What do You think about Exultant (2005)?
Exultant is the 2nd in the 4 part "Destiny's Children" series. I found it superior to the story told in part 1. Baxter does not write what I would call classic sci-fi. He writes like the good and capable story teller that he is; creating wide-sweeping and complex scenarios that generally sustain a readers' attention. This story is set far, far in the future; in the 3rd expansion of human-kind into the universe. There is much sort of technical detail in this story that doesn't really work for me, which I tend to scan quickly as it seems to add little whether I "get it" or not. Still the story was decent and well paced. Not sure if I will continue with parts 3 and 4 anytime soon though. Perhaps in a review that point is the most telling!
—Peter Walton-Jones
I would definitely call Stephen Baxter's Exultant an interesting book, but I would be hard-pressed to recommend it to anyone. It has some very exciting SF concepts, but they are buried in a plot that makes so litle sense and dialog that will make you cringe.Baxter is a man of ideas, but it seems he is too busy pondering grand concepts to put them in the proper context of a good story. There are truly mind-boggling concepts; even too many, it seems, because some have barely a page or two of development. The most extreme was 'Concept space', a mind-boggling concept which is used merely to provide a deus ex machina solution to the protagonists.If at least the hard SF was solid enough despite the weak plot... As it happens, some concepts are hastily thrown together, then conveniently circumvented when they are no longer required. The whole "FTL Foreknowledge" concept, for instance, at the heart of the story, can be waived by the author when he needs the protagonists to fool the Xeelee. Their solution? Use the time-honored but 'risky' 'anti-Tolman manoeuver', which is never explained nor used again. Sigh.Another pet peeve I simply cannot let pass: Commissary Nilis. Nowhere is this guy made sympathetic, with his bumbling attitude, his obvious lack of oratory skills, his habit of walking barefoot everywhere and his smelly feet and armpits(!) Yet he is seen more often than any of the main characters, because he can send Virtuals of himself to annoy all of them at every corner of the Galaxy at the same time. Whenever he let slip a 'My eyes!', I was ready to gouge my own out of their sockets.If you're wondering whether to pick up this book because it is the sequel to 'Coalescent', then don't. Only passing references are made to Coalescent, and the difference in quality between the two books is such that it seems Exultant was written by a 13 year-old who got excited at reading Coalescent.If you must read a Stephen Baxter book, there are much better ones than this one. Coalescent and Manifold:Time are both excellent Baxter novels. This one is not.
—Daniel Roy
A sequel of sorts to Coalescent, this is the story of a millennia long war in the far distant future between an almost Spartan human civilisation & a race of aliens that exist outside the substance of our universe. In simpler terms it deals with a pilot named Pirius & how his potential to change the course of the Galaxy's history. So clearly Baxter felt Coalescent wasn't traditionally sci fi enough & decided to make up for that this time around. I won't even pretend to know anything about quantum physics so I cant speak to the accuracy of how it's depicted here but there is a lot of it. The sheer amount of prose dedicated to science terminology is a little overwhelming, but I found I was able to get the gist of things more often than not. Despite this the book isn't completely dry, there's a well developed character interaction & action (it's also quite a solid science fiction war story) & the plot is well paced. Despite the occasional word dump of physics jargon it's still very readable (once again I say that as someone whose knowledge of that whole area is limited at best) & an original vision of the future that incorporates novel concepts about the origins of the universe.
—Shane Kiely
