Vacuum Diagrams: Stories of the Xeelee Sequence

Rating:
Summary: possibly?
Review: This novel is long, and it does get dry at some times, but some of the stories are remotely interesting. I liked parts of the book, (it's made of 23 short stories SB wrote and published in magazines.) but the characters were constantly being throw out, leaving you wondering: why? Overall, I use this book as a guide of what NOT to do to a character in a novel, but it also gives you an okay, and somewhat comprehensive idea of what quantum physics are about. Read Hawking's "Brief History of Time" for clarification on some points. I just don't understand what some stories had to do with the novel.

Rating:
Summary: A superb collection of refreshing ideas
Review: Vacuum Diagrams is a collection of short stories which are more or less related to the grand background theme that Baxter calls "Xeelee Sequence" - a vast vision of the history of the Universe spanning a period of 5 million years, depicting the rise, fall and rebirth of mankind and its participation in the epic battle between two vastly superior but incompatible life forms. There stories range from those that are light and entertaining (like "The Xeelee Flower" or "Pilot"), to stories that carry deep phylosophical shades ("The Sun-People", "Cilia-Of-Gold", "Vacuum Diagrams") that rise questions about the role of intelligence, about destiny and fate, about logic and chance. Above everything else, the stories are deeply humanistic and show that we should value much more things that we take for granted. If you like Clarke, Simak or Heinlein, then I think you'll love this book.

Rating:
Summary: Dull and quite heavy !
Review: When I first read stephen baxter's book "Time Ships", I was very satisfied with it. It has grandiose theme and very intriguing. I expected the same when I bought this "vacuum diagrams". But it seems that the quality of this title is not on the same class with "Time Ships". Baxter is not good on characterization but technically he knows the science well. However, I can only browse half of this book since it is boring and dull, also the science description is long and heavy.