Stephen Baxter writes BIG books. Not just in size – Galaxias weighs in at over five-hundred pages – but in scope, and you can’t get bigger than waking up one day and finding the Sun has disappeared. That’s what happens to the protagonists of Baxter’s latest epic, characters at the heart of – but crucially one step to the side of – the decision-making centres of the British and American governments.
Seasoned Baxter fans will know what to expect and, if anything, the Baxterness is ramped up here, the near-future, Earth-bound setting giving the author ample room to dig deep into the science of what might be happening to the people of 2057, already struggling to adapt to a world ravaged by climate change and the splintering of nation-states that awaits us over the next few decades.
The big thinking and New Scientist-flavoured techspeak is tempered by the main protagonist – government advisor Tash – having a grasp of the subjects but little expertise, and we explore the growing catastrophe (and what might have caused it) through her eyes. Virgin Baxter readers will find themselves hooked by the building crisis and the humans at the centre of it, although those of a more cynical bent may find him too kind on career politicians.
If there is one criticism, it’s that things are neatly wrapped up by a final chapter, accelerating the story far beyond its natural endpoint, but this at least presents the reader with a told-in-one tale, all too rare for genre fiction, providing a welcoming entry point into the world of Stephen Baxter’s grounded big science fiction.
Galaxias is out now from Victor Gollancz
