Ratings15
Average rating4
The year is 2020. Fueled by an insatiable curiosity, Reid Malenfant ventures to the far edge of the solar system, where he discovers a strange artifact left behind by an alien civilization: A gateway that functions as a kind of quantum transporter, allowing virtually instantaneous travel over the vast distances of interstellar space. What lies on the other side of the gateway? Malenfant decides to find out. Yet he will soon be faced with an impossible choice that will push him beyond terror, beyond sanity, beyond humanity itself. Meanwhile on Earth the Japanese scientist Nemoto fears her worst nightmares are coming true. Startling discoveries reveal that the Moon, Venus, even Mars once thrived with life--life that was snuffed out not just once but many times, in cycles of birth and destruction. And the next chilling cycle is set to begin again . . .
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Part of the [Manifold](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL72862W/Manifold) series.
Featured Series
4 primary booksManifold is a 4-book series with 4 primary works first released in 1999 with contributions by Stephen Baxter.
Reviews with the most likes.
This book can be confusing at times, specially because there are like 5 characters you have to keep track of and they often hop into different planets and star systems without much continuity between them (the characters). So is recommended at least to write down the name of each character and where they are at the moment when reading the book.
It can be also engrossing and slow, mainly because of the above or because the big chunks of Hard SF in each chapter/page.
I would not recommend this book to people who don't have that much of patience for engrossing details or want some more of human drama or a light and easy to follow story because that would be difficult to find in here. It delivered what I was looking for, and I liked it overall.