- Hardcover: 592 pages
- Publisher: Del Rey Books (Feb 2003)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 034545782X
- ISBN-13: 978-0345457820
- Product Dimensions: 24.2 x 16.1 x 3.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,217,096 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Evolution (GollanczF.)
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
In Evolution, Stephen Baxter explores deep time to dramatise the story of Earth's evolving primates--from tiny shrew-like creatures dodging reptilian predators in the Cretaceous era, to humans of the 21st century and beyond.
The long drama starts with a bang: the Chicxlub meteor impact 65 million years ago--the dinosaur killer--bringing a holocaust of extinctions. Baxter describes that apocalyptic strike and aftermath in lurid, compelling detail.
By now the crater was a glowing bowl of shining, boiling impact melt, wide enough to have engulfed the Los Angeles area from Santa Barbara to Long Beach. And its depth was four times the height of Everest, its lip further above its floor than the tracks of supersonic planes above Earth's surface.
This book's hero is evolution itself, shaping surviving pre-humans into tree dwellers, remoulding a group that drifts from Africa to a (then closer) New World on a raft of debris, confronting others with a terrible dead end as ice clamps down on Antarctica. Elsewhere the river of DNA runs on, and ape-like creatures in North Africa are forced out of dwindling forests to stumble across grasslands where their distant descendants will joyously run.
Although the episodes resonate with one another, each is a separate triumph or tragedy whose early protagonists are uncomprehending animals ("He knew on a deep cellular level that..."). Darwin's imperatives force their successors to grapple with self-awareness, consciousness, memory, abstract thought. Tools emerge, and art, and language. One troubled genius of 60,000 years ago is seen inventing a theory of magic in hope of understanding and controlling the environment--and her contemporaries. Her reward is to become "the first person in all human history to have a name."
The story continues, and the apparent framing narrative--about a last-ditch global conference hoping to solve the ecological nightmares of 2031--is not the end. Baxter's final snapshot is 500 million years in our future....
Enormously ambitious in scope, Evolution shows the whole sweep and precariousness of pre-human and human development. We are so lucky to be here--although, as Baxter makes it clear, the luck may be running out. --David Langford --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
It’s the job of a science fiction writer to visualize extrapolations of the future. But there are those who go far beyond, venturing into realms of breathtaking science. That kind of cutting edge talent is as rare as a supernova—and, in its own way, just as powerful. Arthur C. Clarke had it. So did William Gibson. Now, with Evolution, Stephen Baxter delivers what is sure to be one of the most talked-about books of the year—and shows once again why he belongs among the select company of science fiction writers who matter.
Stretching from the distant past into the remote future, from primordial Earth to the stars, Evolution is a soaring symphony of struggle, extinction, and survival, a dazzling epic that combines a dozen scientific disciplines and a cast of unforgettable characters to convey the grand drama of evolution in all its awesome majesty and rigorous beauty.
Sixty-five million years ago, when dinosaurs ruled the Earth, lived a small mammal, a proto-primate of the species Purgatorius. From this humble beginning, Baxter traces the human lineage forward through time. The adventure that unfolds is a gripping odyssey governed by chance and competition, a perilous journey to an uncertain destination along a route beset by sudden and catastrophic upheavals. It is a route that ends, for most species, in stagnation or extinction. Why should humanity escape this fate?
A generation from today, a group of concerned scientists—distant descendants of that primitive Purgatorius—gathers on a remote island to discuss this very question. The ceaseless expansion of human civilization has triggered an urgent environmental crisis that must be solved now if the Earth is to survive as a place hospitable to human life. But just when a peaceful solution seems within reach, two acts of shocking violence set in motion a cataclysmic chain of events that will expose the limitations of human intellect and adaptability in the face of the blind and implacable processes of Darwin’s dangerous idea.
Stretching from the distant past into the remote future, from primordial Earth to the stars, Evolution is a soaring symphony of struggle, extinction, and survival, a dazzling epic that combines a dozen scientific disciplines and a cast of unforgettable characters to convey the grand drama of evolution in all its awesome majesty and rigorous beauty.
Sixty-five million years ago, when dinosaurs ruled the Earth, lived a small mammal, a proto-primate of the species Purgatorius. From this humble beginning, Baxter traces the human lineage forward through time. The adventure that unfolds is a gripping odyssey governed by chance and competition, a perilous journey to an uncertain destination along a route beset by sudden and catastrophic upheavals. It is a route that ends, for most species, in stagnation or extinction. Why should humanity escape this fate?
A generation from today, a group of concerned scientists—distant descendants of that primitive Purgatorius—gathers on a remote island to discuss this very question. The ceaseless expansion of human civilization has triggered an urgent environmental crisis that must be solved now if the Earth is to survive as a place hospitable to human life. But just when a peaceful solution seems within reach, two acts of shocking violence set in motion a cataclysmic chain of events that will expose the limitations of human intellect and adaptability in the face of the blind and implacable processes of Darwin’s dangerous idea.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent,
By C. A. Gallagher "I am not young enough to kno... (Bristol) - See all my reviews (VINE VOICE) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: Evolution (Gollancz S.F.) (Paperback)
In this book Baxter tells the tale of the rise and fall of human kind as a series of snapshots into the lives of various members of the human evolutionary lineage. From Purga, first of the primates, scurrying between the legs of dinosaurs shortly before the Chicxulub impact through to Ultimate, the last, scratching out an existence on a neo-pangea, 500 million years hence.
I found this a thoroughly entertaining read, if not a terribly uplifiting one (there are no happy endings here), and is one of the best books I have come across in a long while. If I were forced to level criticism I might suggest that it is in places overly anthropomorphic. Also, that some of the themes, from the first half of the book in particular, are slightly repetitive, but I guess one could argue that the fundamentals of life generally boil down to a handful of criteria; eat, don't be eaten, reproduce etc... Overall though I would thoroughly recommend this. Great storytelling from a great storyteller.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
WOW,
By
This review is from: Evolution (Gollancz S.F.) (Paperback)
Evolution is one of those books that causes you - weeks later -to stop and ponder your entire world. Yet again Stephen Baxter manages to educate as well as entertain the reader, as is often the case with his books you come away humbled in your existence.Sadly many people may give up on this book as it does start a little slow and is a big read but you will be gald of that by the end so stick with it! The story starts in the time of the dinosaurs and follows the evolution of the life forms of the time - especially the development and decendancy of one, ours. This book is fasinating to follow the many diverse forms our ancestors may have taken and may yet take. I'm now working my way through all Baxters books, and if you also enjoy enjoy science fiction take a look at his "Manifold" series, more great reads!
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Of Time and Genes,
By Sorek "Zendude" (Tel Aviv) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Evolution (Gollancz S.F.) (Paperback)
Stephen Baxter, author of the satisfyingly ambition The Time Ships, demonstrates his mastery of science fiction in this novel about the path of primate evolution across the eons. Beginning with a small, timid rodent-like primate in the late Cretaceous, we are guided beyond the great catastrophe that ended the dominance of the reptiles into the stream of mammalian development that will culminate in the emergence of our own species. Baxter takes us into the worlds of the pithecines, the Neanderthal, early Homo sapiens, and provides lavish descriptions of the environmental factors which result in growing intelligence and consciousness of life on Earth. It is in this rich background that Baxter reveals his firm grasp of the sciences and he fairly revels in speculation that is entirely plausible. Not content with leaving the reader hanging in the early 21st century, Mr. Baxter proceeds to "run the clock forward" and takes the story of the human family far into the future, offering a window into some of the possible scenarios of life's journey across the changing Earth. All in all, Evolution is an intriguing, absorbing, and compelling look at the saga of life, the struggle of the gene, and the many possibilities of our past and future. One comes away with an intensified appreciation of humankind's heritage and the need to protect our species' home and hard-earned gains.
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