Gossamer

"And everywhere the Humans went, they found life ..."This dazzling future history, winner of the 2000 Philip K. Dick Award, is the most ambitious and exciting since Asimov's classic Foundation saga. It tells the story of Humankind -- all the way to the end of the Universe itself.Here, in luminous and vivid narratives spanning five million years, are the first Poole wormholes spanning the solar system; the conquest of Human planets by Squeem; GUTships that outrace light; the back-time invasion of the Qax: the mystery and legacy of the Xeelee, and their artifacts as large as small galaxies; photino birds and Dark Matter; and the Ring, where Ghost, Human, and Xeelee contemplate the awesome end of Time.Stephen Baxter is the most acclaimed and accomplished of a brilliant new generation of authors who are expanding the vision of science fiction and taking itto a new golden age. "And everywhere the Humans went, they found life..." This dazzling future history, winner of the 2000 Philip K. Dick Award, is the most ambitious and exciting since Asimov's classic Foundation saga. It tells the story of Humankind - all the way to the end of the Universe itself. Here, in luminous and vivid narratives spanning five million years, are the first Poole wormholes spanning the solar system; the conquest of Human planets by Squeem; GUTships that outrace light; the back-time invasion of the Qax; the mystery and legacy of the Xeelee, and their artifacts as large as small galaxies; photino birds and Dark Matter; and the Ring, where Ghost, Human, and Xeelee contemplate the awesome end of Time. Contents: Prologue: Eve (1997) The Sun-People (1993) The Logic Pool (1994) Gossamer (1995) Cilia-of-Gold (1994) Lieserl (1993) Pilot (1993) The Xeelee Flower (1987) More Than Time or Distance (1988) The Switch (1990) Blue Shift (1989) The Quagma Datum (1989) Planck Zero (1992) The Gdel Sunflowers (1992) Vacuum Diagrams (1990) Stowaway (1991) The Tyranny of Heaven (1990) Hero (1995) Secret History (1991) Shell (1987) The Eighth Room (1989) The Baryonic Lords (1991) Epilogue: Eve (1997) A selection of short stories from Baxter's future history, known as the Xeelee sequence At the instant of his birth, a hundred impressions cascaded over him. Title from PDF title page (viewed on Jan. 23, 2008).