Time

Few would now argue with the fact that Baxter is the prime proponent of hard SF in the UK, the heir apparent of Clarke and Asimov. Readers worried by his massive output (even exceeding the millions of words produced by the far less interesting SF writer L Ron Hubbard since his death) are constantly surprised by his ability to infuse his massive narratives with the imaginative grandeur and much sought-after 'sense of wonder', that only the finest science fiction can produce. The human race has survived unti lthe year 2010. But Taine, the mathematical genius of Eschatology Inc. has predicted that our species has just 200 years left, and even evacuation from Earth will not save us from extinction. Taine's solution is to send an enhanced squid named Sheena 5 to investigate Earth's recently discovered second moon, where the very reason for the existence of the human race hides under the surface of a river. Unusually, Baxter appears to have borrowed a concept from another writer (David Brin's artificially induced evolution of an animal species), but in every other area his originality is incontrovertible. The technical detail is as adroit as his unparalleled narrative skills. (Kirkus UK)