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Creation Node

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Creation Node

By: Stephen Baxter
Narrated by: Hanako Footman
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In the year 2255, of all the sentient beings in her universe, it was a woman named Salma, twenty years old, who was the first fully to see the object called Planet Nine. See with her own eyes, albeit moderated by her ship's instruments. If not to recognise what it was, not yet.

Not that the object turned out to be a planet, or the 'ninth' of anything. Briefly thought to be a black hole, it suddenly changes, expands and sends a message. There is something waiting on its service. Something not quite human.

As the ramifications of this event spread across the fracturing elements of humanity, it is clear that the small crew on the spot are at the centre of the most dramatic discovery in history. But theirs is not the only inexplicable event happening - impossibly, at exactly the same moment, a quasar appeared twenty-five thousand light years away, and now is heating up the solar system.

If the enigma of the creation node is not solved quickly, there may be no one left to investigate it . . . First Contact Hard Science Fiction Science Fiction Space Opera Fiction Solar System
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I’m an age old fan of Stephen Baxter, and this is one of his best yet. Rich in science, if anything I wish this wasn’t a single book but a series (I mean, a series telling the story of this one book), to include even more character development and details about this world. One criticism - DNA is made up of nucleotides, not amino acids. As a molecular biologist this stood out to me, but please do not take it as an overall indicator of the science described here. Loved it.

Fantastic

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I found it hard to engage with this story, which is unfortunate, as I’m usually such a big fan of his work.

Not one of his best

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Bizarrely paced with all the cosmic science close to the end and a lot of bizarre plotting. I miss Baxter’s more imaginative stories like “Time” and “Space”.

Not Baxter’s best

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4.5 stars wasn’t an option, if it were then that would be my score for this book. It was great most of the way through but, the ending, for me personally, was a tad underwhelming

4.5 wasn’t an option

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The author evidentially wanted to chat about then multiverse and uses the characters to endlessly discuss and speculate about it. For example, having just met a near godlike creature of the multiverse they spend time discussing amongst themselves instead of asking god to explain.

However, just about enough story to keep me moderately engaged.

A discussion about the multiverse

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