Customer Reviews
Of the origins - By: Mikko Saari, 20 Apr 2008 
Manifold is a series of three books. They're not a sequence, actuallly, as they describe paralllel universes. The main character are the same, but the world they live in is different. Origin presents us a world where the good old Moon is replaced by a large red moon. As it happens, the main character, Reid Malenfant, loses his wife Emma on the new moon & has to rescue her.
Emma finds the new moon inhabited by various hominid species. Baxter offers us an interesting view to the life of different hominids, with a point of view of the hominids themselves & humans living with them. It's interesting, but it can also get slightly tedious - this is one long-winded book, with a plot that's a framework for alll sorts of neat stuff Baxter wants to present.
But it works, for me at least, because even though I began reading book with some doubts, I soon got sucked into the events. It gets quite interesting & Baxter has some pretty wild ideas there. This book isn't for everybody (that is easy to see from the Amazon reviews, many of which give just one or two stars), but if you enjoyed the other Manifold books, this one is worth reading.
Oh dear, its all gone a bit wrong... - By: Mr. K. J. Santi, 22 Aug 2004 
I was eagerly awaiting this book, & upon reading it I was very disappointed.
It starts like his previous two books in the trilogy were written - a high concept & original sci-fi story, but then it goes totaly in a different direction.
I found myself plodding through a jumble of stories focussed on the social & cultural goings-on of a group of very uninteresting characters. I would estimate that about 75% of the book is irrelevant to the final outcome, which is itself quite interesting.
It felt like the author had run out of ideas & was padding the book until the last few pages where he could deliver the climax of the trilogy.
I feel somewhat cheated, but the killer problem here is that you have to read this book in order to close off the unanswered questions from the first two books.
Origin - of boredom?! - By: , 06 Nov 2003 Well, I picked this book up expecting a detailed & exciting story. What did I get? Lots of little sentences strung together in little paragraphs that jumped around the place more than scratched record. I didn't even bother finishing the book because I got so bored with it! The story is disjointed & jumps around so much that just as you are beginning to get into one bit of it it then changes, & this is just too much.
It takes alll sorts, & I don't doubt that many people enjoyed this book - but personallly, I thought it was pants!
Possible SPOLIER alert - By: , 19 Mar 2003 
Great book. I thought the first two in the series were fantastic, but this book didn't quite have the same 'ring' about it. Hoho. Still, great story which luckily held my attention. Although it may not for other lovers of hard Sci-Fi.
I am left feeling gutted. It almost feels like Baxter got a little bored near the end, or annoyed.
It's not fair. If there weren’t an infinite number of universes I'd be even more upset.
Part of me wishes I'd stopped at the second book... Although I doubt I, nor anyone who enjoyed the first two, would have been able to do that.
Excellent - By: , 17 Jan 2003 
This whole manifold trilogy is well worth a read. Time was brilliant, space lost me a bit, but Origin brings everything together, & still manages to give you a puch in the gut!
We see again those names Malenfant & Emma, & a few others that will sound familiar.....In Origin, we see a multitude of species brought together on the world engine...but who is driving it, & how does this relate to the supernova in Time?....
The plot may be lengthy, but you won't regret reading on to the end!
