και νοσταλγία. Ο Michael Poole, πιο "παραδοσιακός" χαρακτήρας της σειράς, αντιπροσωπεύει την ανθρώπινη επιμονή απέναντι στην κοσμική απελπισία. Μέσα από αυτούς, αναδεικνύεται μια σπίθα ζωής που δεν εξαφανίζεται παρά την αχανή κλίμακα της καταστροφής.
Η μεγαλύτερη αρετή του Ring είναι η αίσθηση του υπαρξιακού μεγαλείου. Η αγωνία δεν πηγάζει από προσωπικά δράματα αλλά από τη σύγκρουση με τις ίδιες τις θεμελιώδεις σταθερές της φυσικής πραγματικότητας. Το βάθος του χρόνου, η διάβρωση του φωτός, η εγκατάλειψη κάθε μορφής νοήματος∙ όλα αυτά δημιουργούν μια εμπειρία που θυμίζει λιγότερο αφήγηση και περισσότερο διαλογισμό πάνω στην κοσμική ματαιότητα. Παρά την (σχετική) ψυχρότητά του (ναι, δεν είναι επιπέδου «Ασυγκίνητος Φρουρός στο Άουσβιτς που φτυαρίζει πτώματα 9-5 από Δευτέρα μέχρι Παρασκευή»), υπάρχει μια ιδιότυπη ομορφιά εδώ: μια αισθητική του απείρου, μια μελαγχολική γοητεία του τέλους, σαν να κοιτάς μια χιλιετή κατακόρυφη τοιχογραφία που απεικονίζει την αποσύνθεση των πάντων.
Ωστόσο, το έργο δεν είναι για όλους. Η χαμηλή συναισθηματική θερμοκρασία, η επιμονή σε αφηρημένες έννοιες και η σχετική απουσία "ανθρώπινης" δραματουργίας απομακρύνουν το βιβλίο από την παραδοσιακή αναγνωστική εμπειρία. Το Ring απαιτεί προσοχή, υπομονή και μια δόση επιστημονικής περιέργειας που υπερβαίνει το μέσο όρο. Είναι μια τολμηρή και εγκεφαλική άσκηση στην επιστημονική φαντασία των άκρων (ακόμη και αυτών του Σύμπαντος) ένα έργο που στέκεται μακριά από την ψυχαγωγία και πιο κοντά στη φιλοσοφία της φυσικής. Για τον αναγνώστη που δεν αναζητά πλοκή αλλά στοχασμό· όχι συναισθηματική κάθαρση, αλλά κοσμικό δέος, το Ring είναι ένα μοναδικό και ανεξίτηλο ανάγνωσμα, ένα συγκλονιστικό όραμα για το τέλος του χρόνου, με δυνατή «σκληρή» επιστημονική φαντασία και βαθύ φιλοσοφικό απόηχο, παρά τις "ψυχρές" αφηγηματικές του επιλογές.
November 24, 2024
I think the only thing I have read that is comparable to this book is the even more pessimistic Death's End by Cixin Liu. I liked this one, but felt that of the first 5 Xeelee books, that Timelike Infinity was the strongest one. In terms of world-building, I also felt it could draw positive comparisons to many of Hamilton's series, but Stephen definitely goes much further than Peter and he isn't held back by misogynistic portrayals of female characters as Peter tends to be. I don't know if I will go on to read more of the short stories or novels (although I did love Vacuum Diagrams) like the Destiny's Children series or the Coalescent short stories, so any comments below as to whether the quality is maintained in the later books would be highly appreciated!
February 23, 2022
This is probably one of the first books that I’ve read just by Stephen Baxter (I have read the Long Earth series), and it was really great. The world it paints is so rich and the story is fascinating. When I started on this book, I was unaware it was part of a series, but it stands on its own. I’m sure if I read the other books in the series I’d be more informed of some of the parts, but it stands well on its own. Overall, I really enjoyed this book and cannot wait to read some of the other books of his in the future.
February 17, 2024
The word "epic" applies.
It held my attention, in spite of trying as hard as it could to buck me off. Its characters were a saving grace. They weren't all good or layered, but they were limited and struggling in human ways. Interesting.
This book described badly: the biography of a scientist whose particular expertise is stars.
It held my attention, in spite of trying as hard as it could to buck me off. Its characters were a saving grace. They weren't all good or layered, but they were limited and struggling in human ways. Interesting.
This book described badly: the biography of a scientist whose particular expertise is stars.
October 8, 2016
"Timelike Infinity" is one of my favorite Science Fiction novels and "Ring" summarizes then picks up immediately after the events of Timelike. After slogging through "Flux" and listening to the excruciating "Proxima" I needed a decent break from Baxter. A few months later I couldn't have been happier to be reading this frantically from the first chapter thinking "Hooray Baxter IS good he just has some genuine stinkers too".
In "Timelike Infinity" we get an amazing story spun between a bunch of quantum theory. In "Ring" we get a good story spun in between a ton of amazing science ideas. By the end of "Ring" Baxter wants the reader to know ALL about Baryonic Matter, Quagma, The Heisenberg uncertainty principle, The Pauli Exclusion Principle and anything and everything you could ever want to think and know about stars. Baxter's thing is to imagine how things he knows about physics could become an essential part of the plot of his stories.
"Timelike Infinity" has a cool ending, then it has this very weird final paragraph tacked on to it. Thankfully that paragraph is explained quite early on. Then we blast off into the far future and the rest of the timeline is laid out. The events of Flux and Ring are recapped. We learn more about the Xeelee but not as much as we would like. The ending is OK but we have more Xeelee books after this.
The criticisms of Baxter are that he is just not a very good writer and/or he is bad at characters. Baxter is a great writer when he is "telling". His exposition on the science stuff is amazing and dexcribed with genuine wonder. When he is "showing" he never knows how to get out of a scene. The characters in "Ring" are fine. Louise exists only as an infodump but I was interested in Leisel and cared about the forest people.
Baxter's weakness and it is a pretty big one is that his dialogue ranges from passable to terrible thus the "bad at characters" rap.
Baxter's dialogue scenes normally follow interesting exposition after the next piece of Baxter mind candy has been laid out. Now when he needs to bring in the characters the dialogue goes a little something like this:
Louise: "Hey Spinner, what do you know about the Pauli Exclusion Principle/ other physics thing"
Spinner: "Oh of course 2 particles cant occupy the same state or something like that?"
Louise: "Well actually",
Spinner: "You sound like a poet"
Alternate ending dialogue: "Sounds simple enough"/"Amazing"/"Awe Inspiring"
Alternate alternate ending: "Do you think I'm an idiot?, get ON with it"
After I have just read some amazing and beautiful exposition from a character it does kinda take me out of the story for the other character to immediately say how amazing and beautiful a description we just heard was.
Is it bad writing, super meta or is Baxter just SO gangsta that he talks himself up IN the story? Who knows?
So this flaw aside, Timelike Infinity/Ring is an exceptional piece of Science Fiction. It spans from the big bang to the death of the last star. The size of it's ideas cannot be contained inside a "Ring" of Cosmic String. Deserves it's place among the classics of SF.
Suggested Reading order of Xeelee Sequence: Timelike/Ring/Vacuum Diagrams
In "Timelike Infinity" we get an amazing story spun between a bunch of quantum theory. In "Ring" we get a good story spun in between a ton of amazing science ideas. By the end of "Ring" Baxter wants the reader to know ALL about Baryonic Matter, Quagma, The Heisenberg uncertainty principle, The Pauli Exclusion Principle and anything and everything you could ever want to think and know about stars. Baxter's thing is to imagine how things he knows about physics could become an essential part of the plot of his stories.
"Timelike Infinity" has a cool ending, then it has this very weird final paragraph tacked on to it. Thankfully that paragraph is explained quite early on. Then we blast off into the far future and the rest of the timeline is laid out. The events of Flux and Ring are recapped. We learn more about the Xeelee but not as much as we would like. The ending is OK but we have more Xeelee books after this.
The criticisms of Baxter are that he is just not a very good writer and/or he is bad at characters. Baxter is a great writer when he is "telling". His exposition on the science stuff is amazing and dexcribed with genuine wonder. When he is "showing" he never knows how to get out of a scene. The characters in "Ring" are fine. Louise exists only as an infodump but I was interested in Leisel and cared about the forest people.
Baxter's weakness and it is a pretty big one is that his dialogue ranges from passable to terrible thus the "bad at characters" rap.
Baxter's dialogue scenes normally follow interesting exposition after the next piece of Baxter mind candy has been laid out. Now when he needs to bring in the characters the dialogue goes a little something like this:
Louise: "Hey Spinner, what do you know about the Pauli Exclusion Principle/ other physics thing"
Spinner: "Oh of course 2 particles cant occupy the same state or something like that?"
Louise: "Well actually",
Spinner: "You sound like a poet"
Alternate ending dialogue: "Sounds simple enough"/"Amazing"/"Awe Inspiring"
Alternate alternate ending: "Do you think I'm an idiot?, get ON with it"
After I have just read some amazing and beautiful exposition from a character it does kinda take me out of the story for the other character to immediately say how amazing and beautiful a description we just heard was.
Is it bad writing, super meta or is Baxter just SO gangsta that he talks himself up IN the story? Who knows?
So this flaw aside, Timelike Infinity/Ring is an exceptional piece of Science Fiction. It spans from the big bang to the death of the last star. The size of it's ideas cannot be contained inside a "Ring" of Cosmic String. Deserves it's place among the classics of SF.
Suggested Reading order of Xeelee Sequence: Timelike/Ring/Vacuum Diagrams
October 8, 2016
There's an awful lot going on in this volume and, to be fair, Baxter has his work cut out tying the events in with the other Xeelee universe narratives.
The Paradoxa organisation has evolved in the wake of Michael Poole's original journey to the future in 'Timelike Infinity' and the subsequent discovery that there were powerful and inimical aliens out there. Paradoxa has now become a powerful body whose remit is to preserve Humanity. What has also been discovered is that someone or something is destabilising our sun. Paradoxa has bred an engineered human, Lieserl, who will grow at the rate of a human year every day and whose personality will be downloaded into an AI which will be able to function within the sun. The organisation have also commandeered a prototype interstellar ship to take a thousand year trip along with a portable wormhole so that on their return - like Poole - they will be able to return through the wormhole from 5 million years in the future.
Things don't go according to plan though, and the crew - who may be the only humans left in the universe - devise a plan to head for The Ring, the vast galaxy-devouring structure built by the godlike Xeelee.
It's certainly a tour de force of Hard SF. Baxter throws in an entire gallimaufry of complex physics concepts, such as the photino birds, creatures of dark matter who can live within stars, structures millions of light years wide built of cosmic string, exotic matter and extraordinarily detailed explanations of the lifecycles of suns.
The Ring itself, once we finally reach the beast, is the ultimate (as of yet) Big Dumb Object, woven of cosmic string and with a diameter of millions of light years.
One could argue that Baxter here has possibly over-egged the cosmic pudding and that the narrative could have possibly have been dealt with in two separate novels, to give space for some of the many characters to live and breathe.
Clearly the science can not be faulted and where excitement can be found here it is in the wonderful tour-de-forces of scientific hyperbole which here and there manages to recreate that sense of wonder that is all too lacking in most modern SF.
If it fails anywhere it is maybe in a lack of suspense, the peaks and troughs of emotional tension, cliffhangers, the things that make us want to read on. Certainly there are action sequences, but they lack a certain vivacity, something common to Baxter novels.
Overall though, it's a marvellous conclusion (at least in internal chronology) to Baxter's Xeelee universe.
The Paradoxa organisation has evolved in the wake of Michael Poole's original journey to the future in 'Timelike Infinity' and the subsequent discovery that there were powerful and inimical aliens out there. Paradoxa has now become a powerful body whose remit is to preserve Humanity. What has also been discovered is that someone or something is destabilising our sun. Paradoxa has bred an engineered human, Lieserl, who will grow at the rate of a human year every day and whose personality will be downloaded into an AI which will be able to function within the sun. The organisation have also commandeered a prototype interstellar ship to take a thousand year trip along with a portable wormhole so that on their return - like Poole - they will be able to return through the wormhole from 5 million years in the future.
Things don't go according to plan though, and the crew - who may be the only humans left in the universe - devise a plan to head for The Ring, the vast galaxy-devouring structure built by the godlike Xeelee.
It's certainly a tour de force of Hard SF. Baxter throws in an entire gallimaufry of complex physics concepts, such as the photino birds, creatures of dark matter who can live within stars, structures millions of light years wide built of cosmic string, exotic matter and extraordinarily detailed explanations of the lifecycles of suns.
The Ring itself, once we finally reach the beast, is the ultimate (as of yet) Big Dumb Object, woven of cosmic string and with a diameter of millions of light years.
One could argue that Baxter here has possibly over-egged the cosmic pudding and that the narrative could have possibly have been dealt with in two separate novels, to give space for some of the many characters to live and breathe.
Clearly the science can not be faulted and where excitement can be found here it is in the wonderful tour-de-forces of scientific hyperbole which here and there manages to recreate that sense of wonder that is all too lacking in most modern SF.
If it fails anywhere it is maybe in a lack of suspense, the peaks and troughs of emotional tension, cliffhangers, the things that make us want to read on. Certainly there are action sequences, but they lack a certain vivacity, something common to Baxter novels.
Overall though, it's a marvellous conclusion (at least in internal chronology) to Baxter's Xeelee universe.
Read
March 13, 2011Visionary and gripping, if you skim the science lectures: Stephen Baxter is a fascinating teller of tales, although, for me, his highbrow scientific monologues rarely blend well with the plot. In Ring - the last of the Xeelee sequence - his ensemble cast includes several characters who regularly pause the action to make turgid lectures to their colleagues. Some of this science is integral to the story - of the ultimate fate of the Universe - but the interludes are like blocks of concrete around the feet of something of otherwise mercurial pace and, for the average reader (i.e. one without a PhD in astrophysics), they are a hindrance.
Baxter has big ideas and a brilliant imagination, which makes up for the fact that his characters are inclined to be a little unbelievable and repetitive. In Ring, as in his other books, he throws together a disparate group of individuals and explores their adjustments to each other and to dramatic challenges and events, It doesn't quite come off, because, beneath the surface, it seems they weren't really that dissimilar.
Those criticisms aside, Ring stands alone as a work of vision and innovation, which left this human reader feeling very appreciative of the solidity of planet earth. There are some neat links to earlier Xeelee stories, such as Flux and Raft, and, overall, it is gripping stuff on a cosmic scale. Skim the science lessons and you won't be able to put it down.
April 26, 2010
Overall, I enjoyed this book. but the technobabbl was unbearable at parts. Anyone that claims to understand what he was talking about is a lier. Even people on this site say things like "Well I have a PHD in physics, so I understood....", NO, you didn't. You are lying.
the other problem is that the end was ridiculous and counterfactual. The whole point of them "exploring" is because the Photino birds were destroying star within 5 million years making planets un-inhabitable. So their answer was to travel to a universe in which there were no photino birds, but stars died within 3 million years, and there were no planets. Now, I am not a physicist, but that seems like a "worse" situation? And on top of that, The Xeelee ships were clearly trying to communicate with the humans before they went through the ring. they couldn't even have said "hi"? A character even said "wondered why they didn't fire on the Northern?"
The problem is that this book could have been SO MUCH better. Baxters' Timeships is a similar scope of a book, and is one of the most exciting books I have ever read. But the technobabble combinged with the ridiculous ending, really hobbled this one for me.
the other problem is that the end was ridiculous and counterfactual. The whole point of them "exploring" is because the Photino birds were destroying star within 5 million years making planets un-inhabitable. So their answer was to travel to a universe in which there were no photino birds, but stars died within 3 million years, and there were no planets. Now, I am not a physicist, but that seems like a "worse" situation? And on top of that, The Xeelee ships were clearly trying to communicate with the humans before they went through the ring. they couldn't even have said "hi"? A character even said "wondered why they didn't fire on the Northern?"
The problem is that this book could have been SO MUCH better. Baxters' Timeships is a similar scope of a book, and is one of the most exciting books I have ever read. But the technobabble combinged with the ridiculous ending, really hobbled this one for me.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 23, 2023
It wasn't until I got well into this final book of the Xeelee Sequence that it hit me exactly what it is about Stephen Baxter's writing that irritates me. He is actually giving a series of lectures and semi-lectures on subjects such as astro-physics, cosmology, string theory, quantum physics, solar physics and universal theory, to name but some.
It is around these explanations that he weaves his characters, some of whom start out at a low level of understanding and then pick it all up as if it were easy-peasy and begin asking complex questions! Oh, do tell me, famous astrologer, how does the sun work? Or, yes I know how a black hole operates but why and how can we use it?
It's as if he is setting up his characters aas students, who then ask the type of questions that professors get off on, showing off their profound knowledge. It's fine for university lectures, but does not make for good reading; in fact, it makes the story-lines become disjointed, as he feels impelled to give a long and detailed explanation to those not of his level of comprehension, i.e. the readers.
This is not how good SF writers should really operate, at least, not in my humble opinion, and I have read a lot of the works of the great SF writers.
It is around these explanations that he weaves his characters, some of whom start out at a low level of understanding and then pick it all up as if it were easy-peasy and begin asking complex questions! Oh, do tell me, famous astrologer, how does the sun work? Or, yes I know how a black hole operates but why and how can we use it?
It's as if he is setting up his characters aas students, who then ask the type of questions that professors get off on, showing off their profound knowledge. It's fine for university lectures, but does not make for good reading; in fact, it makes the story-lines become disjointed, as he feels impelled to give a long and detailed explanation to those not of his level of comprehension, i.e. the readers.
This is not how good SF writers should really operate, at least, not in my humble opinion, and I have read a lot of the works of the great SF writers.
May 2, 2013
Once in awhile you come across a book that totally blows your mind. The Ring was (unexpectedly) was one such book for me.
The Ring takes the reader from a futuristic Earth that has endured alien conquest and subsequent successful revolution out of the solar system and on to an adventure that spans the evolution of humanity and the universe. And those aren't the mind blowing parts.
The Ring was the first Stephen Baxter book I had read and enjoyed it so much that I went on to read most of his other works (and there are a lot of them). The Ring is the fourth book in the Xeelee series but are only minorly connective and can be read in any order.
This book has to be read to be believed and you will be thinking about it years after the reading.
DISCLAIMER: Stephen Baxter is a very niche author. If you're looking for interpersonal character development and twisty in depth plot lines, he may not be the author for you. However, if you love hard core science fiction dosed liberally with theoretical physics and macro views of the universe we live in, read this book now!
The Ring takes the reader from a futuristic Earth that has endured alien conquest and subsequent successful revolution out of the solar system and on to an adventure that spans the evolution of humanity and the universe. And those aren't the mind blowing parts.
The Ring was the first Stephen Baxter book I had read and enjoyed it so much that I went on to read most of his other works (and there are a lot of them). The Ring is the fourth book in the Xeelee series but are only minorly connective and can be read in any order.
This book has to be read to be believed and you will be thinking about it years after the reading.
DISCLAIMER: Stephen Baxter is a very niche author. If you're looking for interpersonal character development and twisty in depth plot lines, he may not be the author for you. However, if you love hard core science fiction dosed liberally with theoretical physics and macro views of the universe we live in, read this book now!
May 2, 2024
I'm disappointed. At first I was excited by the prospect of reading about 5 million years of human civilisation. However, page by page I became disillusioned as I realised that the author was just using a simple plot device to avoid giving any details about the future development of mankind. Many overlong passages of the book read like a layman's introduction to cosmology and string theory rather than a story. There were no "aha" moments, not much emotional content. Even the final solution was simply told by a god-like character, rather than being discovered by the team themselves. He also lent a hand at the most critical (read: difficult) moment and saved the crew; how convenient! So I wonder why this god-like character didn't bother to materialise earlier and tell them the damn solution right away?
The whole book reads to me like a patched-up story just to connect the three previous novels in the series. The characters are flat. The conflicts are shallow and contrived. Even the language is boring and repetitive.
Not worth reading.
The whole book reads to me like a patched-up story just to connect the three previous novels in the series. The characters are flat. The conflicts are shallow and contrived. Even the language is boring and repetitive.
Not worth reading.
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