Maxima Library

Part of

Phase Space: Stories From the Manifold and Elsewhere.

Nomitated for Hugo Award for Best Short Story in 2001.

Time

is set on Earth, the inner part of the Solar System and various other universes onwards from the 21st century. The novel covers a wide range of topics, including the Doomsday argument, Fermi paradox, genetic engineering, and humanity’s extinction.

The book begins at the end of space and time, when the last descendants of humanity face an infinite but pointless existence. Due to proton decay the physical universe has collapsed, but some form of intelligence has survived by embedding itself into a lossless computing substrate where it can theoretically survive indefinitely. However, since there will never be new input, eventually all possible thoughts will be exhausted. Some portion of this intelligence decides that this should not have been the ultimate fate of the universe, and takes action to change the past, centering around the early 21st century. The changes come in several forms, including a message to Reid Malenfant, the appearance of super-intelligent children around the world, and the discovery of a mysterious gateway on asteroid 3753 Cruithne.

‘If they existed, they would be here’ ENRICO FERMI. In the second volume in Stephen Baxter's epic Manifold Series Reid Malenfant inhabits the universe Malenfant kick-started in TIME (‘science fiction at its best’ FHM) — and ‘they’ are here. When Nemoto, a Japanese researcher on the Moon, discovers evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence in the solar system, the Fermi Paradox provokes both Malenfant and Nemoto to question why now? Because, suddenly, there are signs of intelligent life in deep space in all directions. Deeper layers of Fermi’s paradox unravel as robot-like aliens, the Gaijin, seem to be e-mailing themselves from star to star, and wherever telescopes point, far away, other alien races are destroying worlds!

This is the third installment in Stephen Baxter’s

Manifold

trilogy. It sees

Manifold

regular Reid Malenfant and others once again dealing with possibilities of primate evolution in all forms and grappling with the Fermi Paradox. This time an artifact in the sky transports a select few individuals including Malenfant’s wife to a new red moon which has appeared in place of the moon we know. Blaming himself, Malenfant launches a one man mission to find his wife and solve the Fermi Paradox once and for all.

Шиина — так зовут искусственно выращенную самку кальмара с увеличенным интеллектом. Это новая космическая программа — послать осваивать космос головоногих, ведь они лучше приспособлены к невесомости. Но что случится, если эксперимент пойдет немножко не так, как планировалось…