World engines: destroyer
The Sleeper Awakes
released OUT NOW! 576 pages | Hardback/ebook
Author stephen Baxter Publisher Gollancz
Reflecting the sheer amount of time he’s been writing, the science fictional universes created by Stephen Baxter have begun to sprawl. This isn’t a criticism. Where other writers too often give the impression of poking around for timeline gaps to plug with novels, Baxter keeps things fresh, working up stories that offer a new perspective on what might otherwise be overly familiar territory. That’s not to say Baxter’s writing doesn’t have recurring themes. In recent years, he’s often explored the idea of alternate histories – and the notion that these might intersect at different points in the multiverse.
Which brings us to Destroyer, the first in a duology (expect World Engines: Creator next year), which features intrepid space-jock Reid Malenfant, protagonist of Baxter’s Manifold sequence. Having been kept in cryogenic sleep, this iteration of Malenfant is suffering severe culture shock. Laid to rest when humankind was in an expansionary phase, he reawakens in the 26th century to find a world where humans, now living in a kind of utopian harmony, are trying to undo ecological catastrophe, and space travel’s a thing of the past.
Except leaving paradise may now be necessary, what with an artefact from the outer edges of the Solar System on a trajectory that spells doom for Earth. What to do? An answer may lie on one of the moons of Mars, Phobos. The narrative shifts from a grumpy man-out-of-time’s perspective on the future to space adventure.
The shift in tone initially jars, but soon you’re drawn into the second part of the book, which finds Malenfant and a motley crew on a rescue mission involving lost love, wormholes and steampunk spacefarers. A paean to redemption and human endeavour that wears its Clarkesian hard SF science smarts on its sleeve, yet is great fun too. Jonathan Wright
Destroyer features nuclear-powered rocket tech, an idea Russia is researching with its 9M730 Burevestnik cruise missile.