Subject: REVIEW: _Flux_, by Stephen Baxter

From: Scott Drellishak <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Jun 1995 16:08:42 GMT

_Flux_, by Stephen Baxter
		     reviewed by Scott Drellishak

Rating:  7 (out of 10)

High-concept summary:
	      _The Integral Trees_ meets _Dragon's Egg_
				  OR
		 _Raft_ meets _Timelike Infinity_ (!)

Warning:  Mild spoilers.

For the last few years, Stephen Baxter has been writing hard SF of a kind
that keeps reminding me of early Larry Niven.  The settings are exotic and
spectacular, the science is intriguing, and the characters are, well, not
the primary focus of the story.  His 1993 novel _Flux_ continues and
improves upon these promising trends.  The novel takes place in the mantle a
neutron star, and follows a group of tiny, engineered human colonists on a
journey through the physical and social structures of the star, and beyond.
Like other novels of the "hard SF travelogue" sub-genre (such as Clement's
_Mission of Gravity_ or Baxter's own _Raft_), _Flux_'s main character is
really the exotic setting.  The story provides an excuse to explore this
alien world, and the human cultures which have developed in new directions
to adapt to the surroundings.  I found myself turning pages not so much to
find out how the plot worked out in the end, but to discover more about
Baxter's imaginary world.

As is common in very-hard SF, Baxter does not waste much time on
characterization or motivation.  We receive few insights into the thoughts
and feelings of Dura, the primary viewpoint character, and some of her
choices, although necessary for the advancement of the plot, seemed
arbitrary to me.  Although Baxter has a talent for giving his readers a
sense of the three-dimensional nature of life within the star, there are a
couple of sub-plots, like the surfing contest, which seem irrelevant except
to provide some neat action along the way.  He also drops broad hints which
he fails to pay off on later.  For example, about a third of the way through
the book, Dura, the leader of a band of primitive outcasts, has encountered
a group of people who worship a Wheel-symbol, in defiance of orthodox
religious authority.  We are treated to the following line, which seems like
ham-fisted foreshadowing:

	If these Wheel cultists ever found a leader, they could be
	formidable opponents for the mysterious Committee which ran
	the City.

This thread of the story, however, never develops.  I sense a faint whiff of
"sequel" in the air.

The other, more minor, problem I had with _Flux_ was the quantity of
exposition in the story.  Baxter has a tendency (which completely
overwhelmed his earlier novel, _Timelike Infinity_) to insert physics
lectures at odd moments in the story.  Certainly, given the type of novel he
was writing, the whiz-bang physics had to get explained somehow -- I found
my suspenders of disbelief stretching uncomfortably when hunter-gatherer
characters gave mini-lectures on quantized circulation in superfluids.
Unlike _Timelike Infinity_, however, the story in _Flux_ doesn't get lost in
the exposition.

So, mild griping aside, if you're like me, and can accept a hearty helping
of science and sense-of-wonder in place of fully fleshed-out characters, I
recommend picking up a copy of _Flux_.  I'll be keeping an eye out for
Baxter's next book.

(Aside: I suspect _Flux_ will be enjoyed more by those folks lucky enough to
have read the other stories in Baxter's future history about the
super-powerful Heechee (er, no, make that cheela (whoops, my mistake, that
should read *Xeelee*)).  Unfortunately, the shorter works in the series,
many of which were written before _Raft_, _Timelike Infinity_, and _Flux_
and (I assume, not having access to them) provide a little more background
for the series, are not available in book form in the US.  A hearty "hint,
hint" to SF publishers.)

%A Baxter, Stephen
%T Flux
%I HarperCollins HarperPrism Science Fiction
%C New York
%D April 1995
%G 0-06-100837-0
%P 409 pp.
%O paperback, US$5.50

--
 / Scott Drellishak                                        [email-masked] \
|   "He would see faces in movies, on TV, in magazines, and in books.      |
 \   He thought that some of these faces might be right for him..."       /
--
--Alan Wexelblat, Reality Hacker, Author, and Cyberspace Bard
MIT Media Lab - Intelligent Agents Group		finger(1) for PGP key
Voice: 617-253-9833	Pager: 617-945-1842		[email-masked]
	http://wex.www.media.mit.edu/people/wex/
"When did similarity become a prerequisite for compassion?"