Rating: 
Summary: MUCH less than expected
Review: After having read several of SB's books, including both Manifold books before this (absolutely loved Time Ships and Manifold: Time/Space), I was very disappointed in this "conclusion" to the series. I felt it spent much too much time droning on about the various hominid species on the Red Moon with no clear improvements to the story or plot. I felt like it was more of a sequal to Longtusk. It rehashed most of the same themes...Old Ones reaching back in time to fix the universe...etc, without adding any new ideas of note. Overall, not a book I'd recommend for someone looking to read one of the best new SF writers around, Stephen Baxter!
Rating: 
Summary: Fatuous low-brow literary posturing
Review: Baxter explores some of the holes in the theory of evolution and comes up with a unique answer to fill some of those holes. I thought it really started well and he created some interesting characters and situations. But after a while it really began to drag, I got his premise after the second group, I didn't need to have it hammered home with three more groups. He also began reusing the situations/scenarios, I believe one character got raped five times, three or four babies had their heads bitten off or dashed against a tree, etc. I believe with the exception of the "god" like beings all of the female characters were involved in a forced sexual episode of some kind - one or two and we could infer that a very dark vision was being presented. He has some interesting ideas and that made the book worth reading, but he could have cut it in half and removed a lot of the sex and violence and had a much better book IMHO.
Rating:
Summary: Definitely has some twists
Review: Baxter explores some of the holes in the theory of evolution and comes up with a unique answer to fill some of those holes. I thought it really started well and he created some interesting characters and situations. But after a while it really began to drag, I got his premise after the second group, I didn't need to have it hammered home with three more groups. He also began reusing the situations/scenarios, I believe one character got raped five times, three or four babies had their heads bitten off or dashed against a tree, etc. I believe with the exception of the "god" like beings all of the female characters were involved in a forced sexual episode of some kind - one or two and we could infer that a very dark vision was being presented. He has some interesting ideas and that made the book worth reading, but he could have cut it in half and removed a lot of the sex and violence and had a much better book IMHO.
Rating:
Summary: No a pleasant nor enjoyable read...
Review: Having read many of Stephen Baxter's books I was again looking forward to this one. However it was such that I did not even bother to finish the book. Not only did the jumpiness of what existed of the plot make it difficult to read, many parts of it were just ugly - with what seemed to be no purpose. Some books may have unpleasant components in the reading, that serve a purpose to support the plot, as in The Sparrow and Children of God, where ideas served a purpose. I could not find a purpose here. Ok, so life on the red moon may be ugly... however I would have preferred to have had a foundation or reason for reading that ugliness. With over 1000 books in my collection this is not one I would recommend. John
Rating:
Summary: Save your money
Review: I read Manifold:Time, his first in the series, and found it a very satisfying SF read. The science is solid, the characters well-developed and the pace perfect. The next in the series, Manifold:Space, was a disappointment, but still bearable--Note that although the characters (at least their names) are the same in all 3 books, it is not really a series as the author uses "parallel universe" plot lines to make each book stand on its own. The third one, Manifold:Origin is truly a waste of paper. The plot has so many holes, inconsistencies and in general inanities that you almost feel the whole thing is a joke, or maybe Mr. Baxter really sacrificed ideas for speed (less than a year between M:Space and M:Origin). The main character of the book, a well-developed and engaging personality in the first book, is shallow and failry boring in this instance, with few endearing or engaging traits. The main plot line starts with his significant other being kidnapped to (he presumes) a new planet that has just appeared orbiting the Earth and replacing the moon. He fights tooth and nail to get a ship to go there (never mind why an overcrowded planet with existing technology would not be rushing to colonize a new planet with water and atmosphere less than 5 light-minutes away). When he gets there, primary objective being to resuce his loved one, he is met by hostile hominids and is saved by what appears to be a lost English lord. of course the next logical step is to: leave the ship, his only means of getting out, open and abandoned, have his only communications device with Earth destroyed, and proceed to go have beers and sleep off the hangover at the Brits' camp.
Never mind that he also just found out that this planet happens to be a "link" between parallel Earths and just phases in and out bwtween universes and therefore any second he could be phased to a different universe and forget any hope of coming back. The plot goes downhill from there. it becomes excrutiatingly boring and even less believable. It is a shame that an author with such a stellar oeuvre felt compelled to publish such an unworthy novel. I hope his next effort is more satisfying, but after M:Origin, I will definitely wait for reviews before buying it.
Rating:
Summary: Fatuous low-brow literary posturing
Review: I used to anxiously look forward to the newest release by Stephen Baxter, but the Manifold series is starting to wear on my nerves. The first installment was quite good, but the second installment was a bit of a let-down. I had to struggle to muster the interest to finish this third installment. My first clue that this book was going to be a disappointment was at the very beginning when I saw such stimulating dialogue as:
"Fire? Dig! Fire?"
"Dig, Dig, here! Loud, Loud?"
Loud's voice, from far away. "Fire, Fire! Dig! Loud!" When authors feel they have to invent a proto-language, or engage in some form of dialect, you know that there is some serious trouble ahead, since they feel that they have to introduce the novelty factor in order to overcome shortcomings in plot or characterization. In this case, there was only concept enough for a short story, not a full-length novel, particularly coming on the heels of the previous two installments. I saw another reviewer saying that this would be a good introduction Baxter. I disagree. In the Manifold sequence, Baxter is engaging in serious literary posturing, and it just doesn't work out. Baxter's strengths are much better illustrated in the Xeelee sequence.
Rating: 
Summary: An excellent novel of big ideas and discovery-channel gore.
Review: In my opinion, some readers have misunderstood the nature of this novel. It is a fragmented, gory, unpredictable story that leaves the reader simultaneously nauseous and confused. And this is the point. The Manifold series is a discovery of alternate universes, alternate possibilities, from the context of a central but loosely constructed character Reid Malenfant. In 'Time' and 'Space', Malenfant's adventures were more linear and core to a saga of the universe. In the final chapter of the trilogy, 'Origin', Baxter discusses a set of possible evolutionary paths, a group of differently evolved humans, coexisting on a moon that jumps from one alternate possibility to another, with each group of humans acting out their primal instincts on one another. Malenfant acts more as an observer to a greater drama. Thus, this chapter is gory, because nature is gory. It is disjointed, in that transgressing alternate worlds is disjoining. It is exactly what it should be, a discussion of big ideas in a context where they can be understood and the relevance can be taken away and pondered. I give this novel five stars, not entirely of its own merit, but in collection with the previous two chapters. It fulfils my expectation of a story that allows me to stretch my imagination and at the same time challenge my humanity.
Rating:
Summary: Stephens Baxter or Stephen King
Review: Loose ends abound in this novel. I doubt this is deliberate. It looks to this reader that the publishers have cut out a lot of what made this book make any sense. What's left is a kind of Frank Herbert (particularly nasty British horror writer) sci-fi story. What's worse is that it gets really boring towards the middle of the book and never recovers. I have read most of Stephen Baxters books and this is an extremely poor example.
Rating:
Summary: Quantum Physics Meets Stephen King
Review: Manifold: Origin is apparently the completion of the Manifold: trilogy, and, according to the clerk at Borders, this one was already in the drawer and ready to go to the publisher when the second one came out, which explains the amazing speed of publication. This book is--well, like Quantum Physics Meets Stephen King. It's hard reading, and not because of the quantum physics! It's a brutal, hardhitting book, painful to read at times, and in many ways I felt that it was at the core of Baxter's meanderings around the universe: it felt to me as if he was working through some anguish that his very creative mind was trying to
resolve--there is great sadness in this book, somehow. There are also many unanswered, irritating questions about resolutions (plot problems). In some ways I found the book exhiliarating, in others revolting, and essentially frustrating. See what you think. I have to say this: Baxter has a wonderful imagination.(But his characters, like those of many science fiction writers, are virtually interchangeable--even Reid Malenfant the Rogue is basically undeveloped--just a somewhat bewildered, oafish space jockey, imho..) But, for me, Baxter's books always pass the test: they continue to haunt me after I've finished reading them. And the only way to fix the problem is to buy another Baxter book. (This one felt, at times, like a great video game...)
Rating: 
Summary: Boring and Painful
Review: One of these days, I'm going to learn to never buy a book before reading the reviews on Amazon. Unfortunately, I was in a used book store, saw this, and bought it on the spot. What a mistake. I'm currently on page 382 of 518 and that's as far as I'm going. I'm not going to read through yet another rape, yet another child eating, yet another set of torment/torture, yet another scene of how rotten Stephen Baxter thinks mankind (and all it's various ancestral lines) is. Also, I'm tired of reading through all that stuff without any progress in the plot. Basically, I'm 74% of the way through the book, and nothing's happened to 1) re-unite the main man with the main woman, or 2) tell us who, why, or how the moon is flying through the multiverse picking up and dumping off hominids. I wasn't even aware this was the third book in a trilogy until I came here to write this review. So, maybe that's explained in the previous books (though there's no indication of it). So, unless you're into being alternately bored and disgusted all while being confused, don't bother with this book.
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