Stephen Baxter, Exultant

Exultant

Stephen Baxter

Del Rey, Nov 2004, $25.95, 480 pp.

ISBN 0345457889

Humanity has been at war with the Xeelee for three thousand years. Thanks to FTL spaceships that enable movement through time, the aliens know what humans are going to do before they do it. Although the future is always in a state of flux and mankind has one great advantage over the Xeelees in that the human population is so much greater than the Xeelees, which enables them to confine the enemy to the center of the galaxy.

Humanity has not been able to penetrate the alien base operations at Chandra the black hole although millions have died trying. While trying to evade a Xeelee ship, pilot Pirius ignores his orders by fighting the enemy; he manages to catch the alien spaceship, something never done before. He brings it back into human space two years in the past where he meets his seventeen-year-old self. Both are put on trial for disobeying orders. The older Pirius is transferred to a penal asteroid while the younger version is taken under the wing of Commissary Nilis who believes the young man will be a great help to finally resolving the Xeelee problem.

Although there are two Piriuses in this story, the future history of mankind depends on the younger version who has not been battle-scarred and believes in the mission the Commissary is pursuing. Stephen Baxter's second installment of "Destiny's Children" is nothing short of brilliant as it shows a future in which mankind is brought up to fight a war and die young, not leaving a trace of their passing. EXULTANT is an exciting look at a seemingly bleak future that one hopes never happens.

Harriet Klausner