![]() It is as though a hero is trying to stop a bomb, and then when he gets there he finds out it is not just any bomb. The brilliant details are plot twists that have no discernible effect on the plot at least in the eyes of this reviewer, they seem to be for decorative purposes only. The problem is that each of these details, brilliant as many of them may be, seem to serve only as thinly-veiled macguffins and plot coupons. That’s a fair plot structure, and I have to say that a lot of those details are surprising and creative. Instead of the mounting anticipation and squaring off we have in the rebellion plot thread, the threat-to-humanity plot thread is meant to gradually uncover the details of the threat, and defeat it. The second drawback is that the new plotline introduced in the later half of the novella just isn’t as well-executed as the first half. Quite simply, Baxter has swapped stories on us mid-way – and unsurprisingly, the second story doesn’t satisfy what the unfinished first got us excited about. Questions of loyalty, morality and sacrifice are suddenly made obsolete by an overriding, catch-all evil. The rebellion and strife between colonists and Empire are shunted aside. The first is that much of the story’s early, compelling momentum is killed. This shift has two significant drawbacks. I won’t spoil the surprises, but at some point, the novella ceases to be about the oppressed colonies striking back against the Earth-based Empire, and becomes all about a previously-concealed threat on Earth, which the rebellion is in fact aimed at stopping. However, somewhere along the way, the novella takes a turn I found less satisfying. In all these, Baxter does an excellent job, and any reader who likes space battles, tension, and scientific speculation should enjoy the book greatly. This setup makes for an exciting tactical exercise, for building suspense as the day of open attack draws near, for exciting, unusual space battles, and for depicting the calculating minds necessary to wage war under such conditions – as well as the harsh circumstances that compel them to do so. ![]() For the rebellion to have any chance of success, the final preparations must be made 60 years before the first shot will be fired, and no one can be allowed to uncover it in the meantime… The novella describes the colonists’ rebellion against Earth – a massive military operation that must be carried out in total stealth, and under relativistic speeds. “Starfall” itself sticks mostly to humans – Earth has established an empire among the stars, but Imperial rule is paranoid and tyrannical. “Starfall” is a novella in Stephen Baxter’s Xeelee Sequence, a series of novels and stories laying out millenia of future history for mankind and for a variety of powerful alien races.
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