The Xeelee Sequence is a series of novels and short stories by British science fiction author Stephen Baxter. The novels span several billions of years, describing the future expansion of Mankind, its war with its arch-nemesis (an alien race called the Xeelee), and the Xeelee's own war with dark matter entities called photino birds. Other important Xeelee Sequence species include the Qax and the Silver Ghosts. Several novels also deal with humans and posthumans living in extreme conditions, such as the heart of a neutron star (Flux) or a universe with considerably stronger gravity (Raft).
Baxter's Destiny's Children series is part of this series.
The novels, in chronological order (not publication order) are:
Title | Year | Notes |
Coalescent | 2003 | Arthur C. Clarke Award nominee, 2004 |
Transcendent | 2005 | Michael Poole's segment John W. Campbell Memorial Award nominee, 2006 |
Timelike Infinity | 1992 | |
Ring | 1993 | before Great Northern launches |
Starfall | 2009 | |
Riding the Rock | 2002 | Included in Resplendent |
Reality Dust | 2000 | Included in Resplendent |
Mayflower II | 2004 | Included in Resplendent |
Exultant | 2005 | |
Raft | 1991 | Arthur C. Clarke Award nominee, 1992 |
Flux | 1993 | |
Gravity Dreams | 2011 | |
Ring | 1994 | after Great Northern returns |
Chronologies including most of the short stories and novels are included in the short story collections Vacuum Diagrams and Resplendent. When asked directly for a suggested reading order, the author wrote: "I hope that all the books and indeed the stories can be read stand-alone. I’m not a great fan of books that end with cliff-hangers. So you could go in anywhere. One way would be to start with ‘Vacuum Diagrams’, a collection that sets out the overall story of the universe. Then ‘Timelike Infinity’ and ‘Ring’ which tell the story of Michael Poole, then ‘Raft’ and ‘Flux’ which are really incidents against the wider background, and finally ‘Destiny’s Children.’"
An omnibus edition of the first four Xeelee novels; Raft, Timelike Infinity, Flux and Ring, was released in January 2010.
Famous quotes containing the word sequence:
“We have defined a story as a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence. A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. The king died and then the queen died is a story. The king died, and then the queen died of grief is a plot. The time sequence is preserved, but the sense of causality overshadows it.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)