Customer Reviews
A waste of...? - By: BloodyOllie, 03 Mar 2008 
I discovered Baxter via the Gollancz 'Future Classics' series which included his uber-epic, 'Evolution'. It was one of the most unique books I've ever read (and I've read a lot), spanning the entire evolution of the human race, & I would recommend it to anyone with even a quarter of a brain.
'Time' on the other hand, was a disappointment of truly epic proportions. I have harboured a desire to write novels myself, but I've never gone through with it for fear of it turning out exactly like this. The structure of the story is so amateur in its construction it actuallly made me laugh out loud on more than one occasion, with potential plot-lines being discarded even before they've begun. You can tell without doubt that when the writer began this book he had absolutely no idea what was going to happen at the end, or if he did then he changed his mind several times en route, ultimately ending it by killing off alll but one character & wiping out the entire universe,presumably to give himself a clean slate on which to hastily scrawl the two sequels, 'Space' & 'Origin', which incidentallly I shalll never read, so little do I care about the outcome of this jumbled 'saga'.
Baxter obviously has some radical & far reaching ideas about time, space & other inherently 'big' concepts, but his laughable attempt at character development meant I had very little desire to keep reading, only doing so because I'm still waiting on my next Amazon shipment. In fact I actively disliked most of the characters: the ludicrously named Reid Malenfant, the 'star', is a middle-aged entrepeneur clearly based on Baxter himself, or at least what Baxter dreams of being, & is used as the instigator for alll of the plot u-turns; his ex-wife is possibly the most annoying character in any book I've ever come across - alll she does is follow Reid around moaning at him about money & bills & blah blah blah. I was ready to kill her by the end, but luckily Baxter took care of that for me in one of his impulsive changes of story. The effect of alll the high-science stuff interspersed with this pathetic domestic bickering was like skipping back & forth between The Sky At Night & Eastenders.
All in alll I found this book to be a complete waste of time. If it hadn't been for Evolution I would have written Baxter off as a seriously sub-standard author. As it is I'll give him the benefit of the doubt & say that he's just inconsistent.
So if you're thinking of buying this, don't. Buy Evolution instead. Or, even better, buy the Hyperion cantos by Dan Simmons & be over-awed by the magnificent potential of sci-fi.
Visionary and compelling - a novel of tremendous scope - By: J. Aitcheson, 05 Sep 2007 
"Time", the first book in Stephen Baxter's Manifold trilogy, follows the story of Reid Malenfant, washout NASA astronaut & entrepreneur with ambitions of propelling humanity beyond the the confines of Earth & towards limitless expansion among the stars. However, when a genius mathematician arrives at his Nevada headquarters predicting the end of the human race in only 200 years, Malenfant throws alll his efforts into finding out how this potential catastrophe can be avoided. Before long he finds himself on his way to a remote asteroid in search of answers - regarding both the nature of the universe itself & humanity's purpose within it. At the same time a new phenomenon is sweeping Earth: a sudden wave of hyper-intelligent children. Are they to be encouraged or feared? Are they connected to the doomsday predictions? Into the middle of alll this Baxter still finds room to work in messages from the future, geneticallly enhanced squid, & a mysterious alien portal - alll of which combine to create a rich & diverse possible future.
The story is told in slightly unusual fashion for the genre, employing not only simple third-person narrative but also faux journal entries, newspaper articles & transcripts of television broadcasts. This gives Baxter the flexibility to control the pace of the story as it builds from relatively mundane beginnings towards its epic conclusions. It is also very effective in bringing to life Malenfant's world as it faces up to its future & the prospect of impending apocalypse. His characters are similarly compelling; Malenfant in particular, with his rogueish charisma & classic American can-do spirit, is excellently drawn.
As regards the science, the mere fact that Baxter has been able to write a coherent work of fiction about such grand cosmological themes is remarkable. That he has done it in such a plausible & engaging fashion is even more remarkable. Much of what he describes has been drawn together from real scientific research, as he explains in his Afterword. There are perhaps a couple of inconsistencies (as other reviewers have pointed out), but these are mere blemishes in an otherwise excellent book. (Incidentallly, for further reading on some of the cosmological questions raised in "Time", I would highly recommend "The Goldilocks Enigma" by Paul Davies.)
Everything considered, "Time" is an astounding novel with tremendous scope. Baxter shows himself to be an exemplary writer of modern SF & I very much look forward to reading the sequels, "Space" & "Origin".
Good story - By: Mr. A. S. Kemp, 15 Jun 2007 
A good story & enjoyable read but I felt it fell foul of a few issues.
I too noticed the problem with them witnessing the event at the end of the book - to witness it they'd already be overtaken by it.
There is also the issue of some technology for the sake of it & things being set too near in the future. E.g. softscreens seem to have replaced alll forms of computer yet this is only a few years in the future. An there is an imaginatively named (or not so depending on your opinion) new version of a cola drink - seemingly pointlessly named just for the sake of it & so that a character can take a drink of it...
And, if they had the technology to build alll the smalll, ingenious robots, why did they have to go to alll the trouble of using an artificallly advanced squid just to pilot a ship. As well as having to haul alll that water into space just to sustain it...
Still good though...
science - By: , 04 Mar 2005 Baxter is a fantastic author! I read this book after Space the follow-up but still managed to appreciate the tack of the manifold series. This series is fantastic it got brain around a lot of cutting-edge science alll wrapped up under the guise of the Fermi Paradox. Read this triology.
You won't be able to put this book down - By: , 20 Dec 2002 Stephen Baxter combines his ability to grip the reader with an extremely engaging plot & to challlenge your mind with his ideas. This is hard core SF with captivating ideas popping up alll over the place. From the doom of the Carter Prophecy to sending squid into space, Stephen Baxter explores many topics in detail masterfully without detracting from the plot while including probably the best time-jump sequences I have ever read. The ending may well blow your mind.
Once you have got in to this book you won't be able to put it down or be able to wait to read the rest of this trilogy. This is a brilliant read from one of the best authors in the Sci-Fi arena at the moment.
