![]() ![]() Alternate histories of space exploration are deftly conjured up, some of them wonderfully paranoid. Perhaps they're hiding.?Īnother Baxter theme revisited again in this mind-stretching collection is the high-tech romance of the space programme and walking on the Moon. Perhaps there's teeming intelligence out there, but we're not listening on the right wavelength. Perhaps what we see through our telescopes is a clever fake-but supposing we overload the capabilities of the fakers? Maybe intelligence always destroys itself before crossing interstellar space, or something kindly takes emerging life away to a safer place. Perhaps our theories are wrong and we're in a galactic quarantine. ![]() The skies should be full of other intelligences. ![]() Intelligent life has evolved here-ourselves. According to our best scientific theories there's nothing special about Earth or the Solar System. ![]() As with "Manifold" these stories explore possible (and significantly linked) states of Earth and the universe, alternate timelines offering different solutions to Baxter's favourite cosmological question-the Fermi Paradox. "The phase space of a system is the set of all conceivable states of that system," says the first page. “Phase Space is a collection of 25 SF stories by Stephen Baxter, many thematically linked to his "Manifold" trilogy (Time, Space and Origin) and other novels of cosmic scope. ![]()
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