Worth reading: Yes, if you’re willing to persist.

Summary: George has just lost his father after a sudden heart attack. It is just himself and his estranged sister, now living in America. As George is going through is fathers things he comes across an old photo of himself with his sister, only this photo has someone else in it. A second sister.

His search for his unknown sister takes him to Rome where he finds a family heritage stretching back 16 centuries. A family history that survived the Saxons in Britain, the sack of Rome and the fall of the Roman Empire, right through to the present day.

This book is the first in the Destiny’s Children series from Stephen Baxter and was a fairly hard read. The tale was interesting but the jumping back and forth as the tale of the family unfolds was not coherent. I have read the second in the Destiny’s Children series and there is a huge stretch of time between the two, but this does explain some of what occurs in the second book “Exultant” which I have also reviewed here.

Tags: stephen baxter

Worth reading: Yes. What the world could become.

Summary: It is around the year 25,000 AD. Man has thrown off the shackles of conquering aliens species, the Qax and the Silver Ghosts, and has chased the Xeelee to the centre of galaxy. Hustled around Chandra, the large black hole in the centre of the Milky Way, for 3,000 years the Xeelee have thwarted mans attempts of removing them completely.

Child soldiers have become mankinds weapon. Billions of them. Because of them we now hold an unsteady rule over our galaxy. Cannon fodder and taught to expect a short life and glorious death fighting the Xeelee, it is very rare for them to reach their 20th birthday. Taught not to show initiative but to follow the Doctrines, a short life burns brightly, until now.

A young ensign, in a desperate attempt to save his Greenship crew show’s initiative. In so doing he has condemned himself to hard labour. It is now up to his younger self, two years in the past, to show that mankind cannot stagnate, but must take the fight to the Xeelee and Chandra their home.

Excellent read and says a lot about today’s bureaucracies.

Tags: books, stephen baxter