Evolution
by Stephen Baxter · first published 2002
63% recommend38% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Science fiction novel spanning deep time, offering a sweeping, big-picture take on evolution and humanity's future. Suited to readers who enjoy ambitious speculative fiction.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
Now available in paperback--an awe-inspiring epic that covers an astonishing 165 million years, and dramatizes the amazing sweep of humankind's evolution from the far past to the distant future.
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"Evolution" by Stephen Baxter. After you finish the book you know exactly what you are and therefore you can start to be who you are...
on “Ask HN: What are some deep, mentality changing books?” ↗The book 'Evolution' by Stephen Baxter. Wikipedia article here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_(Baxter_novel)
on “Why extraterrestrial life may not seem alien” ↗A lot of Stephen Baxter's Evolution novel revolves around this, very highly recommended.
on “Will Asia Rewrite Human History?” ↗You should read the novel Evolution but Stephen Baxter and find out what happens next with Mars.
on “SpaceX Starship 36 Anomaly” ↗Flood; Ark; and Evolution from Stephen Baxter will always stay with me.
on “The Realism of Our Times: Kim Stanley Robinson on how science fiction works” ↗I seem to remember an episode in Stephen Baxter's "Evolution" where two dinosaurs discuss the idea of technical progress but were stymied by a catastrophic event.
on “Was There a Civilization on Earth Before Humans?” ↗You and I almost fit the definition of VN probes if you allow for mutation. Stephen Baxter's writing covers that notion on his book Evolution as a minor point.
on “The Argument for Invisible Aliens” ↗…in a tiny one-man cinema (Jaggers) in pembroke on holiday It's craptacular, but I loved it as a smallish child. Has everything: submarines, forgotten land, buxom heroine, grenades.. Stephen Baxter, Evolution (2002) hypothesises social intelligent carnivore Dinosaurs herding herbivores, but since they use only organics to make their whips and tools, no remains exist in deep time. Would make a whimsical film,…
on “Why are there no good dinosaur films?” ↗