Rating: 
Summary: An Engaging Read
Review: I too enjoyed reading Baxter's account of a hive mentality and how he alternated the story line between the past and present. My overall impression was that it was smartly written and thought out. I found it easy to relate to the protagonist George Poole, a man in his forties coming to grips with his family and the problems facing him. For the most part, I found the entire tale realistic and plausible. The life story and tribulations of Regina, the progenitor, comprising a good portion of the book was detailed, cogent, and interesting. The ending was not what I expected yet satisfying, excepting the role Peter (George's friend) played in the end, where I found it to be a bit far fetched. So while the book is not what one may think of as stereotypical Stephen Baxter, vis-Ã -vis the Manifold Trilogy, all in all, with this book, I've come to the conclusion that anything he writes, is worth reading. Mr. Baxter is just that good.
Rating:
Summary: Slow, but BOY does it come together in the end!
Review: I wish there was a way to force people to read this book without any sort of foreknowledge of what it is. I got into it without having read Baxter before, and vaguely aware it had SF-ish concepts in it. As a result, this novel blew my socks off.
This is indeed a SF novel, but a very strange one indeed. A solid half of the novel concerns a British girl, Regina, trying to survive the Fall of the Roman Empire, while the other half of the book shows mild-mannered George on the lookout for his long-lost twin sister.
How does it all come together? Do yourself a favor, skip all the other reviews, and read it to find out for yourself. Let me simply say that by laying down his concepts in such a subtle, thought-out manner, Baxter managed to pack an incredible punch in his reflexions on the nature of human societies and their evolution. It's all the more thought-provoking that he elected to carry out his concepts in historical Earth instead of some far-future society.
In short, Coalescent is a unique, immensely thought-provoking book. The writing is uneven, some parts are very slow and sometimes downright useless, and you'll be hard-pressed at first to find SF in the adventures of a young post-Roman Brit on the run. But trust me, the payoff will make it all worthwhile.
Post-scriptum: Although this book is identified as Book 1 of the 'Destiny's Children' trilogy, be advised that Coalescent is self-contained and reading the greatly inferior Book 2, 'Exultant', is NOT required.
Rating: 
Summary: Definitely Not a Page-Turner
Review: I've been a big fan of Stephen Baxter's work over the years, and much admired his best novels, like Titan and Voyage and Moonseed. He has been one of the best novelists to carry on the tradition of good, solid, interesting, hard sci-fi. But I am about 300 pages into Coalescent and can find little to recommend it. The historical characters are barely two-dimensional and the modern ones little better. The two alternating stories that make up Coalescent have too little intrinsic interest to sustain the reader's attention. The only reason to slog through Coalescent is if you intend to read the two promised follow-on novels that make up the trilogy, as it doesn't generate much interest of its own. Baxter has become one of the most prolific sci-fi writers, but I think Coalescent shows he is now spreading himself too thin.
Rating: 
Summary: Not one of his best ...
Review: Not up to Stephen Baxter's usual standard. Even the theme jarred with his previous works, leading to a general feeling of dissatisfaction with the whole offering. It's by no means a bad book, but fans will I think be disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: Engaging Story
Review: Stephen Baxter has grown as a writer with this new book. It captures so much of the ambience of ancient Rome as it weaves back in forth from that harrowing time of Germanic tribes and Roman decay to the modern, with George Poole, our modern protagonist, searching and finding his mysterious long lost sister. The divergently evolved human hive underneath Rome is believeable on many levels. I enjoyed the glimpses into the deep future, with the eusocial humanoids having created hives on other plants during a great human expansion into the galaxy. Very good Book!!
Rating:
Summary: Moderately Interesting
Review: The prolific Stephen Baxter returns with a novel about human evolution. In this book, he develops the idea that human sub-species could develop along the lines of eusocial insects. This is presented in the form of a thick novel with 2 parallel plot lines. One is a contemporary story about an individual discovering the human hive, the second is essentially a historical novel detailing the events leading to the formation of the hive's precursor. Baxter is not a particularly gifted writer. His character development and style is pedestrian. As is the case with much science fiction, the success of the book resides in the interest of the basic idea. Baxter has mixed success in this respect. This is certainly not the first science fiction novel to deal with the idea of a human eusocial subspecies. Older readers may recall Frank Herbert's Hellstrom's Hive and there are other books with this theme. Baxter is, however, the first writer who attempts to construct a mechanism for the emergence of a eusocial human subspecies. He has mixed success. With the two parallel plot lines, he skips from the precursor of the human hive to its finished product. There aren't any plausible steps in between, just some handwaving that evolution can be rapid. In a really well written book, this kind of gimicry would be acceptable but in a potboiler like this, its unsatisfying.
Rating:
Summary: Well worth sticking through the slow bits
Review: This was actually the first book of Baxter's that I had read, and while I'll agree with the previous reviewers that the book did drag in places, I felt it well worth my time and money to make it to the ending. I actually really appreciated his efforts at characterization and description, although I did feel this came through much better in the ancient weave of the story than in the modern.
A friend summed up what he thought as the main reason why many of Baxter's fans weren't as fond of this book as his others -- unlike the other Baxter books, my friend labeled this one as "girl science fiction". I can't say whether or not that is true -- but I am without a Y chromosome myself, and was drawn to this book even though I've never felt an urge to read any of his other books (even after thumbing through them).
Rating:
Summary: You should read it, and you'll see why it got many 4's.
Review: You'll notice many reviewers could not get themselves to give this book a 5, and neither can I. On the other hand, I found it one of the more memorable SF books I've read, and I've read quite a few. So I recommend it strongly, specially for the insights into Roman Britain and hive mentality-what a combination-and it is a heck of a read. I stayed up very late reading a big part of it. You'll also see it is a book in need of editing, which could have turned into a classic.
|
