Deep Future
Stephen Baxter
Gollancz hardback, 215 pages, £18
Published January 2001
ISBN 0575071958
Review by Mike Don (2001)

From Clarke to the chap being touted as his SF heir. Like Clarke, Steve has turned his head to Futurological essays. SF itself (contrary to assumptions) doesn’t ‘predict’ the future, it offers possibilities. As high tech soothsayers go, SF’s record is spotty at best, the atomic bomb excepted. Obviously aware of the pitfalls, Baxter devotes comparatively little space to technowiz, where predictions can come back to haunt the author. On the fundamentals of physics and astronomy he’s on surer ground (perhaps), where Deep Future prognostications are unlikely to be influenced by the butterfly wings of fashion!

Some chapters are clearly derived, at least in part, from the author’s own working research notes for his novels, especially for Titan. All, however, show a similar approach to the novels: a broad scale optimism for the future of sentience, (not necessarily for the human race in particular) coupled with a brutally clear look at the terrifying vistas of reality. It’s impossible to contemplate the heat death of the universe, or the implications of Fermi’s paradox, without feeling an uneasy chill . . .