- Paperback: 544 pages
- Publisher: Voyager; New Ed edition (2 Aug 1999)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0006498132
- ISBN-13: 978-0061059032
- Product Dimensions: 17.4 x 10.4 x 3.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
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Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
17,674 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #52 in Books > Fiction > Science Fiction > Classics
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Stephen Baxter established himself as a major British sci-fi author with tales of exotic, far-future technology. More recently, in Voyage, Titan and now Moonseed, he shows his love for the hardware of the real world's space programme. (Comparisons with Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff have been frequent.) Moonseed is a spectacular disaster novel whose threat to Earth comes from a long-forgotten Moon rock sample carrying strange silver dust that seems to be alien nanotechnology-- molecule-sized machines. Accidentally spilt in Edinburgh, this "Moonseed" quietly devours stone and processes it into more Moonseed. Geology becomes high drama: when ancient mountains turn to dust, the lid is taken off seething magma below. Volcanoes return to Scotland, and Krakatoa-like eruptions spread Moonseed around the world. A desperate, improvised US/Russian space mission heads for the Moon to probe the secret of how our satellite has survived uneaten. Baxter convincingly shows how travel costs could be cut, with a hair-raising descent on a shoestring lunar lander that makes Apollo's look like a luxury craft. The climax brings literally world-shaking revelations and upheavals. Moonseed is a ripping interplanetary yarn. -- David Langford
Review
‘This is this year’s great disaster novel’
Daily Mirror
‘You don’t blow up the planet in the first reel unless you’ve got something really spectacular for the third. And Baxter does… in the end, MOONSEED is a terrific, full-featured apocalypse, with plenty of buttons to push for the techs and lots of lava.’
Locus
‘Gripping, well-researched and intelligent.’
Focus
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First Sentence
Look up. Tracy. Look at the Moon. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
Look up. Tracy. Look at the Moon. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
When I first began reading 'Moonseed' I had very little idea that by the end of the novel so much would have happened. Baxter has crammed into this novel a huge amount of material, creating a disaster of such a scale that it becomes difficult by the end to fully visualise the magnitude of the damage and destruction. 'Moonseed' is a brilliant creation: with apparent ease it creates a plausible scientific framework in which a completely unforseen chain of events leads to planetary-wide disaster, and on top of this it tells of how individuals survive or die in the their individual cirmustances. On one level it is a scientific masterpiece; a complex exploration of not only a huge 'primary' disaster but also of secondary catyclisms, and of tertiary effects. On another level, it is a story of raw human bravery and raw human fear. One of the most touching scenes is a description of how a small boy saves his grandfather's life with a lot of bandages and the plastic envelope of a 'New Scientist' subscription: by allowing us to believe, through excellent writing, extraordinary circumstances, we are also able to believe in extraordinary human feats.
And there is more again: the disaster is not all. Another aspect of 'Moonseed' is space. Space: the exploration of it, and the journeying into it. Space is of huge importance to 'Moonseed', because from space comes the disaster, and to space travels a scientist in an attempt to provide a solution. Baxter draws up (via careful real-life research) an audacious, rough-and-ready, and highly dangerous mission to the Moon, twenty or more years after the Moon missions have ended. A combination of Space Shuttle missions, Soyuz missions, and International Space Station stop-offs provide the framework - and a little bit of gaffer tape, and very short-notice planning, does the rest. Reading 'Moonseed' now, after the loss of the Space Shuttle Columbia, is an odd experience, because on the one hand it confirms the dangers involved in all space travel, and on the other hand it confirms that there is a good and wise reason to be trying, no matter what the problems and potential perils. But like Baxter's novel 'Voyage', 'Moonseed' evokes a hair-prickling sense-of-wonder through its descriptions of space travel, and that will appeal to many sf readers.
Then, when you think one novel can contain no more, Baxter ends 'Moonseed' with a mind-bogglingly described scenario in which the cause of the disasters on Earth offers, in a truly unexpected way, a solution to the damage and destruction caused. The destroyer becomes the rescuer.
But even that doesn't fully communicate the amount of action and drama and narrative contained within 'Moonseed': it is a huge novel, overflowing with ideas. Baxter clearly has a passion for what he writes about. Let us be thankful that he carried on writing, when he was unable to become an astronaut.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I love this book. It's brilliantly written with the best use of science of in any Sci-fi book I have ever read. The characters are excellent and described to perfection.
The idea of the book, Earth being destroyed by the introduction of an exterestrial bacteria, is truly scary. The way Baxter handles the destruction and fear in the population is beautiful.
So, your wondering why only the four stars. The answer is simple. The end is a let down which leaves a sour taste in your mouth just when you should feel great. It's not that what happens is bad, just that it's not given its full justice. It's rushed, nothing more. More description and explanation would have been welcome.
But don't let this put you off too much. this is still a great book using great science and is well worth reading.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I really liked this book. Not only because I am from Edinburgh and so know many of the places described in the book, but also because it is a science fiction book on the scale of Greg Bear with a runaway plot much like Tom Clancy.
The gradual disintegration of the Earth by the Moonseed makes a great plotline that Baxter follows through to the exciting finale. A great yarn. The sort of big book you take on holiday expecting to get halfway through in two weeks but then find yourself finished after two days of through the night reading. Few other books have done this for me - Clancy's Red Storm Rising and Sum of All Fears, Greg Bear's Eon, Asimov's Foundation series are among the few others.
A word of warning though. Baxter doesn't seem to have a wholly consistent style across his books. I have just finished his novel Time and was frankly disappointed. He seemed to have a good idea that ran out of steam halfway through and resorted to hard sci-fi as a means to get through to the end with that one. But Moonseed is excellent and a thoroughly recommended read.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Good idea, Promise not fulfilled
I have tried a few Stephen Baxter books and I don't think i'll be trying many more. The basis of this is the interesting concept that humanity will be forced to evacuate the Earth... Read more
Published on 12 Nov 2007 by Zaphod Beeblebrox
Ticket to the Moon
Moonseed is a strange novel, reading like a collision between Baxter's usual hard-SF style and the sort of set-pieces (and clichés) one would expect from a typical 1970's... Read more
Published on 25 Mar 2006 by Jane Aland
Love it
This book is simply great. It blends Greg Bear Eon-esque scale with good ol' fashioned sci-fi hero romps to give a book that you find really hard to put down, despite it's... Read more
Published on 1 May 2003 by G. Williams
An interesting idea let down by poor writing
This is the second Baxter book I've read and I think it will be the last. I wanted to give him a second chance after my disappointment with the dreadful 'Raft' and, to be fair,... Read more
Published on 5 Jan 2001
Baxter's Worse Book
Oh dear, what went wrong? A book written squarely with an eye on Hollywood - "please film me!". Very cinematic but really very dull to read. Read more
Published on 5 Jun 2000
Very good but....
This is the first Stephen Baxter book I have read, and I must say for most of this book I was very impressed. Read more
Published on 4 April 2000 by tonylogan@font.freeserve.co.uk
Too much disaster, too little action?
Stephen Baxter's Moonseed is a disaster tale on epic scale. When an Edinburgh University technician gives his sister a vial full of stolen moondust a chain of events is set into... Read more
Published on 14 Nov 1999
Thought provoking
Moonseed takes the disaster novel to an extreme, mixing sci-fi convincingly with a fair sprinkling of fact, enough to make you think. Read more
Published on 7 Sep 1999
Another Brilliant Hard-SF Novel
Stephen Baxter is now a well-known name amongst SF enthusiasts in the UK and elsewhere. He writes of extremely theorectical scientific matters in an absorbing and exciting... Read more
Published on 28 April 1999
Enthralling disaster on a global scale!
Those familiar with Larry Nivens 'The Hole Man' (1975) will find themselves perfectly at home within the huge scope that is Stephen Baxters 'Moonseed'. Read more
Published on 16 Mar 1999
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