Xeelee Sequence

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 the future expansion of humanity, its cosmos-spanning war with an enigmatic Type IV[1] alien civilization called the Xeelee, and the Xeelee's own war with dark matter entities called Photino Birds. The series features many other species of prominence, including the Qax, the Squeem, and the Silver Ghosts. Several stories in the Sequence also deal with humans and posthumans living in extreme conditions, such as the heart of a neutron star (Flux), a universe with considerably stronger gravity (Raft), and eusocial hive societies (Coalescent).

The Xeelee Sequence is notable for its treatment of ideas stemming from the fringe of modern theoretical physics and futurology, such as exotic-matter physics, naked singularities, closed timelike curves, multiple universes, hyperadvanced computing and artificial intelligence, and the upper echelons of the Kardashev scale. Thematically, the series deals heavily with certain existential and social philosophical issues, such as striving for survival and relevance in a harsh and unknowable universe and the effects of war and militarism on society.

As of September 2015, the series is composed of seven novels and 52 short pieces (short stories and novellas), all of which fit into a single fictional timeline stretching from the Big Bang singularity of the past to the Timelike Infinity singularity of the future.[2] An omnibus edition of the first four Xeelee novels (Raft, Timelike Infinity, Flux, and Ring) was released in January 2010.[3] Baxter's Destiny's Children series is part of the Xeelee Sequence.

Origin

Baxter first conceived of the Xeelee while hobby writing a short story in the summer of 1986 (that would later be published in Interzone as The Xeelee Flower in 1987). He incorporated powerful off-stage aliens to explain the story’s titular artefact and in pondering the backstory began to flesh out the basics of what would later become the main players and setting of the Sequence, a universe full of intelligent species that live in the shadow of the incomprehensible and god-like Xeelee.[4]

Books in the series

Xeelee Sequence main novels:

Title Year Published Notes
Raft 1991 Arthur C. Clarke Award nominee, 1992.[5]
Timelike Infinity 1992
Flux 1993
Ring 1994
Xeelee: Vengeance[6] Scheduled for publication in 2017.

Destiny's Children sub-series novels:

Title Year Published Notes
Coalescent 2003 Arthur C. Clarke Award nominee, 2004.[7]
Exultant 2004
Transcendent 2005 John W. Campbell Memorial Award nominee, 2006.[8]

Collections of short stories and novellas:

Title Year Published Stories Contained (numbers in parentheses indicate the year in which each piece was first separately published) Notes
Vacuum Diagrams 1997
  • The Sun-People (1993)
  • The Logic Pool (1994)
  • Gossamer (1995)
  • Cilia-of-Gold (1994)
  • Lieserl (1993)
  • Pilot (1993)
  • The Xeelee Flower (1987)
  • More Than Time or Distance (1988)
  • The Switch (1990)
  • Blue Shift (1989)
  • The Quagma Datum (1989)
  • Planck Zero (1992)
  • Eve (The Soliton Star) (1997)
  • The Gödel Sunflowers (1992)
  • Vacuum Diagrams (1990)
  • Stowaway (1991)
  • The Tyranny of Heaven (1990)
  • Hero (1995)
  • Secret History (1991)
  • Shell (1987)
  • The Eighth Room (1989)
  • The Baryonic Lords (1991)
Resplendent 2006
  • Cadre Siblings (2000)
  • Conurbation 2473 (2003)
  • Reality Dust (2000)
  • Mayflower II (2004)
  • All in a Blaze (2003)
  • Silver Ghost (2000)
  • The Cold Sink (2001)
  • On the Orion Line (2000)
  • Ghost Wars (2006)
  • The Ghost Pit (2001)
  • Lakes of Light (2005)
  • Breeding Ground (2003)
  • The Dreaming Mould (2002)
  • The Great Game (2003)
  • The Chop Line (2003)
  • In the Un-Black (2001)
  • Riding the Rock (2002)
  • Between Worlds (2004)
  • The Siege of Earth (2006)
 Part of the Destiny's Children sub-series.
Xeelee: Endurance 2015
  • Return to Titan (2010)
  • Starfall (2009)
  • Remembrance (2007)
  • Endurance (2015)
  • The Seer and the Silverman (2008)
  • Gravity Dreams (2011)
  • PeriAndry’s Quest (2004)
  • Climbing the Blue (2005)
  • The Time Pit (2005)
  • The Lowland Expedition (2006)
  • Formidable Caress (2009)

Chronology and reading order

The novels in chronological order (not publication order) are:

Title Year Published Year in Story Notes
Coalescent 2003 AD 476-2005 Part 1 of Destiny's Children.
Transcendent 2005 AD 2047 Part 3 of Destiny's Children. The world of Michael Poole.
Timelike Infinity 1992 AD 3717
Ring 1994 AD 3951 Before Great Northern launches.
Exultant 2004 AD 24973 Part 2 of Destiny's Children.
Raft 1991 AD 104,858
Flux 1993 AD 193,700
Transcendent 2005 AD 500,000 Part 3 of Destiny's Children. The world of Alia.
Ring 1994 AD 5,000,000 After Great Northern returns.

In 2009, Baxter posted a detailed chronology of the Xeelee Sequence explaining the proper chronological reading order of all the novels, novellas, and short stories up to that year. The timeline was updated in September 2015.[9]

When asked directly for a suggested reading order, the author wrote: "I hope that all the books and indeed the stories can be read stand-alone. I’m not a great fan of books that end with cliff-hangers. So you could go in anywhere. One way would be to start with ‘Vacuum Diagrams’, a collection that sets out the overall story of the universe. Then ‘Timelike Infinity’ and ‘Ring’ which tell the story of Michael Poole, then ‘Raft’ and ‘Flux’ which are really incidents against the wider background, and finally ‘Destiny’s Children.’"[10]

Reception

Science fiction author Paul McAuley has praised Baxter and the series, saying:

Baxter doesn’t shrink from tackling the dismayingly inhuman implications of vast abysses of past or future time, but the universality of life introduces perspective, motion and plot into every part of his Stapledonian cosmological framework.

It is great, heady, mind-bending stuff, meticulously mapped onto cutting edge speculations about the birth pangs of the universe and the ultimate fate of all known time and space, constantly enlivened and driven forward by the narratives that its vast range of life generates.

[It is an] accomplished and imaginative exploration, expansion and reworking of SF’s core themes. His characters contest for living space with a panoply of bizarre aliens in a galaxy crammed with ancient wonders and secret histories; his stories reinvent the baroque excesses of space opera and brace them with imaginative exploration of ideas from stellar zoology, cosmology, quantum theory, exotic mathematics, and much else. Narratives froth with moments of shock and awe, and those sudden reversals of scale that induce the metaphysical dizziness sometimes called sense of wonder. Sentences stride confidently across centuries; paragraphs encompass millennia. Individual voices carry the story forwards, but the story is always bigger than the individuals that are caught up in it.[11]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "TVtropes.org - Abusing the Kardashev Scale for Fun and Profit".
  2. ↑ "The Xeelee Sequence – Timeline". stephen-baxter.com. Retrieved 29 September 2011.
  3. ↑ "Books". Stephen Baxter. Retrieved 1 March 2012.
  4. ↑ "The Origin of the Xeelee Universe". Retrieved 1 April 2016.
  5. ↑ "1992 Award Winners & Nominees". Worlds Without End. Retrieved 3 August 2009.
  6. ↑ "Amazon.co.uk - Xeelee: Vengeance". Gollancz. Retrieved 29 March 2016.
  7. ↑ "2004 Award Winners & Nominees". Worlds Without End. Retrieved 3 August 2009.
  8. ↑ "2006 Award Winners & Nominees". Worlds Without End. Retrieved 3 August 2009.
  9. ↑ http://www.stephen-baxter.com/articles.html#xeelee
  10. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20061002234858/http://www.themanifold.co.uk/interview.php
  11. ↑ McAuley, Paul (January 2010). "Introduction". In Baxter, Stephen. Xeelee: An Omnibus. Gollancz. pp. viii–ix. ISBN 978-0575090415.

External links

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