Sunstorm
Ratings11
Average rating3.4
15
Ratings11
Average rating3.4
When Sir Arthur C. Clarke, the greatest science fiction writer ever, teams up with award-winning author Stephen Baxter, who shares Clarke's bold vision of a future where technology and humanism advance hand in hand, the result is bound to be a book of stellar ambition and accomplishment. Such was the case with Time's Eye. Now, in the highly anticipated sequel, Clarke and Baxter draw their epic to a triumphant conclusion that is as mind-blowing as anything in Clarke's famous Space Odyssey series.SUNSTORMReturned to the Earth of 2037 by the Firstborn, mysterious beings of almost limitless technological prowess, Bisesa Dutt is haunted by the memories of her five years spent on the strange alternate Earth called Mir, a jigsaw-puzzle world made up of lands and people cut out of different eras of Earth's history. Why did the Firstborn create Mir? Why was Bisesa taken there and then brought back on the day after her original disappearance?Bisesa's questions receive a chilling answer when scientists discover an anomaly in the sun's core--an anomaly that has no natural cause is evidence of alien intervention over two thousand years before. Now plans set in motion millennia ago by inscrutable watchers light-years away are coming to fruition in a sunstorm designed to scour the Earth of all life in a bombardment of deadly radiation.Thus commences a furious race against a ticking solar time bomb. But even now, as apocalypse looms, cooperation is not easy for the peoples and nations of the Earth. Religious and political differences threaten to undermine every effort.And all the while, the Firstborn are watching...From the Hardcover edition.
Featured Series
3 primary booksA Time Odyssey is a 3-book series with 3 primary works first released in 2003 with contributions by Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter.
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Continuing from [b:Time's Eye 64936 Time's Eye (A Time Odyssey, #1) Arthur C. Clarke https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1388208559s/64936.jpg 1524294], but loosely. A different setting and only one character in common with the first, so it could be read on its own; but don't because you need the first anyway to make full sense of the third. My review of the first book.Should you read this? Yes if at least one of these is true:- You understand Clarke's name sells, but not guarantees actual Clarke writing.- You like other Stephen Baxter's books he's written solo.- You enjoy natural disaster novels because that's what this book mostly is.This is a welcome change from the first book, as it includes more science fiction. Like Space Odyssey, it happens in our not-so-distant future, yet we get to see how satisfyingly far technology has advanced.Its most glaring fault is that the whole book resolves a single plot point. Granted, it's a very significant plot point, but it becomes tiring because a book a third of the length would have sufficed, and the ballooning prose becomes an unnecessary delay. Nevertheless, it's better than the previous book.Nitpick: I consider a bad sign when authors sprinkle scifi pop culture references. At least here it's done sparingly.
