Hi fellow denizens of sf.written,

.
.These are not the first Baxter stories I have read but other titles are
.not considered at this time.
.Well a few weeks ago I saw "Xeelee: Vengeance" at the SFPL-Mail and grabbed
it. I liked the beginning so I when I went back to the Library
a week later I
looked for more by Stephen Baxter and I took "Transcendent" home.
.I just finished reading "Transcendent" today
.These two seem to sum up the long series of novels about the Poole family
In Transcendent, Michael Poole an engineer conceives of a project
to keep
the clathrates in the permafrost from thawing after his son Tom is injured
in a methane burp. He is eventually contacted by the future to help the
Transcendent made up of the essentially immortal descendants of our modern
humanity, the Undying decide on their course of action as they near
Godhood. It is essentially a story concerned with what happened to
this Micheal Poole in his mundane life.

.In Xeelee Vengeance a descendant of Michael Poole bearing the same
name is confronted by a destructive alien incursion aimed at destroying
not just himself but everywhere humanity can survive. The Xeelee use
weapons that are practically incomprehensible in their destructive actions.

.This Michael Poole, an engineer like his ancestor. is building wormholes
and has one by Jupiter that has not been connected to anything firm at
the far end and it from this Wormhole that the Xeelee emerge on their
horrific mission. We are talking Space Opera!

.Hygvzngryl gurfr Jbezubyrf nyybj gur Rnegu gb rfpncr
gb gur Xhvcre Pybhq jurer vg jvyy serrmr fbyvq. Ohg nepbybtvpny
ohvyqvatf
ner va cynpr naq zbfg bs gur cbchyngvba jvyy fheivir. Fheivivat uhznaf
ner tbvat gb fcraq gvzr ercebqhpvat naq gur Rnegu vf va ab pbaqvgvba
gb fhccbeg na rire rkcnaqvat cbchyngvba naq fb gur 1fg Qvfcrefvba
fraqvat trarengvba fgne fuvcf njnl sebz gur Fbyne Flfgrz ortvaf.

.Some of the generation ships 500,000 years in the future will provide
a contact for the Michael Poole of the Transcendent book.

.Now I have some spoilers above so maybe I should ROT13
those if I can as I am not writing in the news reader.
.But the time scale of this novelic series remind me of the work of
Olaf Stabledon author of "First And Last Men", "Sirius",
"Starmaker," and
the first story of his which I read in Galaxy SF magazine in my youth
"Odd John".

. I enjoyed these stories despite finding them rather prolix.

. bliss



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