Phase Space collects
twenty-five of Stephen Baxter’s short stories originally published
between 1997 and 2002. Gleaned
from sources as disparate as Future Histories and Analog,
the stories present the broad canvas on which Baxter paints his
different visions of the future and past, although none of the stories
fit into his long-running Xeelee sequence.
Baxter attempts to
incorporate a framing mechanism into Phase Space, however, the
stories come from such a variety of sources of inspiration and are,
thematically, so different, that the framing mechanism is not needed.
Fortunately, it is also not intrusive and the reader can simply
skip over the italicized passages which introduce many (but not all) of
the sections into which the stories are divided.
Readers are better served by his afterword, which explains the
origins of many of the stories and provides additional insight into his
creative processes.
The stories in Phase
Space can often be grouped into sections which reflect on-going
interests by Baxter. Alternate
history is examined in “Tracks,” “The Twelfth Album,” “War
Birds,” and other stories. Baxter
also frequently looks at strange creatures, almost as a thought
experiment to see if he can make them work.
These latter stories include “Sheena 5,” “The Fubar
Suit,” and “Sun-Cloud.” These
grouping allow the reader to see how Baxter’s examination of related
subjects has changed over time.
Traditionally, the draw of
science fiction has been the “sensawundah.”
Baxter fully dives into the ideas that make the reader think
“wow.” These can take
the form of a moon that orbits through parallel universes in “Grey
Earth,” the ultimate fate of lands that have disappeared in “Lost
Continent,” or the idea of contacting a dead priest who was
translating Dante. While
the last idea may not seem like a sensawundah idea, in “Dante
Dreams,” Baxter totally captures the reader’s imagination.
Baxter’s “The Gravity
Mine” is an almost Stapledonian view of the future of humanity. While Olaf Stapledon carefully plotted out every stage of
human evolution in Last and First Men and depicted most of them,
Baxter looks at a single individual, Anlic, and follows her as she
remains the same but the universe (and humanity) evolves around her
until her way of living is inconceivable to those with whom she
communicates.
Some
of Baxter’s more scientifically theoretical stories can be obscure.
In most cases he is able to bring them a fictional sensibility
which will draw in the reader and he can explain the theories he has
used as inspiration to the stories in a way which makes them
comprehensible.
On
the whole, Phase Space provides an excellent introduction to
Baxter’s writing, demonstrating his strengths and weaknesses in a
variety of different types of stories.
The ability to trace themes through several stories adds to the
strength of the collection in a way which provides depth beyond what any
of the individual stories achieve.
