Moonseed [Hardcover]

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

‘The best SF author in Britain’
SFX

‘Good science by someone who knows what he is talking about’
Sunday Telegraph

‘Baxter recalls the most visionary moments of Wells and Clarke’
Locus

‘Tom Clancy meets Tom Wolfe’
Kirkus Reviews

In the 1970s astronauts brought rock samples back from the Moon. Many remained locked away for decades … including one unique piece of bedrock, the Moonseed. At last exposed to daylight, it proves to be deadly, though not to people. It kills the Earth.

In his new novel, Stephen Baxter, ‘the best SF author in Britain’ (SFX), contemplates rock – living rock. Transported to Earth by Apollo astronaut Jays Malone in 1972, a single shard of bedrock from the Moon contains within its innocuous-looking shell the power to destroy worlds.

Geologist Henry Meacher – his career at JPL in ruins, his marriage over – is given a sample of the Moon bedrock to analyse. He goes with it to Edinburgh University, the only place that will have him. There the deadly Moon rock accidentally comes into contact with the Earth’s core in the form of lava from Edinburgh’s famous extinct volcanoes. It turns solid rock to seething Moonseed dust. Soon perhaps the whole world will be infected.

Inspired, terrified, Henry Meacher is a changed man. If the worst happens, his plan is to take Earth’s displaced peoples from the Earth to the Moon. Baxter’s stunning story is one of disaster, desperate measures and damage limitation, forcing humanity to an excess of ingenuity and courage. Ironically, it is a newly terraformed Moon that holds the key to our survival…

FROM THE MOON TO THE EARTH…

Moonseed arrived on Earth thirty years ago, returning with Apollo astronaut Jays Malone as one of many mineral samples brought back from the Moon. But NASA kept the sample of bedrock in storage… safely locked away for decades. Then geologist Henry Meacher – his career at JPL in ruins, his marriage over – is given the sample to analyse. He goes with it to Edinburgh University, the only place that will have him. And there the deadly Moon rock accidentally comes into contact with the Earth's core in the form of lava from Edinburgh's famous extinct volcanoes. The destruction of Earth, mankind's home, is the inevitable outcome: in just a few years the whole world will be infected, and rock turned to churning Moonseed dust. Henry Meacher is a changed man. Inspired, terrified, he will stop at nothing to save humanity. He will try to persuade the richest nation on Earth in collaboration with Russia to use their rocket power, and their weapons, to take the planet's displaced creatures…

FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON

Praise for Stephen Baxter:

"Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein succeeded in doing it, but very few others. Now Stephen Baxter joins their exclusive ranks… The reaction is that which C.S. Lewis referred to when he described science fiction as the only genuine consciousness-expanding drug… It is a rare thing to find such a good read. Wonderful stuff!
HARRY HARRISON, 'New Scientist'

"Stephen Baxter is carving himself a reputation for extremely adroit, Big Idea hard science fiction… and he doesn't let the gosh-wow speculative elements swamp the human values"
THE DARK SIDE

"A major new talent"
ARTHUR C. CLARKE

Praise for Stephen Baxter's 'Titan':

"A plausible tale of America's last gasp at interplanetary exploration… Stephen Baxter proves what a cosmic thinker he is"
WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLD

"Baxter handles a complex and gripping plot with his customary aplomb… the ending will blow your mind. Buy 'Titan', read it – and then go out and buy everything else that Baxter has ever written.
NEW SCIENTIST

This is a tale of equivalent scope to '2001', while the visions of Titan life have that sense of Clarke-style cosmic sorrow"
SFX

Praise for Stephen Baxter's 'Voyage':

"Tom Clancy meets Tom Wolfe… A wonderful tale of lost possibility"
KIRKUS REVIEWS

"There is real suspense as we trace elaborate chains of chance and expediency leading to the actual mission… 'Voyage' is a splendid nostalgia trip to times when astronauts were still the Right Stuff"
NEW SCIENTIST

"If you liked 'The Right Stuff' you'll like this too"
INTERZONE

Born in 1957 in Liverpool, Baxter was educated at Cambridge and took his doctorate at Southampton University. Until recently he worked in information technology.