Moonseed

Not as breathtaking as Titan by the same author, but interesting nevertheless. Humanity brings doom upon itself by bringing a nano-technological grey goo from the Moon that slowly devours the Earth. This is a sad story where there is a very little hope. The first part is especially poignant - destruction of Edinburgh, misery and human stupidity. The interesting thing in Baxter's books is that his characters are full of flaws - not really typical heroes of SF but very much humans troubled by issues. The book is full of technical details regarding space exploration and geology. Large info-dumps are perhaps a nuisance to some but I enjoy them and Baxter certainly makes the subject interesting.
Some issues I had with the book: one show more particular character behaves in a very unbelievable way - I am taking about a teenager rascal turn into Space Religion Guru, secondly I feel that whole shtick in the end with main character convincing US to give him a nuke, no question asked - that rises some doubts - I understand that it was necessary for a big surprise in the end but still.
In the end - not my favorite Hard SF but certainly memorable. I think I will further my interest into Mr. Baxter's works. show less

Stephen Baxter's work is good hard science fiction, and Moonseed is no exception. It is long and has many characters, but it is a intriguing idea for world disaster, made more so because it doesn't happen over a weekend but takes years to unfold. The political, personal, and technology elements are mixed well.

A slog to get through, at the 50% mark I started skimming chapters, and at 60% I was looking for a summary to get the ending. I enjoyed the premise but the writing didn't flow for me.

So for those in the same boat, you can read below for the spoiler version.


Once they get to the moon to determine why the moonseed acts differently there, the writing is a lot more enjoyable, the cuts back to the Earth where various random people die you can again safely skim/skip.

Henry determines that the moon is also riddled with moonseed, but there is a "hive ship" at the centre which acts as an asimov inhibitor:

"Its cloud of, umm, nano manufacturer insects, is trapped in the Moon's fabric. They stop their destructive behaviour because of some kind of show more asimov inhibitor".

He then decides that if he nukes the moon's pole he will release enough gas and volatiles to make it habitable for Earthlings. This is a success (with the sacrifice of Arkady) and the moonseed helps sustain the reaction. Earth is destroyed but a lot of people are evacuated to the moon. They also test experimental asimov circuits, to see if the Moonseed could be inhibited (it can) and the book ends with the idea that it can be met as an equal to help humanity explore the stars.
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I couldn't finish this book. Too much detail and I couldn't identify with the characters at all.

The story is far-fetched sci-fi, but the science was interesting and made me think I wanted to do a little amateur reading. Not a bad author.

Very slow, i did plough through it though, started off promising

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