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Raft
Raft | Stephen Baxter
3 posts | 1 read | 4 to read
Stephen Baxter's highly acclaimed first novel and the beginning of his stunning Xeelee Sequence finally enters the SF Masterwork series! 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. These can be traded for food from the Raft, a structure built from the wreckage of the ship, on which a small group of scientists preserve the ancient knowledge which makes survival possible. Rees is a Miner whose curiosity about his world makes him stow away on a flying tree - just one of the many strange local lifeforms - carrying trade between the Belt and the Raft. And what he finds will change his world...
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review
TalecArashi
Raft | Stephen Baxter
post image
Mehso-so

I didn't know until I was partway into the book, but it seems this was Baxter's first published novel.. and in the early 90's 😯 for some reason he always struck me as having started a decade earlier, it's odd.
Anyway, it *does* feel like a First Novel (compared to his later works, of which I have read many but not all), but it's nowhere near as rough as that *could* mean. 👇
feat. unrelated photo of a November dandelion b/c my book is downstairs.

TalecArashi It has the Awkward Pubescent Feelings plot-aside that I'm not fond of, but the novel actually treats its lady characters pretty well. The science is intriguing but the ending twists are barely foreshadowed... Basically, it's a microcosm of his later works while not as well edited. So.. it's a first novel! 5y
TalecArashi Now I wanna reread the se/prequel, 5y
9 likes2 comments
blurb
TalecArashi
Raft | Stephen Baxter
post image

Had to finish this in a hotel room! I'll do a review later, when I'm not about to leave the hotel wifi 😅

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blurb
TalecArashi
Raft | Stephen Baxter
post image

I'm happy that this is already in the database and I don't have to turn on my PC to add it 😂 but I disapprove of the cover art it has there! That's not what the Raft looks like!! *omg nitpicking*
Here's what it should be ;D guest-starring Corvus (I told you I had more than one cat!)
#scifi #CatsOfLitsy

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