In Britain, as with much of the world, flooding is common – the British government is located to Newcastle from an engulfed London, for example. It is quite chilling to see current themes as a backdrop to this event and how they might reappear in the future – COVID outbreaks, mass migration and climate change, for example. There are social and economic consequences too in a world that has already changed from what we know. The Moon shifts, satellites and spaceships lose their way and planets alter their orbits with no effect from the Sun on them. Luckily, things return to something-like-normal after a day, but the whole world and even the Solar system are physically affected. As you might expect, there is chaos and confusion as a result. The book begins in 2057 when the Sun suddenly disappears, with no warning or preamble. Much of the book therefore is about watching these social, economic and global changes through our lead characters. Whu Zhi is a gifted scientist onboard the Lodestone space station, whose husband Jim Boyd is an astronaut returning back from a manned mission to Mars. Mel Kapur is an astronomer floating around the globe on the airship Skythrust Two (fans of the 1960’s television series Thunderbirds may recognise this!), working for the Astronomer Royal, Charlie Marlowe. Tash Brand is a British Government advisor, working for Minister for Science Fred Bowles. The first part of this book shows us this through three friends who are in very different occupations. And we start with a great idea to grab your attention – what would happen in the near future if not planets, but the Sun disappeared?
Like Arthur C Clarke before him, he often sees things with an observer’s eye, describing world changing events through individuals, and makes wry commentary upon it, whilst at the same time believing that in the end good will out.Īfter his last books dealt with moving planets (see the World Engines series) this time around we’re on similar epic ground.
Or is it that he brings epic disasters down to the human scale – Flood/Ark, Moonseed (reviewed here.) Is it his take on alternative history – Voyage, Anti-Ice, the Weaver series, for example? Or is it that he takes on the big science ideas – exoplanets ( Proxima/Ultima), evolution ( Evolution, Mammoth), and quantum universes (the Manifold series) and adapts them to tell tales?Īs I read more and more I am beginning to think that it is perhaps his style – that British sensibility, that idea of playing things down, diffused with a British sense of deprecating humour. Is it that sometimes they’re far future epics covering thousands of years (see the Xeelee series). It’s difficult to pin down exactly what I like.
I’m a big fan of Stephen Baxter’s stories.
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