|
Squeem
The Xeelee Sequence (; ) is a series of hard science fiction space opera novels, novellas, and short stories written by British science fiction author Stephen Baxter. The series spans billions of years of fictional history, centering on humanity's future expansion into the universe, its intergalactic war with an enigmatic and supremely powerful Kardashev Type IV alien civilization called the Xeelee (eldritch symbiotes composed of spacetime defects, Bose-Einstein condensates, and baryonic matter), and the Xeelee's own cosmos-spanning war with dark matter entities called Photino Birds. The series features many other species and civilizations that play a prominent role, including the Squeem (a species of group-mind aquatics), the Qax (beings whose biology is based on the complex interactions of convection cells), and the Silver Ghosts (colonies of symbiotic organisms encased in reflective skins). Several stories in the Sequence also deal with humans and posthumans living in ex ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
|
|
Timelike Infinity
''Timelike Infinity'' is a 1992 science fiction book by British author Stephen Baxter. The second book in the Xeelee Sequence, ''Timelike Infinity'' introduces a universe of powerful alien species and technologies that manages to maintain a realistic edge because of Baxter's physics background. It largely sets the stage for the ''magnum opus'' of the Xeelee Sequence, ''Ring'' (as opposed to ''Vacuum Diagrams'', ''Flux'', or ''Raft'', which concern themselves with side stories). Plot summary Set thousands of years in the future ( AD 5407), the human race has been conquered by the Qax, a truly alien turbulent-liquid form of life, who now rule over the few star systems of human space – adopting processes from human history to effectively oppress the resentful race. Humans have encountered a few other races, including the astoundingly advanced Xeelee, and been conquered once before – by the Squeem – but successfully recovered. A human-built device, the Interface project, ret ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
|
|
Reality Dust
''Resplendent'' is an English language science fiction collection by British writer Stephen Baxter, published in 2006. It is the fourth and final book in the ''Destiny's Children'' series. This book is a collection of short stories relating to the previous three books, comprising new works and previously published stories, including the novellas ''Reality Dust'', ''Riding the Rock'' and ''Mayflower II'', an 88-page novella taking place in the Xeelee Sequence that won the 2004 BSFA Award for the Best Short Fiction. The short stories have been arranged into an overall narrative with brief single page interludes by the character Luru Parz, from the first story in the book. When read in series they form a history as seen by her up until the final story of the book. Contents *“Cadre Siblings” (from '' Interzone'' 153, March 2000) *''Reality Dust'' (2000) * “Silver Ghost” ('' Asimov’s'', September 2000) * “On the Orion Line” (''Asimov’s'', October 2000) * “In th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
|
|
Riding The Rock
''Resplendent'' is an English language science fiction collection by British writer Stephen Baxter (author), Stephen Baxter, published in 2006. It is the fourth and final book in the ''Destiny's Children'' series. This book is a collection of short stories relating to the previous three books, comprising new works and previously published stories, including the novellas ''Reality Dust'', ''Riding the Rock'' and ''Mayflower II'', an 88-page novella taking place in the Xeelee Sequence that won the 2004 BSFA Award for the Best Short Fiction. The short stories have been arranged into an overall narrative with brief single page interludes by the character Luru Parz, from the first story in the book. When read in series they form a history as seen by her up until the final story of the book. Contents *“Cadre Siblings” (from ''Interzone (magazine), Interzone'' 153, March 2000) *''Reality Dust'' (2000) * “Silver Ghost” (''Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, Asimov’s'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
|
|
Mayflower II (Stephen Baxter)
''Resplendent'' is an English language science fiction collection by British writer Stephen Baxter, published in 2006. It is the fourth and final book in the ''Destiny's Children'' series. This book is a collection of short stories relating to the previous three books, comprising new works and previously published stories, including the novellas ''Reality Dust'', ''Riding the Rock'' and ''Mayflower II'', an 88-page novella taking place in the Xeelee Sequence that won the 2004 BSFA Award for the Best Short Fiction. The short stories have been arranged into an overall narrative with brief single page interludes by the character Luru Parz, from the first story in the book. When read in series they form a history as seen by her up until the final story of the book. Contents *“Cadre Siblings” (from '' Interzone'' 153, March 2000) *''Reality Dust'' (2000) * “Silver Ghost” ('' Asimov’s'', September 2000) * “On the Orion Line” (''Asimov’s'', October 2000) * “In th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
|
|
Starfall (novel)
The Xeelee Sequence (; ) is a series of hard science fiction space opera novels, novellas, and short stories written by British science fiction author Stephen Baxter. The series spans billions of years of fictional history, centering on humanity's future expansion into the universe, its intergalactic war with an enigmatic and supremely powerful Kardashev Type IV alien civilization called the Xeelee (eldritch symbiotes composed of spacetime defects, Bose-Einstein condensates, and baryonic matter), and the Xeelee's own cosmos-spanning war with dark matter entities called Photino Birds. The series features many other species and civilizations that play a prominent role, including the Squeem (a species of group-mind aquatics), the Qax (beings whose biology is based on the complex interactions of convection cells), and the Silver Ghosts (colonies of symbiotic organisms encased in reflective skins). Several stories in the Sequence also deal with humans and posthumans living in ex ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
|
|
Vacuum Diagrams
''Vacuum Diagrams'' is a collection of science fiction short stories by British writer Stephen Baxter (author), Stephen Baxter. The collection connects the novels of the Xeelee Sequence and also shows the history of mankind in the Xeelee universe, and ultimately the universe. While each short story in the collection is self-contained, the stories are presented as being contained in the context of the first story, "Eve", about a man (seemingly Jack Raoul from the portion of the timeline concerned with the Silver Ghosts) who is forced to witness the events in the short stories by a god-like being. "Eve" acts as a structure for the short stories, with an introduction at the beginning of ''Vacuum Diagrams'', short scenes occurring between each "era" (with "Eve" character explaining and introducing the next section), and an ending that wraps up the plot for the "Eve" story itself. ''Vacuum Diagrams'' won the Philip K. Dick Award in 1999. At the end of the collection, a chronology of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
|
|
Raft (novel)
''Raft'' is a 1991 hard science fiction book by British writer Stephen Baxter. ''Raft'' is both Baxter's debut novel and the first book in the Xeelee Sequence, although the Xeelee are not present. ''Raft'' was nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 1992. Setting The novel is an elaborated version of his 1989 short story of the same title. The story follows a group of humans who have accidentally entered an alternate universe where the gravitational force is far stronger than our own, a "billion" times as strong. Planets do not exist, as they would immediately collapse under their own gravity; stars are only a mile across and have extremely brief life-spans, becoming cooled kernels a hundred yards wide with a surface gravity of five '' g''. Human bodies possess a "respectable" gravity field in and of themselves. "Gravitic chemistry" also exists, where gravity is the dominant force on an atomic scale. Plot summary The few thousand humans survive in a nebula of relati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
|
 |
Humanity's Future Expansion Into The Universe
Human presence in space is about humanity in space, particularly about all anthropogenic presence in space and human activity in space, that is in outer space and in a broader sense also on any extraterrestrial astronomical body. Humans have been present in space either, in the common sense, through their direct presence and activity like human spaceflight, or through mediation of their presence and activity like with uncrewed spaceflight, making "telepresence" possible. Human presence in space, particularly through mediation, can take many physical forms from space debris, uncrewed spacecraft, artificial satellites, space observatories, crewed spacecraft, art in space, to human outposts in outer space such as space stations. While human presence in space, particularly its continuation and permanence can be a goal in itself, human presence can have a range of purposes and modes from space exploration, commercial use of space to space settlement or even colonization and milit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
|
Interstellar War
An interstellar war is a hypothetical space war between combatants from different planetary systems. The concept provides a common plot device in science fiction, especially in the space opera subgenre. In contrast, the term ''intergalactic war'' refers to war between combatants from different galaxies, and ''interplanetary war'' refers to war between combatants from different planets of the same planetary system. Likelihood Michael H. Hart argued that if humans ever spread to other planetary systems, the actual likelihood of interstellar war would be low due to the immense distances (and hence travel times involved)—interstellar war would require a vastly greater investment of time and resources than present-day intraplanetary wars involve. By contrast, Robert Freitas argued that the energy expenditure required for interstellar war would be trivial from the viewpoint of a Type II or Type III civilisation on the Kardashev scale. Interstellar war in fiction The earliest ficti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
|
 |
Kardashev Scale
The Kardashev scale ( Russian: Шкала Кардашева, ''Shkala Kardasheva'') is a method of measuring a civilization's level of technological advancement based on the amount of energy it is able to use. The measure was proposed by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Kardashev in 1964. The scale is hypothetical, and regards energy consumption on a cosmic scale. Various extensions of the scale have since been proposed, including a wider range of power levels (types 0, IV to VI) and the use of metrics other than pure power (e.g., computational growth). Kardashev first outlined his scale in a paper presented at the 1964 Byurakan conference, a scientific meeting that reviewed the Soviet radio astronomy space listening program. This paper, entitled "Передача информации внеземными цивилизациями" (and then translated into English "Transmission of Information by Extraterrestrial Civilizations"), proposes a classification of civilizations into ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
 |
Extraterrestrial Life
Extraterrestrial life, colloquially referred to as alien life, is life that may occur outside Earth and which did not originate on Earth. No extraterrestrial life has yet been conclusively detected, although efforts are underway. Such life might range from simple forms like prokaryotes to intelligent beings, possibly bringing forth civilizations that might be far more advanced than humankind. The Drake equation speculates about the existence of sapient life elsewhere in the universe. The science of extraterrestrial life is known as astrobiology. Speculation about the possibility of inhabited "worlds" outside the planet Earth dates back to antiquity. Multiple early Christian writers discussed the idea of a "plurality of worlds" as proposed by earlier thinkers such as Democritus; Augustine references Epicurus's idea of innumerable worlds "throughout the boundless immensity of space" (originally expressed in his Letter to Herodotus) in '' The City of God''. In his first cent ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |