Stephen Baxter: Traces [1999] paperback

Stories set in a variety of futures from the award-winning heir of Arthur C. Clarke: Traces gives a kaleidoscopic vision of the possibilities for humankind.

There are vision of histories which differ from our own, either through small changes – what if Germany had won WWI (`Mittelwelt’) – or through a fundamental difference in physical laws – what if Archimedes had been right in his clockwork-like cosmological vision (`No Longer Touch the Earth’).

There are visions of futures in which people struggle to survive in a variety of bizarre environments (`Downstream’, `The Blood of Angels’), or, weakened and powerless, inhabit the end of worlds (`Inherit the Earth’, `George and the Comet’).

There are explorations of astonishing events of our own lifetimes, in particular the grand expansion into space (`Zemlya’, `Moon Six’, `Pilgrim 7′).

These visions give an impression of the contingency of our everyday here-and-now, surrounded as it is by an infinite array of possible pasts, presents, and futures.