A hard-SF cli-fi saga set against the background of the birth of the solar system.Filled to the brim with big ideas and breathtaking worldbuildingIn the year 2570, a sleeper will wake . . . In the mid-21st century, the Kernel, a strange object on a five-hundred-year-orbit, is detected coming from high above the plane of the solar system.Could it be an alien artefact? In the middle of climate-change crises, there is no mood for space-exploration stunts - but Reid Malenfant, elderly, once a shuttle pilot and frustrated would-be asteroid miner, decides to go take a look anyway.Nothing more is heard of him. But his ex-wife, Emma Stoney, sets up a trust fund to search for him the next time the Kernel returns . . . By 2570 Earth is transformed. A mere billion people are supported by advanced technology on a world that is almost indistinguishable from the natural, with recovered forests, oceans, ice caps.It is not an age for expansion; there are only small science bases beyond the Earth.But this is a world you would want to live in: a Star Trek without the stars. After 500 years the Kernel returns, and a descendant of Stoney, who Malenfant will call Emma II, mounts a mission to see what became of Malenfant.She finds him still alive, cryo-preserved . . . His culture-shock encounter with a conservative future is entertaining . . . But the Kernel itself turns out to be attached to a kind of wormhole, through which Malenfant and Emma II, exploring further, plummet back in time, across five billion years . . . Readers are blown away by World Engines: Destroyer:'The book quickly becomes epic in a massive, yet thoroughly believable way, precisely because the story is grounded in all of these well-realised characters' Goodreads reviewer, ? ? ? ? ?'It is a really good Cli-Fi but not only ecological . . . It touches on very many different topics that are very much in our future' Goodreads reviewer, ? ? ? ? ?'It's a great sci-fi novel, well written and gripping.I loved the amazing world building, the fleshed out cast of characters and the plot' Goodreads reviewer, ? ? ? ? ?'This is a complex book with a lot going on . . . Suffice to say this was a fantastic read with a great story, good characters & a world that I would very much like to come back to' Goodreads reviewer, ? ? ? ? ?'The large scale is always where Baxter is so exciting and passionate and it pays off in spades in the final act.Worth your time to read and enjoy' Goodreads reviewer, ? ? ? ? ?'If you love your science fiction hard, look no further than Stephen Baxter to find your fix.He was literally a rocket scientist. His work is always grounded in science' Goodreads reviewer, ? ? ? ? ?
