Monday, August 22

B's Monday Review: Proxima by Stephen Baxter

The very far future: The galaxy is a drifting wreck of black holes, neutron stars, and chill white dwarfs. The age of star formation is long past. Yet there is life here, feeding off the energies of the stellar remnants, and there is mind, a tremendous galaxy-spanning intelligence each of whose thoughts lasts a hundred thousand years. And this mind cradles memories of a long-gone age when a more compact universe was full of light... The 27th century: Proxima Centauri, an undistinguished red dwarf star, is the nearest star to our sun. How would it be to live on such a world? 

My thoughts:
The beginning was a bit slow, but I kept thinking it's Baxter and it got better. I think the problem was that there was this other POV that showed up, not often, not that long, but I just did not care. I was all about the settlers. Oh those were fascinating.

It's a race between China and the rest, and to beat China settlers are sent to Proxima. It takes 4 years for a message to get from there home, and the settlers are really left to fend for themselves. On a strange new world, and well there are So many more things I want to say, but honestly it's just spoilers spoilers.

Proxima is an interesting planet, and there are secrets, and the end, omg, that was freaky! I really need to read part two to see how it all plays out. There are some good secrets in here for sure.

The book is about Yuri who gets sent to Proxima (and stuff goes down and I so want to talk about but I can not.) I loved learning more about the planet and the struggle for the settlers.

The POv of whatever was boring, and I am glad when it showed up it was a few chapters and I skimmed it. I did not really see the point of it. Our solar system is boring.

Conclusion:
In the end, Baxter is a great sci-fi writers and he always comes up with such cool concepts. I need book 2 then.

Cover
ok

Hardcover, 456 pages
Published September 19th 2013 by Gollancz
Proxima #1
Sci.fi
Library