8,000 years ago Europe was a very different place. England was linked to Holland by a massive swathe of land. Where the North Sea is now lay the landmass of Northland. And then came a period of global warming, a shifting of continents and, over a few short years, the sea rushed in and our history was set. But what if the sea had been kept at bay? Brythony is a young girl who lives in Northland. Like all her people she is a hunter gatherer, her simple tools fashioned from flint cutting edges lodged in wood and animal bone. When the sea first encroaches on her land her people simply move. Brythony moves further travelling to Asia. Where she sees mankind's first walled cities. And gets an idea. What if you could build a wall to keep the sea out? And so begins a colossal engineering project that will take decades, a wall that stretches for hundreds of miles, a wall that becomes an act of defiance, and containing the bones of the dead, an act of devotion. A wall that will change the geography of the world. And it's history. Stephen Baxter has become expert at embedding human stories into the grandest sweeps of history and the most mind-blowing of concepts. STONE SPRING begins a trilogy that will tell the story of a changed world. It begins in 8,000 BC with an idea and ends in 1500 in a world that never saw the Roman Empire, Christianity or Islam. It is an eye-opening look at what history could so easily have been and an inspiring tale of how we control our future.
Stone Spring (Gollancz)
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Book Description
The epic story of one prehistoric girl's bid to change her future and the future of our world. This is alternate history at its most mindblowing.
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
About the Author
Stephen Baxter is the pre-eminent SF writer of his generation. Published around the world he has also won major awards in the UK, US, Germany, and Japan. Born in 1957 he has degrees from Cambridge and Southampton. He lives in Northumberland with his wife.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I'm late to the party with Baxter. I came on board with Flood, wholly because I'm only interested in fantasy/sci-fi set in the world I know. This tells the story of Doggerland (renamed Northland here) before the sea rises of 6000BC submerged it and cut Britain off from mainland Europe. It's a "what if" - the question being what if Doggerland was never submerged, and this - the first book in a trilogy - tells the story of how that might have happened. It's full of solid characters, measured pathos, and often exciting action. And you learn stuff! 4 stars.
By Peter Suydam
Format:Kindle Edition
Quite a departure from Baxter's usually fast-paced, space & time sweeping epics.
Extreme attention to detail and personality development - almost microscopically so.
An enjoyable read, but slow and sometimes plodding.
Don't know if I could make it through 2 more of these boggy slogs, but will give 'Bronze' a try in hope that it moves along with a bit more pace.
So many great writers seem to produce more lugubrious works as they over-mature. Hopefully, Stephen will not exhibit such a denouement just yet, as he is capable of attaining even greater heights.
Extreme attention to detail and personality development - almost microscopically so.
An enjoyable read, but slow and sometimes plodding.
Don't know if I could make it through 2 more of these boggy slogs, but will give 'Bronze' a try in hope that it moves along with a bit more pace.
So many great writers seem to produce more lugubrious works as they over-mature. Hopefully, Stephen will not exhibit such a denouement just yet, as he is capable of attaining even greater heights.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I am afraid that I made a mistake buying this book. I have most of this author's work to date so bought this one without any hesitation. I was expecting science fiction, but instead got a rather 'cardboard' attempt at recreating the deep past. Lots of research had obviously been done, but after a few hundred pages of info-dumped details about plants and animals, and a stereotyped set of characters (the nice guy, his macho father, the independent-minded woman he loves etc,) I had had enough. Apparently there is an 'alternative history' thread driving this (and two later novels) about confronting climate change and remaking our future as a result.There could well be some interesting science fiction written about the really giant leaps made in prehistory (intelligence, speech, tools, fire, farming etc) but this novel seems to want to go for trilogy length by attenuating out a very thin 'master plot' way beyond its natural length. A short story would have sufficed
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
A very good story despite its flaws
Baxter has long since established himself as having a great talent of speculation, and he demonstrates here that he's just as good at doing it in the stone age as he is in the... Read more
Published 20 months ago by just another customer
3.0 out of 5 stars
A fine story, but logistically implausible
I expected to hate this book. It's set in the Mesolithic, in an age when the North Sea was still mostly land, and tells an alternate history of how a tribe of primitives kept the... Read more
Published 20 months ago by D. R. Cantrell
4.0 out of 5 stars
Enjoyable Read
Another great read from Baxter, combining a good story and characters with an intriguing alternative past. I look forward to reading the next book in this series.
Published 21 months ago by Mr. Andrew Williams
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great "Alternative History".
I loved this e-book, could not put my Kindle down. Stephen Baxter has used his scientific and archaeological background, together with his Arthur C Clarke collaboration influences,... Read more
Published 23 months ago by Rw Williams
3.0 out of 5 stars
Different Baxter but not his best
I have read most of Stephen Baxter's works and have enjoyed all of them, this is no exception. An alternative history set 8000 years BC with some interesting characters and... Read more
Published on 21 April 2011 by Kristopher Gray
4.0 out of 5 stars
Baxter magic
If you love your alternate history books, then you've more than likely come across Stephen's work before. Read more
Published on 30 July 2010 by Gareth Wilson - Falcata Times Blog
2.0 out of 5 stars
For the SF uninitated, poor read.
This is what my English Master at school would call PULP FICTION, something to read on a plane journey or while on holiday, if you are really bored. Read more
Published on 7 July 2010 by RoyJ
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Read
I read other books by Stephen Baxter and loved them. So when I heard about his new book I was hooked. It won't be available from Amazon.com or .ca until spring 2011. Read more
Published on 28 Jun 2010 by Danny
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