Timelike Infinity

by Stephen Baxter

Paperback, 1993

Call number

823.914

Publication

Roc (1993), Paperback

Pages

304

Description

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

Awards

Seiun Award (Nominee — 1996)

Language

Original language

English

Original publication date

1992-12

Physical description

304 p.; 6.7 inches

ISBN

0451452437 / 9780451452436

User reviews

LibraryThing member rufty
Humans discover how to make wormholes that can pass a ship through. So we'll attach one end to a station around jupiter and send another one on a near light speed ship so that time passes more slowly for that end of the wormhole. This way you create a bridge to the future.

Only in the future man has
Show More
been conquered by a hostile alien race and they've now got a doorway to the past...
----
An interesting thought experiment dealing with the consequences of crating a doorway to the future. As always with Stephen Baxter his characterisation is somewhat lacking, but a little better than some of his other books. Worth a read, but do yourself a favour and lookup somewhere what a timelike curve, a timelike infinity and spacelike infinities are before you read the book. I waited until after reading it to hit wikipedia and it would have helped my understanding no end if I'd have been familiar with the terminology first.
Show Less
LibraryThing member endolith
Way better than Raft, with actual characters that you actually empathize with, like Jasoft Parz' discussions with the Qax governor. I thought the Friends were up to something else, more relevant to their name and alternate timelines and the reason they couldn't talk about their mission, and was
Show More
kind of disappointed by the actual reveal. Some implausible behaviors and events.
Show Less
Page: 0.1485 seconds