Book Review: Stephen Baxter's "Evolution"

03/02/03 00:00:00    

By Michael Mealling

Stephen Baxter has to be the best hard SF writer. Not only do you always get a good story, but you end up learning a lot about the various fields he decides to cover in the story. His most recent book, Evolution, tracks human evolution from just before the dinosaur extinction event all the way through to the planetary nebula. The most impactful thing about the book is that we die out around 2050 due to a large volcanic explosion in southeastern Asia. My immediate response to that was a mind numbing, “We should have done better than that.” But this morning I read the news and I modified that to a depressing, “I sure wish we could do better than that.”.

Anyway, as with all Baxters books, well worth the read….