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.
Rating: 
Summary: Mind-blowing, touching, and flawed
Review: ORIGIN finishes off Stephen Baxter's trilogy in a way that may initially seem less grand than the other space operatic installments, yet makes sense given that all three books deal with the Fermi Paradox and its depressing prospect that intelligent life is unique and alone in our universe, confined to Earth. In ORIGIN, Baxter responds by dropping the relentless quest for aliens pursued in the first two books, and instead tells a slightly more accessible story about what we do have--our humanity--and all the profound secrets and insights lying deep within our collective evolutionary past, and future(s). It is a story of the destiny of the human species. When the main characters from the series find themselves on a rogue, wandering moon that seems to be capable of traveling through the vast manifold of potential universes, Baxter directly justifies (not that it necessarily needed it) the reusing of the same characters gimmick that unites the trilogy, as well as provides for a few sly quips ("Maybe we knew each other in a past life" etc). In characteristic fashion, he flits from one stylized narrative to the next, presented from the eyes of the diverse hominids and pre-hominids that mysteriously share this primeval moon, assessing events in their own terms, all in minimalistic and lucid prose. Also characteristic of Baxter, the personalities are flimsy (even Emma Stoney, this story's definite heroine) and are often revealed to be little more than puppets ventriloquizing the author's ideas, or explanations. Inconsistencies abounds, most notably the huge fluctuations of apparent cognitive capacity held by various characters, and the
completely pointless but nevertheless disturbing side-tale starring Shadow, an alienated and abused presapient "Elf-woman." Overall, though--for readers of TIME and SPACE--this is a strikingly dark story. For those who haven't cared to think about it, early life was grisly and short, poignant little bursts of sentience unfortunately chock-full of violence, rape, and cannibalism. Baxter explores this delightful blur of pain a little more acutely than I would have wanted, but ORIGIN's real heart of darkness is in its analysis of the humanity that we stake a claim to--us modernized humans who read stuff like this--and its essential faults, which I read to be overanalysis and the drive to possess and expand. The basic facts of our humanity are not so much decried as compared to other ways of life in the "It doesn't have to be this way..." scenario used throughout the MANIFOLD series. Needless to say there are many melancholy revelations sprinkled throughout, and a surprising ending which makes one question what redemption may be to a homo sap. Despite its shortcomings, I enjoyed ORIGIN better than the other two precisely because of the subject matter. Baxter has a way with his writing that makes incongruity seem trivial when you meet and engage with his incredibly potent ideas, expressed in beautifully streamlined prose. To end, a rumination on a past mode of living, an immersion in the moment of a sunset as perceived by a Neanderthal: "Joshua felt himself dissolve, out from the center of his head, to the periphery of the world. There was no barrier around him, no layer of interpretation or analogy or nostalgia; for now he was the plain and the sea and the clouds, and he was the slim doe that looked up at the cliff, just as he was the stocky, quiet man who gazed down from it. For a time he was immersed in the world's beauty in a way no human could have shared."
Rating: 
Summary: It was different from his other novels...
Review: Origin was definitely different than Baxter's previous novels. I forced myself through several of his other novels feeling like I have re-read recycled material and usually skim through most of his discriptions of asteroids and moons which he goes into way too much detail. He did a great job in creating this new world and his new characters. I liked this book a lot. I would have to agree with the other readers in that it was much too violent and extremely disturbing. It has to remain realistic up to a certain point but the detail he gives exceeds what is necessary to get his point across. I would highly recommend this book. If you're new to Baxter, I would definitely urge that this be the first book you read.
Rating:
Summary: creating a storm of mind
Review: Stephen Baxters Manifold series is as good as it gets
in science fiction today. And after
Manifold 1, Time, and Manifold 2, Space, I was
looking forward to Manifold 3, Origin.
Expectations high, if not enormous. Origin begins in the year 2015 when a red moon appears
in the Earths orbit. Scientists scramble to understand what
is on the big red moon and how it got there.
Eventually, Manifold heroes Reid Malenfant, his wife Emma,
and Japanese scientist Nemoto
ends up on the new moon.
We are then presented with a journey of survival. Which
reminds me more of "The Clan of the Cave Bear" by Auel than
the science fiction of Manifold 1 and 2.
A story of Neanderthals figthing Cro-Magnons and other
hominids on a brutal Earth like Luna world.
A world where humans, human ancestors and could-have-been
human forms co-exist. Going overboard in this world of blood and pain -
Where dying without illusions of afterlife,
redemption or hope just saves you a lot of trouble -
Stephen Baxter could have ended up with
a deeply pessimistic book.
But actually he seems to be saying in Manifold 3, Origin,
that the (this) multiverse was created by the far
downstreamers (our children) to avoid "a saga of
meaningless survival in a dismal future of decay and
shadows", but instead a reshaped multiverse
that creates a storm of mind. So, here (on the new Moon) we have blood and pain.
And we know that given sufficient time, the universe
itself is doomed as the 'heat death' kills
off the expanding universe. But by creating the multiverse, filled with different
kinds of lonely hominids in brutal worlds, the far
downstreamers (our god-like children) actually also
creates the worlds filled with mind. And so everything is alright?
Actually, I am not completely convinced,
and would have liked to seen this explored
further. Perhaps at the expense of Stephen Baxters (too)
long depiction of the horrible hardships on
this Luna world.
Still, after Manifold 1 and 2 there is no escape, you have
to read manifold 3 as well. -Simon
Rating: 
Summary: Horrible! Don't waste your money!
Review: This book is garbage. Don't let Stephen Baxter's awesome previous works persuade you to buy this idiotic waste of paper. I had some serious doubts at the start of Manifold: Space, because it seemed to be a re-hash of Time. What the --? It almost seemed like a cheap money-making scheme put upon sci-fi fans. space was *almost* too dull for me, but I did finish it. I was hoping that Origin would explain this stupid series and pull it all together, but NO! Instead, we are left with a bunch more dis-jointed and meaningless scenes that have absolutely no bearing on the plot--which, by the way, I have given up trying to figure out. A book shouldn't be this hard to read. I kept turning page after page *looking* for the plot, hoping it would just pop out at any minute, but I was very frustrated and sad when I'd read 3/4 of the book and still nothing made any sense. this is a terrible example of Baxter's work and should have never been written. He should have taken the time to properly explain this story. Instead, Baxter is hung up trying to prove that evolution works despite the uncontrollable amount of contradictory evidence that continues to disprove Darwin. What's with these sci-fi writers grasping at wild fantasies to try to explain the flawed theory of evolution in recent years? I'm thinking of Greg Bear and Baxter chopping down the same tree. the result is, several thousand trees sacrificed to publish their books in an attempt to describe the destruction of earth's environment and how homo sapiens deserves to go extinct or some such nonsense. I fear Baxter is going the way of L.Ron, having run out of steam, falling onto religious-philosophical theories. Does success as a sci-fi writer give one a feeling of responsibility for humanity, or does it become a medium for political/environmental propaganda along the author's worldview? I worry about future Baxter books, so I will read reviews before buying another one. I hope he gets back on track and gets off the wacky evolution train he's stuck on.
Rating: 
Summary: Manifold: Not_Original
Review: This book started out with a bang! I loved the first person narrative from a hominid view point and as usual, I really enjoyed Stephen Baxter's literary style. What really disappointed me was the cliche use of the "inquisition" type characters who are sexually repressed and ultimately evil. I also think that the story could have done without the gratuitous amount of violence, especially sexually related violence and violence against infant hominids. I got the point regarding humanity's view of lower life forms early on in the book and I resented the message being pounded on me through out the book. In addition, was this deja vu, or was Stephen recycling a lot of his ideas from his first two Manifold books? I really enjoy Stephen Baxter's writing and I thought that his first books were great science fiction. This book lacked any hard science fiction and was geared more toward a sociological observation of both the nature of evolution and how man's cruelty is related to his stage of evolution. I wish that Mr. Baxter would have taken more time on this book and allowed his imagination to travel past the Red Moon. Had there been more interesting and interactive characters (instead of saving them for a sequel), I would have given this book a much higher rating.
Rating:
Summary: Manifold: Baxter
Review: This is a third volume in the Manifold series; the same characters reappear in a different universe. Now, I agree with other reviewers. This book contained far too much violence and the Zealots (the "villains") were disappointing. Baxter does best with antagonists who are never seen, such as his mysterious Xeelee Sequence. As mentioned, characterization is as weak here as for Baxter's predecessor, Larry Niven.
The ending was very sad and left me thinking: in *Manifold:Time: Malenfant and the super-children collapse the universe and create a myriad of potential universes. At the end of *Origin* we're told that the Red Moon (itself reminiscent of Baxter's *Moonseed*) wanders between a series of parallel Earths. *Manifold:Space* presumably happens in a universe outside this circuit, as its galaxy contains myriad intelligent species.
These books had several interesting themes in common: Malenfant's journey and ultimate death, love and faith as essential to human existence, the Neandertal toolmaking as a meditation, malfunctioning and meaningless supertechnology, and a vast, incredible view of all reality that dwarfs most sf writers' abilities to make their readers *see*. (The black hole miners, mentioned in the first and third book, are an idea so amazing that they deserve a whole novel...) The extremely depressing tone of all Baxter's writings is present here as well, and makes this less satisfying a read than it would have been if he let his heroes win for once. Overall, a strange series that reveals this writer's weaknesses as much as his strengths. A writer who has to reuse so much material needs to slow down or stop until he has more to work with.
Rating:
Summary: Canibals in spaaaace!
Review: This is an extended meditation on the Fermi paradox, the idea that if intelligent life existed elsewhere in the universe we should already have encountered it. Baxter's solution to the paradox is to suggest that our close hominid relatives - Neanderthals, homo erectus etc are the intelligent neighbours we never noticed. However, don't let this philosophical musing put you off. The novel is a cracking good thriller, often dark and violent, sometimes tender and humane. The earth's moon is suddenly replaced by a mysterious new one. Malenfant's wife is marooned there so he sets off on a mission to rescue her. On the way he learns the secret of the red moon and of the evolutionary tinkering it represents. This is the first Stephen Baxter book I've read. Although it is at the end of a trilogy of novels I didn't feel as though I'd missed anything by not having read the other two first.
Baxter is sometimes mentioned in relation to 'hard science fiction', a phrase that puts me off. If you are similarly affected by the threat of too much physics and not enough story, do not be put off reading 'Origin'. It is an intelligent, easy read, with plenty of plot, enough characterisation to keep readers happy, and really not that many complicated spaceships.
Rating:
Summary: Decent, but not as good as the first two
Review: This third Manifold novel starts in time about half-way between the first two, in 2015. But that doesn't really matter because they are all three set in universes parallel to each other, and could each stand alone. In this version, Malenfant and his wife Emma are separated when she is thrown onto the Red Moon, which suddenly replaces our own familiar Luna one day. She survives, interacting with the local hominid peoples, while Malenfant mounts a NASA expedition to rescue her with the help of Nemoto. Parallel versions of each of these characters play roles in the first two books. In fact, this book is primarily about Emma, who is nothing more than a tattered photograph in Manifold:Space.
I found this story, unlike the first two, to be quite gory, with abundant descriptions of rape, torture, and cannibalism. I'm not sure if all that was necessary - except to show the pervasiveness of that across all the hominid species, and how it is a factor in evolution. The portrayal of Michael Praisegod, whose culture if not biology is close to our own, shows the use of more modern cultural institutions such as religion are not proof against the brutality.
Thematically, I think the hominid species can be categorized into two camps - with most in a static stagnant relationship with the universe, while a few are growth and expansion oriented. Baxter's position seems to be that both are flawed. With an infinity of time and space to play out to their logical outcomes, it's hard to find much ultimate hope - other than local and temporary happiness along the way.
Overall, I have to say that Baxter's Evolution is a more satisfying and enjoyable exploration of the concept of past and future evolution than this, although this one needs to be seen in the context of the series it is a part of.
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