Evolution (Stephen Baxter)
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| First edition cover | |
| Author | Stephen Baxter |
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| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Science fiction novel |
| Publisher | Orion Publishing Group |
| Released | November 30, 2002 |
| Media Type | Print (Paperback & Hardback) |
| Pages | 592 pp (DelRey Hardcover ed.) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-575-07342-X (first edition, paperback) & ISBN 0-575-07341-1 (hardback edition) |
Evolution is a science fiction novel by author Stephen Baxter. It follows 565 million years of human evolution, from shrewlike mammals 65 million years in the past to the ultimate fate of humanity (and its descendants, both biological and non-biological) 500 million years in the future.
[edit] Plot introduction
The protagonist in Evolution is evolution itself. The book follows the hero's course as it shapes surviving pre-humans into tree dwellers, remoulds a group that drifts from Africa to a (then much closer) New World on a raft formed out of debris, and confronting others with a terrible dead end as ice clamps down on Antarctica.
The stream of DNA runs on elsewhere, where ape-like creatures in North Africa are forced out of their diminishing forests to come across grasslands where their distant descendants will later run joyously. At one point, hominids become sentient, and go on to develop technology, including a universal constructor machine that goes to Mars and multiplies, and in an act of global ecophagy consumes Mars by converting the planet into its descendants.
[edit] External links
- Lengthy review at http://www.indymedia.ie/article/74240
- The Evolution page at the Manifold site: http://www.themanifold.co.uk/book.php?bookid=20
| Books by Stephen Baxter (edit) |
|---|
| Xeelee Sequence: Raft - Timelike Infinity - Flux - Ring - Vacuum Diagrams - Reality Dust - Riding the Rock |
| Destiny's Children Series: Coalescent - Exultant - Transcendent - Resplendent |
| Manifold Trilogy: Time - Space - Origin - Phase Space |
| The Mammoth Trilogy: Silverhair - Longtusk - Icebones |
| A Time Odyssey Series: Time's Eye - Sunstorm - Firstborn |
| The Web Series: Gulliverzone - Webcrash |
| Time's Tapestry Series: Emperor - Conqueror |
| Others: Anti-Ice - The Time Ships - Voyage - Titan - Moonseed - The Light of Other Days - Traces - Evolution |
| Non-fiction: Deep Future - Omegatropic - Ages in Chaos |
