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Stephen Baxter - Raft (2nd Hand Paperback)
SKU B002846
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1 available
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£2.70
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Original price
£2.70
Original price
£2.70
£2.70
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£2.70
Current price
£2.70
Synopsis
Raft is a 1991 hard science fiction book by British writer Stephen Baxter. Raft is both Baxter's debut novel and the first book in the Xeelee Sequence, although the Xeelee are not present. Raft was nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 1992.
A spaceship from Earth accidentally crossed through a hole in space-time to a universe where the force of gravity is one billion times as strong as the gravity we know. Somehow the crew survived, aided by the fact that they emerged into a cloud of gas surrounding a black hole, which provided a breathable atmosphere.
Five hundred years later, their descendants still struggle for existence, divided into two main groups. The Miners live on the Belt, a ramshackle ring of dwellings orbiting the core of a dead star, which they excavate for raw materials. These can be traded for food from the Raft, a structure built from the wreckage of the ship, on which a small group of scientists preserve the ancient knowledge which makes survival possible.
Rees is a Miner whose curiosity about his world makes him stow away on a flying tree - just one of the many strange local lifeforms - carrying trade between the Belt and the Raft. Accepted as an apprentice scientist, he learns that their world is dying, and that in order to live these survivors must contemplate a journey even more perilous and fantastic than that of their ancestors.
Details
- Format : Standard 2nd Hand Paperback
- Condition : Good (Almost Very Good)
- Category : Fiction - Science Fiction
- Published : 1991 (This Edition 2018 - Gollancz)
- ISBN : 9781473224056
- SKU : B002846
- PPC : LL300gm
- RRP : £9.99
- Quantity Available : 1 only.
External Reviews
‘The most important living science-fiction writer in the country’ - The Times.
‘The best SF writer in Britain’ - SFX.
'Raft is fast paced, strong on suspense, efficiently written, and has moral weight, but it is in the creation of a genuinely strange and believable new universe that Baxter excels . . . rigorous, vigorous SF at its enjoyable best' - Time Out.
'Raft is almost perfect . . . it is very, very hard SF and it’s great fun.' - SFX.
The Author
Stephen Baxter is a trained engineer with degrees from Cambridge (mathematics) and Southampton Universities (doctorate in aeroengineering research). Baxter is the winner of the British Science Fiction Award and the Locus Award, as well as being a nominee for an Arthur C. Clarke Award, most recently for Manifold: Time. His novel Voyage won the Sidewise Award for Best Alternate History Novel of the Year; he also won the John W. Campbell Award and the Philip K. Dick Award for his novel The Time Ships. He is currently working on his next novel, a collaboration with Sir Arthur C. Clarke. Mr. Baxter lives in Prestwood, England.
Featured Author . . . Stephen Baxter