Showing results by author "Stephen Baxter" in Adventure

For eons, Earth has been under observation by the Firstborn, beings almost as old as the universe itself. The Firstborn are unknown to humankind - until they act. In an instant, Earth is carved up and reassembled like a huge jigsaw puzzle. Suddenly the planet and every living thing on it no longer exist in a single timeline.

The Western Front, 1916. Private Percy Blakeney wakes up. He is lying on fresh spring grass. He can hear birdsong, and the wind in the leaves in the trees. Where have the mud, blood, and blasted landscape of No Man's Land gone? Madison, Wisconsin, 2015. Cop Monica Jansson is exploring the burned-out home of a reclusive - some said mad, others dangerous - scientist when she finds a curious gadget: a box containing some wiring, a three-way switch and a potato. It is the prototype of a life-changing invention....

An alternative history of the US space programme, dramatised by Dirk Maggs. What if John F. Kennedy survived the assassination attempt and developed the space programme? President Nixon, with the help of former president JFK, has just green-lit NASA’s first manned expedition to Mars. Aboard the expedition is Natalie York, a geologist who risks everything she loves for the chance to go to space; Phil Stone, former X-15 test pilot; and Ralph Gershon, a Vietnam War hero intent on being the first African American to reach another planet.

Michael Poole finds himself in a very strange landscape.... This is the centre of the Galaxy. And in a history without war with the humans, the Xeelee have had time to built an immense structure here. The Xeelee Belt has a radius 10,000 times Earth's orbital distance. It is a light-year in circumference. If it was set in the solar system, it would be out in the Oort Cloud, among the comets - but circling the sun. If it was at rest, it would have a surface area equivalent to about 30 billion Earths. But it is not at rest: it rotates at near light speed.

The Wheel. A ring of ice and steel turning around a moon of Saturn, and home to a mining colony supplying a resource-hungry Earth. It's a bad place to grow up. The colony has been plagued by problems. Maybe it's just gremlins, just bad luck. But the equipment failures and thefts of resources have been increasing, and there have been stories among the children of mysterious creatures glimpsed aboard the Wheel. Many of the younger workers refuse to go down the warren-like mines anymore. And then sixteen-year-old Phee Laws, surfing Saturn's rings, saves an enigmatic blue box from destruction.

A spaceship from Earth accidentally crossed through a hole in space-time to a universe where the force of gravity is one billion times as strong as the gravity we know. Somehow the crew survived, aided by the fact that they emerged into a cloud of gas surrounding a black hole, which provided a breathable atmosphere. Five hundred years later, their descendants still struggle for existence, divided into two main groups. The Miners live on the Belt, a ramshackle ring of dwellings orbiting the core of a dead star, which they excavate for raw materials.

Two apparently unrelated anomalies have disrupted operations at a mining colony on Mercury. A troubleshooting mission sent to investigate encounters peculiar events and even stranger findings.

Über vierhundert Jahre in der Zukunft bricht Raumschiffpilot Reid Malenfant, frisch aus dem Kälteschlaf geholt, zum Marsmond Phobos auf, nachdem die Erde einen Notruf von seiner Frau Ema erhalten hat. Was Reid, Deidre und die restliche Besatzung des Raumschiffes Last Small Step dort vorgefunden haben, ist atemberaubend: ein abgestürztes russisches Raumschiff und eine englische Forschungscrew.

Seit seiner Kindheit wollte Reid Malenfant Astronaut werden, doch die NASA lehnte ihn ab. Seine Frau Emma ist erfolgreicher: Sie bricht 2004 mit einer Expedition zum Marsmond Phobos auf, um eine Anomalie zu erkunden. Doch ein Jahr später reißt der Kontakt ab, und Emma gilt seither als verschollen. Reid bekommt schließlich doch noch einen Platz als Space-Shuttle-Pilot, stürzt 2019 jedoch bei einem tragischen Unfall ab.

Im Jahr 2145 bricht John Hacknett mit seinem Raumschiff Perseus zum Andromedanebel auf. Seine Mission: Er soll die Sternkonstellation genauer in Augenschein nehmen, die in ferner Zukunft mit unserer Milchstraße kollidieren wird, und dann zur Erde zurückkehren, um der Menschheit Bericht zu erstatten. Hacknett reist nicht nur durch den Raum, sondern auch durch die Zeit, denn für die Erde werden fünf Millionen Jahre bis zu seiner Rückkehr vergehen. Wird es dann noch eine Menschheit geben, der er Bericht erstatten kann? Das Jahr 30 in der fernen Zukunft.