Customer Reviews

Exultant (Destiny's Children)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is a decent but not great book but is a must read for any Baxter fan mainly because it finally shows mankind actually FIGHTING the Xeelee. I had a little trouble deciding who to root for. Traditionally, mankind are usually the bad guys when it comes to Baxter's "Xeelee" books. Having read "Ring", I already know that the Xeelee are actually working toward a greater good, so why root for the humans to disrupt their work? I did find it a little contrived that humans who have been stagnating for 1000 years can suddenly develop exotic weapons and defenses just because some old guy decides that it is time to do so. It still didn't seem as if we could actually "hurt" anybody considering the Xeelee are capable of building structures on a galactic scale... Otherwise, I was a little disappointed that there were no great revelations here and we still don't get to actually meet a Xeelee. There were however many aspects I did like. The epic scale of the war was awe inspiring. I also enjoyed the side plot depicting the rise and fall of the lifeforms who lived in the very first moments of the creation of the cosmos. That is classic Baxter at his finest. Minimally, I would not read this book unless you have read "Timelike Infinity", "Ring", and "Vacuum Diagrams".

I immediately purchase any new book by Mr. Baxter, he has been a favorite author of mine since Raft. I know of no other science fiction author so fascinated with the questions of why the universe exists and where it is going. You also will not find too many authors willing to kill off the entire earth as a plot device; when something goes horribly wrong in a Baxter novel, the entire universe past, present and future is at play.

That said, I was just a little disappointed in Exultant. The theme of a stagnant civilization delivered from entropy by the heroic actions of the protagonist has been visited too many times in this genre. As with all of Mr. Baxter's works there is no shortage of thought-provoking ideas, but this work failed to integrate the ideas. The exposition of the true nature of the black hole at the center of the galaxy just didn't work--by the time our hero makes his fateful choice this reader didn't have enough invested in the whole question to really make a value judgment, which seemed to be the whole purpose of the work.

The galactic civilization stuff has been done before. Coalescent was brilliant: made you really think about issues of human evolution and possibility. Exultant would get a much higher review had I not been familiar with Mr. Baxter's other works. He remains on my "must purchase" list and I will anxiously await his next effort.

I would definitely call Stephen Baxter's Exultant an interesting book, but I would be hard-pressed to recommend it to anyone. It has some very exciting SF concepts, but they are buried in a plot that makes so litle sense and dialog that will make you cringe.

Baxter is a man of ideas, but it seems he is too busy pondering grand concepts to put them in the proper context of a good story. There are truly mind-boggling concepts; even too many, it seems, because some have barely a page or two of development. The most extreme was 'Concept space', a mind-boggling concept which is used merely to provide a deus ex machina solution to the protagonists.

If at least the hard SF was solid enough despite the weak plot... As it happens, some concepts are hastily thrown together, then conveniently circumvented when they are no longer required. The whole "FTL Foreknowledge" concept, for instance, at the heart of the story, can be waived by the author when he needs the protagonists to fool the Xeelee. Their solution? Use the time-honored but 'risky' 'anti-Tolman manoeuver', which is never explained nor used again. Sigh.

Another pet peeve I simply cannot let pass: Commissary Nilis. Nowhere is this guy made sympathetic, with his bumbling attitude, his obvious lack of oratory skills, his habit of walking barefoot everywhere and his smelly feet and armpits(!) Yet he is seen more often than any of the main characters, because he can send Virtuals of himself to annoy all of them at every corner of the Galaxy at the same time. Whenever he let slip a 'My eyes!', I was ready to gouge my own out of their sockets.

If you're wondering whether to pick up this book because it is the sequel to 'Coalescent', then don't. Only passing references are made to Coalescent, and the difference in quality between the two books is such that it seems Exultant was written by a 13 year-old who got excited at reading Coalescent.

If you must read a Stephen Baxter book, there are much better ones than this one. Coalescent and Manifold:Time are both excellent Baxter novels. This one is not.

Exultant is the story of a pivotal event in the millennia-long human-Xeelee war. As such the book takes place in Baxter's familiar future history universe that has served as the setting for a large proportion of his novels (Raft, Ring, Vacuum Diagrams etc.). Although this novel is billed as (and is in a sense a sort of) a sequel to "Coalescent" and/or the 2nd entry in the Destiny's Children Trilogy, it can be read independently of the former and serves at least as much as a sequel/prequel to any of the other books that take place in the Xeelee universe.

As usual, the physics is great. This is hard SF at its best. The most interesting parts are a back story introduced in the last third of the book consisting of very brief chapters interposed between the chapters of the main story. These tell a cosmological story of the birth of the universe and the birth of life. Along the way these brief interludes address the anthropic principle, the matter-antimatter disequilibrium, symmetry breaking and many other issues currently the subject of intense study and speculation in modern cosmology and physics.

However, the physics aside, the main story itself is just OK. Since it takes place in Baxter's familiar universe at a specified time (approximately 20,000-25,000 years in the future), from Baxter's other writings that describe events that transpire up to millions of years in the future, we know that there are constraints on how the story must end. The main characters are not so believable nor is the core around which the book is written - the idea that mankind has stagnated intellectually, socially and technologically to the extent described in the book. Nor is the idea that Nilis, who is a sort of muddled mid-level governmental functionary, can interpret old "lost" scientific literature and new scientific data to reach conclusions far advanced beyond those of his contemporary scientists that are as novel and earthshaking as those of Einstein 20,000 years ago. But maybe these are quibbles. Baxter is still a great writer and his Xeelee universe/future history is still fascinating. I look forward to the last in this series to come, and still regard Baxter as one of the best currently writing hard SF. Exultant just wouldn't be the one that I recommend to someone to introduce them to his writing.

I liked Exultant a lot, and I have read just about all Stephen Baxter's other books, especially in the whole "Xeelee sequence".

I think Exultant is a fine addition to the lot, and I think Exultant is tying "Coalescent" into the rest of the whole long Xeelee thing...

Also I started with "Vacuum Diagrams" and then worked my way through Baxter's other Xeelee books. So in reading more of his stories, I was frequently encountering things which had been mentioned in passing before in other books, but finally got their full treatment in the story at hand.

This is one of his trademarks that I like a lot. His overall framework, the whole Xeelee thing from the beginning to the end of the universe, is consistent enough, and yet loose enough, to allow further "zooming in" on details (and even improving the physics, as realtime passes out here and more is discovered that relates to the concepts used in the stories), without having to contradict the main history timeline.

So in Exultant we learn some more about the early days of the universe, and the Xeelee, and it doesn't really contradict his earlier books, just goes beyond them in specificity and detail.

And vice versa, in Exultant someone takes a side trip to a world of "reality dust" to find a super weapon.... well, zingo, soon after reading that, I ordered a copy of "Reality Dust" itself and read the original about the reality dust thing. Plus it got its start in one short story episode that's also in Vacuum Diagrams.

(even getting to read Flux, and Raft, AFTER Vacuum Diagrams, Ring, and Timelike Infinity, rather than before them, was an extra pleasure to me, since I read them in reverse order from how he wrote them, yet they still hang together well)

So part of the pleasure in reading was to hit something briefly in Vacuum Diagrams, then see a lot more of its consequences in Exultant, and finally pull back to fill in the details in Reality Dust.... and all this is just one minor twisty turny quirk, in his overall huge universal saga.

Also I suspect that one Baxter presumably Xeelee book I see on Amazon but HAVEN'T read yet (I guess it's out of print?), "Riding the Rock", may actually fill in the details, of the origin of the base on the asteroid, and the recurring name of their commander, which has persisted on its mission for generations, used by the Exultant team....

this book sort of seems like the odd one out when compared to the other novels in the destiny's children series (coalescent and transcendent are more like each other), but i really do like this one the most. although it is part of a series, i would say it is a stand-alone novel. it is more in continuation of the xeelee sequence than the others (even resplendent only contributes a little). jeez it just makes more sense and doesn't seem like a random story from the past as coalescent and transcendent do. regardless of all that: this book has fantastic characters and writing and if you like hard scifi, you will like this book.

After "Coalescent", I swore that I would not read "Exultant", but there it was, on the table in the bookstore, right there just a foot away, beckoning. So I caved. Now that I have read "Exultant", I have a better idea of what Baxter is trying to say with this series, however, I could not have deduced the direction "Exultant" would take by reading "Coalescent" and I have to stick to my original opinion of the rambling story in that book, though I have probably unfairly impugned Baxter's publisher.

Baxter stays with one main story this time. In shades of "Ender's Game", Baxter speculates upon a bizarre future for humanity while simultaneously probing into the singularity at the birth of the universe. His science is deep, deep, deep, fascinating and mind expanding, but try as I might I just could not keep up with his concepts. This is not a criticism though; Baxter is at his best when describes complex science through story, challenging reader's to stretch their imaginations while educating them at the same time.

I did enjoy this story. There are brief references to characters or situations in "Coalescent", but these references do not seem to be necessary for the progression of the characters and action in "Exultant". Some loose ends from "Coalescent" are not tied up, but again, are not necessary for this story. "Exultant" includes a few pages from the first chapter of the third book in this series, "Transcendence", and it looks as if Baxter will be returning to the end of "Coalescence" in this next book. Perhaps now the entire story will come together, loose ends will be tied up, and this story arc will make more sense.

Space Opera at its (almost) best. Galactic War, interesting alien races, new societal concepts, time travel, hard science: Exultant has it all. Baxter even managed to resist making everyone[...] or some other silly transformations, even though the story takes place 20,000 years in the future or thereabouts. Really a terrific book that probably would have been even better if it was longer as he didn't have enough time to drill down on all the different concepts presented. You will definitely want to read it.

If you like science fiction you will like this book. It is imaginative, has some original ideas, and you care about the characters. While it would be good to read the first book in this series (coalescent), it isn't absolutely necessary. This second book in the series is set around 25,000 years to the future of the first book. It is a galaxy perpetually at total war. Humans have exterminated every alien species they meet, and now have a group of the last remaining aliens fighting a hugh several thousand-year-old battle at the very center of the galaxy, at a black hole named Chandra. Billions of soldiers are bred, conditioned, and die before their 20th birthdays, as they are basically hurled at the enemy, to keep the aliens from ultimately attacking earth. The story begins with one young pilot actually capturing an alien ship. This has never happened before. When he brings it back to base, he is punished for his initiative. The fear is that anything that disturbs the equilibrium of perpetual battle may ultimately tip things in a bad direciton for us. What happens subsequently is the subject of the novel. And a very good one it is.

Humanity has been at war with the Xeelee for three thousand years. Thanks to FTL spaceships that enables movement through time the aliens know what humans are going to do before they do it. Although the future is always in a state of flux and mankind has one great advantage over the Xeelees in that the human population is so much greater than the Xeelees, which enables them to confine the enemy to the center of the galaxy.

Humanity has not been able to penetrate the alien base operations at Chandra the black hole although millions have died trying. While trying to evade a Xeelee ship, pilot Pirius ignores his orders by fighting the enemy; he manages to catch the alien spaceship, something never done before. He brings it back into human space two years in the past where he meets his seventeen-year old self. Both are put on trial for disobeying orders. The older Pirius is transferred to a penal asteroid while the younger version is taken under the wing of Commissary Nilis who believes the young man will be a great help to finally resolving the Xeelee problem.

Although there are two Pirius in this story about, the future history of mankind depends on the younger version who has not been battle scarred and believes in the mission the Commissary is pursuing. Stephen Baxter's; second installment of "Destiny's Children" is nothing short of brilliant as it shows a future in which mankind is brought up to fight a war and die young, not leaving a trace of their passing. EXULTANT is an exciting look at a seemingly bleak future that one hopes never happens.

Harriet Klausner