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lord_schorschl's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
inspiring
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
lucardus's review against another edition
3.0
Nice idea but you have to make it to 60% until it starts being interesting. And way too much telling and info dumping. Also a somehow heinleinian protagonist I could never really connect too.
phaeri's review against another edition
4.0
It was very interesting, except the 1/3 filled with just history lessons from all timeliness.
aeryn_sun's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
sophiamoonlight's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
finlaaaay's review against another edition
4.0
More mind-expanding bonkers sci-fi from Stephen Baxter. It's got whiffs of Brave New World, and mirrors of [b:Proxima|20893396|Proxima|Stephen Baxter|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1396830968l/20893396._SY75_.jpg|25216071], another of his novels. Bit of multiverse hopping, mysterious 9th planet, and spacefaring what-ho-ing Brits. Typically, I didn't love the characters a lot, but the storytelling more than makes up for it. I also saw that the characters come from another series, so I'm going to have to look into that to find out what's going on, I guess.
heagma's review against another edition
3.0
3.4 rounded down to 3.0.
The blurb/synopsis of the book is not 100% accurate, actually I would say not even 70% accurate, or did I read another version of the same book?, another manifold maybe?. So just a heads up and don't be mislead by the blurb.
Update: They finally updated the whole blurb.
This guy Malenfant wakes up from coldsleep to find a more advanced world where all the basic needs are covered (health, food, education, etc.), a sort of utopia (for many) and also a creepy world to live in. There is not purpose for the future to come , instead the people just focus in the present as that is what really matters for them.
From here until around 150p is worldbuilding, and exploration of this 25th century world, then things start going weird and the book changes completely from what the synopsis actually says.
I could see here Baxter forcing himself from giving loads of info dumps until he couldn’t anymore, so this book is not as hard SF as some of his other books and will probably appeal to those who wants something a bit different in that sense, but there are still a lot of Hard SF on it, in the last third specially, just not as much as many are used to when reading Baxter.
This is the first installment of a duology , the second book World Engines: Creator to be published next year, so to describe this first book as a whole I would say it was enjoyable and did not feel I wasted my time.
The blurb/synopsis of the book is not 100% accurate, actually I would say not even 70% accurate, or did I read another version of the same book?, another manifold maybe?. So just a heads up and don't be mislead by the blurb.
Update: They finally updated the whole blurb.
This guy Malenfant wakes up from coldsleep to find a more advanced world where all the basic needs are covered (health, food, education, etc.), a sort of utopia (for many) and also a creepy world to live in. There is not purpose for the future to come , instead the people just focus in the present as that is what really matters for them.
From here until around 150p is worldbuilding, and exploration of this 25th century world, then things start going weird and the book changes completely from what the synopsis actually says.
I could see here Baxter forcing himself from giving loads of info dumps until he couldn’t anymore, so this book is not as hard SF as some of his other books and will probably appeal to those who wants something a bit different in that sense, but there are still a lot of Hard SF on it, in the last third specially, just not as much as many are used to when reading Baxter.
This is the first installment of a duology , the second book World Engines: Creator to be published next year, so to describe this first book as a whole I would say it was enjoyable and did not feel I wasted my time.
piet0312's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.75
yohhhanna's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
informative
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
an utterly confusing ending and I kind of knew that was gonna happen but I'm still mad. maybe it didn't make sense bc I'm so tired but I really don't wanna read that last part from deidra's- perspective-but-not-really-her again. funky ideas, the book dragged a bit for the first 300 pages or so and then the story went batshit crazy lol
markyon's review against another edition
3.0
So: just after my recent reread of Moonseed , Stephen’s latest arrives. World Engines: Destroyer is the first in a new trilogy but involves a lead character that regular Baxter readers have met before.
The character from the past is Colonel Reid Malenfant, from the Manifold series (Time, Space, Origin and Phase Space). Some readers will stop there, as Malenfant was a character that seemed to draw polarising opinions when first published. I can see why, as he’s not the most likeable person – he’s grumpy and aggressive to the point of being rude, cantankerous and annoyingly unpleasant – which did put some readers off him twenty years ago. He’s not really changed much here, either, as a fish out of water, a modern Buck Rogers in an alternate 25th century.
So why has Baxter resurrected him here? Personally, I thought of Malenfant as a character based on Baxter’s own experiences – he spent time visiting NASA in the late 1990’s and 2000’s – but then expanded and magnified. He is the dark side of the American ideal – pushy, always right (even when not), the ultimate capitalist with goals and expectations that exemplified and expanded on the lifestyle of the rich and entitled at the end of the 20th century.
Basically, he’s the logical extrapolation of the SF ideal so common in the 1950’s & 60’s, a military-trained, politically right-wing Republican, out to make a profit.
However, in this case his resurrection is ideal. What would such a character make of a world significantly changed four hundred years after his last memory?
World Engines is a story of the future as seen by an observer with little connection to the world he lives in. As such this allows him to observe and try to make sense of the environment round him, a SF-nal tradition that goes back to H G Wells (The Time Machine, The Sleeper Wakes) and Buck Rogers’ creator Philip Nowlan, if not before.
So: what does Stephen offer us here? The 25th century of this alternate Earth (clues: President Nixon assassinated in office, first man on the Moon Neil Armstrong died there) has had major changes. Physically the landscape has changed. The London Malenfant is brought back to life in (why London and not the USA? There is a reason given, but it’s not too strong an argument) has had major coastal flooding and thanks to climate change now feels almost tropical. Much of the land between London and Birmingham is once again forest, to offset the carbon emissions as much as anything.
Socially things have also changed. The world is now at peace, with ‘nations’ now become regions. The Earth’s population is down to about one million, with everyone entitled to universal credit, as created by good old Tricky Dicky Nixon. There are food replicators and AI. No-one has to work, but there is a feeling that people should volunteer assistance for the greater good when required. Where work is needed to be done, the volunteers help out. (Star Trek’s Federation would love this.)
It all sounds wonderfully bucolic, a time of peace after significant upheaval. However, hanging over everyone’s heads is the knowledge that in the year 3397 Earth will be destroyed by a collision with ‘The Destroyer’.
Malenfant has therefore been reawakened for two reasons. One is personal – a message from his long-presumed-missing wife who, lost on a mission to study an anomaly near Phobos, has asked for him. The second is for a higher purpose, namely that the Planetary AIs that have kept watch over the Earth (but note – not governed) are interested. They realise that, as a voice from the past, Malenfant is asking questions that modern day 25th century humans are not. And these questions – and their answers – may be important.
After spending the first half of the book doing very little – there’s an ongoing soap-opera dilemma between Greggson Dierdra (In the future surnames are given first) , the young human who has volunteered to look after Malenfant, and her mother Greggson Mica and her partner Prefect Morrel Jonas, but most of the first part of the book is Malenfant looking at (and trying to make sense of) some sort of Logan’s Run-type future.
The book only started to get interesting for me once the decision had been made to take Malenfant, Diedra and an android named Bartholomew who is Malenfant’s medical support into Space. We are wheeled through a series of Grand-Tour phases – Earth to Space Station near the Moon, Moon to Phobos – before finally getting to examine the mystery.
They meet Emma pretty quickly, and although Emma knows Malenfant, it is quickly determined that this is not the Emma Stoney Malenfant married, but one from an alternate Earth in 2005. Further investigations lead to the big revelation that Phobos appears to be a point where different universes at different times meet. Malenfant, Dierdra, Emma II and Bartholomew meet Vladimir Viktorenko, a Russian from a universe where in the 21st century there is war between Russia and the USA and Wing Commander Geoff Lighthill and his crew from a 2005 where Britain rules the race into space.
The big question is why this happens at Phobos, and whether such actions happen by chance or whether Phobos has been deliberately assembled by something. To discover what Malenfant has to hitch a ride to Persephone, the ninth major planet from the Sun, discovered in the late twenty-first century
After this point it all goes Cixin Liu (the clue’s in the book title) before finishing things off very quickly in order to leave a number of key plot points hanging for the next book.
This one should work. It has lots of big ideas and lots of extrapolations into alternative futures that I normally love. It’s also written in that Clarkean style of Baxter’s that I really like, that slightly detached, look-at-the-bigger-picture observational style about big events and epic timelines.
And yet… I struggled with the first half, most of which seemed unnecessary (although I guess that this may be proved wrong over the arc of the trilogy). What was the point? If it was to show that in the future Earth is rather dull (I’m sure my thought that their existence was rather like H G Wells’s Eloi is deliberate), then it served its purpose. It may be, as hinted later in the book, that it is to show how dull, safe and complacent Dierdra’s life is before Malenfant.
And then it may be the characters. Is it because Malenfant as a character is so unlikeable? It’s been an issue for me before, admittedly. It may be. However, it is noticeable that Malenfant is different in this book. Far from being the gung-ho hero of old (although he has his moments!) this time Malenfant is more of an enabler, someone who observes and at the same time is a catalyst for others to reach their goals, and it is true that the book sees Dierdra blossom from a contented youngster to an adult with a purpose.
But, ultimately I think the issue is that the first part takes such a long while to get going – about 250 pages of a 500 page-or-so book are centred here – and that it is so small scale, so focused on Malenfant, that instead of seeing this new wider world, we stay in the English Midlands where not a lot is going on, frankly. I would have liked to see more of the Earth, though there are little glimpses of the bigger picture both geographically and historically – the Sahara is now a forest, so too much of the English East Midlands, whilst London and Cape Canaveral are flooded, for example.
It is only when we get to the middle part of the book that I began to enjoy the plot. Baxter is very good at demonstrating that sense of wonder in relatively few words to create the Epic. Though it is all tell, not show, there are some brilliantly tantalising snapshots of other “what-if’s” that could be worth exploring further. I appreciated the point that the different means of getting into space are all based on some of the different ways suggested from our own timeline – in other words, not the ISS and the Space Shuttle.
The characterisation is rather amusingly portrayed with the British contingent of the Royal Air Space Force showing a supreme example of the stiff upper lip. Bartholomew as the android doctor, though, is rather annoying in his continuous grumpiness. As is Baxter’s style, there’s not too much depth going on here, although the Russian perspective broadens the palette a little.
When the bigger picture is revealed, there are interesting points raised, which regained my interest. With this in mind, I was rather surprised to find that the last part was disappointing, though. Instead of inspiring, in some sort of Space:1999 gesture, there’s a needless tension created with pulp fiction science* and a cliff-hanger that after 500+ pages of build-up is an abrupt let-down. There are still major unknowns here.
To sum up, then, there’s a lot of World Engines I liked, but I can also see why others might not. Whilst parts were good, it is a very unevenly paced read. Is it the best place to start reading his books? Probably not, although there is a lot to like. As much as I wanted to like it, and was looking forward to reading it, ultimately this felt like it was not one of Baxter’s best, and in the end it was a disappointment overall. Whilst I will read the next book in the series, this sadly isn’t one to wholeheartedly recommend to others.
*To be fair, Stephen in his Afterword does point out current scientific research on such possibilities, which you can follow up on, if you wish.
The character from the past is Colonel Reid Malenfant, from the Manifold series (Time, Space, Origin and Phase Space). Some readers will stop there, as Malenfant was a character that seemed to draw polarising opinions when first published. I can see why, as he’s not the most likeable person – he’s grumpy and aggressive to the point of being rude, cantankerous and annoyingly unpleasant – which did put some readers off him twenty years ago. He’s not really changed much here, either, as a fish out of water, a modern Buck Rogers in an alternate 25th century.
So why has Baxter resurrected him here? Personally, I thought of Malenfant as a character based on Baxter’s own experiences – he spent time visiting NASA in the late 1990’s and 2000’s – but then expanded and magnified. He is the dark side of the American ideal – pushy, always right (even when not), the ultimate capitalist with goals and expectations that exemplified and expanded on the lifestyle of the rich and entitled at the end of the 20th century.
Basically, he’s the logical extrapolation of the SF ideal so common in the 1950’s & 60’s, a military-trained, politically right-wing Republican, out to make a profit.
However, in this case his resurrection is ideal. What would such a character make of a world significantly changed four hundred years after his last memory?
World Engines is a story of the future as seen by an observer with little connection to the world he lives in. As such this allows him to observe and try to make sense of the environment round him, a SF-nal tradition that goes back to H G Wells (The Time Machine, The Sleeper Wakes) and Buck Rogers’ creator Philip Nowlan, if not before.
So: what does Stephen offer us here? The 25th century of this alternate Earth (clues: President Nixon assassinated in office, first man on the Moon Neil Armstrong died there) has had major changes. Physically the landscape has changed. The London Malenfant is brought back to life in (why London and not the USA? There is a reason given, but it’s not too strong an argument) has had major coastal flooding and thanks to climate change now feels almost tropical. Much of the land between London and Birmingham is once again forest, to offset the carbon emissions as much as anything.
Socially things have also changed. The world is now at peace, with ‘nations’ now become regions. The Earth’s population is down to about one million, with everyone entitled to universal credit, as created by good old Tricky Dicky Nixon. There are food replicators and AI. No-one has to work, but there is a feeling that people should volunteer assistance for the greater good when required. Where work is needed to be done, the volunteers help out. (Star Trek’s Federation would love this.)
It all sounds wonderfully bucolic, a time of peace after significant upheaval. However, hanging over everyone’s heads is the knowledge that in the year 3397 Earth will be destroyed by a collision with ‘The Destroyer’.
Malenfant has therefore been reawakened for two reasons. One is personal – a message from his long-presumed-missing wife who, lost on a mission to study an anomaly near Phobos, has asked for him. The second is for a higher purpose, namely that the Planetary AIs that have kept watch over the Earth (but note – not governed) are interested. They realise that, as a voice from the past, Malenfant is asking questions that modern day 25th century humans are not. And these questions – and their answers – may be important.
After spending the first half of the book doing very little – there’s an ongoing soap-opera dilemma between Greggson Dierdra (In the future surnames are given first) , the young human who has volunteered to look after Malenfant, and her mother Greggson Mica and her partner Prefect Morrel Jonas, but most of the first part of the book is Malenfant looking at (and trying to make sense of) some sort of Logan’s Run-type future.
The book only started to get interesting for me once the decision had been made to take Malenfant, Diedra and an android named Bartholomew who is Malenfant’s medical support into Space. We are wheeled through a series of Grand-Tour phases – Earth to Space Station near the Moon, Moon to Phobos – before finally getting to examine the mystery.
They meet Emma pretty quickly, and although Emma knows Malenfant, it is quickly determined that this is not the Emma Stoney Malenfant married, but one from an alternate Earth in 2005. Further investigations lead to the big revelation that Phobos appears to be a point where different universes at different times meet. Malenfant, Dierdra, Emma II and Bartholomew meet Vladimir Viktorenko, a Russian from a universe where in the 21st century there is war between Russia and the USA and Wing Commander Geoff Lighthill and his crew from a 2005 where Britain rules the race into space.
The big question is why this happens at Phobos, and whether such actions happen by chance or whether Phobos has been deliberately assembled by something. To discover what Malenfant has to hitch a ride to Persephone, the ninth major planet from the Sun, discovered in the late twenty-first century
After this point it all goes Cixin Liu (the clue’s in the book title) before finishing things off very quickly in order to leave a number of key plot points hanging for the next book.
This one should work. It has lots of big ideas and lots of extrapolations into alternative futures that I normally love. It’s also written in that Clarkean style of Baxter’s that I really like, that slightly detached, look-at-the-bigger-picture observational style about big events and epic timelines.
And yet… I struggled with the first half, most of which seemed unnecessary (although I guess that this may be proved wrong over the arc of the trilogy). What was the point? If it was to show that in the future Earth is rather dull (I’m sure my thought that their existence was rather like H G Wells’s Eloi is deliberate), then it served its purpose. It may be, as hinted later in the book, that it is to show how dull, safe and complacent Dierdra’s life is before Malenfant.
And then it may be the characters. Is it because Malenfant as a character is so unlikeable? It’s been an issue for me before, admittedly. It may be. However, it is noticeable that Malenfant is different in this book. Far from being the gung-ho hero of old (although he has his moments!) this time Malenfant is more of an enabler, someone who observes and at the same time is a catalyst for others to reach their goals, and it is true that the book sees Dierdra blossom from a contented youngster to an adult with a purpose.
But, ultimately I think the issue is that the first part takes such a long while to get going – about 250 pages of a 500 page-or-so book are centred here – and that it is so small scale, so focused on Malenfant, that instead of seeing this new wider world, we stay in the English Midlands where not a lot is going on, frankly. I would have liked to see more of the Earth, though there are little glimpses of the bigger picture both geographically and historically – the Sahara is now a forest, so too much of the English East Midlands, whilst London and Cape Canaveral are flooded, for example.
It is only when we get to the middle part of the book that I began to enjoy the plot. Baxter is very good at demonstrating that sense of wonder in relatively few words to create the Epic. Though it is all tell, not show, there are some brilliantly tantalising snapshots of other “what-if’s” that could be worth exploring further. I appreciated the point that the different means of getting into space are all based on some of the different ways suggested from our own timeline – in other words, not the ISS and the Space Shuttle.
The characterisation is rather amusingly portrayed with the British contingent of the Royal Air Space Force showing a supreme example of the stiff upper lip. Bartholomew as the android doctor, though, is rather annoying in his continuous grumpiness. As is Baxter’s style, there’s not too much depth going on here, although the Russian perspective broadens the palette a little.
When the bigger picture is revealed, there are interesting points raised, which regained my interest. With this in mind, I was rather surprised to find that the last part was disappointing, though. Instead of inspiring, in some sort of Space:1999 gesture, there’s a needless tension created with pulp fiction science* and a cliff-hanger that after 500+ pages of build-up is an abrupt let-down. There are still major unknowns here.
To sum up, then, there’s a lot of World Engines I liked, but I can also see why others might not. Whilst parts were good, it is a very unevenly paced read. Is it the best place to start reading his books? Probably not, although there is a lot to like. As much as I wanted to like it, and was looking forward to reading it, ultimately this felt like it was not one of Baxter’s best, and in the end it was a disappointment overall. Whilst I will read the next book in the series, this sadly isn’t one to wholeheartedly recommend to others.
*To be fair, Stephen in his Afterword does point out current scientific research on such possibilities, which you can follow up on, if you wish.