Stephen Baxter's Writing

Post by **Surlethe** » 2007-12-22 04:50pm

Over Thanksgiving, I picked up Ring and Moonseed from a used bookstore. Since the semester's over, I've had some time on my hands, and I've read them both. Surprisingly, I found that I had trouble maintaining suspension of disbelief throughout the books. Baxter's writing is dry, flat, lacks characterization, and dumps information left and right with little plot advancement. The background-enthusiast in me enjoyed the stories immensely as little glimpses into Baxter's universes, but the reader in me was terribly disappointed.

Has anybody else had similar experiences with Baxter's writing? Are any of his other novels better?

speaker-to-trolls · Post by **speaker-to-trolls** » 2007-12-22 05:22pm

I found exactly the same thing in his early work, Ring in particular is horrible in that regard. In his later Xeelee books the characters are still fairly flat but his prose has definitely improved. I can't speak for his latest set of novels (the historical ones).

Tasoth · Post by **Tasoth** » 2007-12-22 06:01pm

I read Vacuum Diagrams, and while the background was fun, it was rather bleh writing wise. IIRC, he has a Ph.d in I think physics, and it really does show in his writing.

18-Till-I-Die · Post by **18-Till-I-Die** » 2007-12-23 01:35am

Has anybody else had similar experiences with Baxter's writing?

Yes.

Oh sorry, i was channeling a Grunt Flamewarrior there for a second...

Ok, longer answer, fuck yes. At a certain point i found his novels to be less actual "stories" and more just huge, long, multi-chapter infodumps. I've honestly never seen anyone, outside of Orion's Arm, so enthralled with their own backstory shit, it's obvious he put more thought into it than he did the actual characters or plot, what little of either exists.

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2007-12-23 01:37am

You can come up with an excellent premise or a setting, but it's a whole different beast altogether to take that and make it into an actual story, and some people end up confusing the two.

[R_H] · Post by **[R_H]** » 2007-12-23 04:29am

I've tried to read Origin, but couldn't read the whole book because it got so boring. Granted, I was around 12 years old. I haven't read any of his books again until this summer (2007), when I read the first Coalescent book. I found it extremely interesting, especially the last few chapters.

Ford Prefect · Post by **Ford Prefect** » 2007-12-23 05:03am

Evolution was awesome. As a rule, Baxter's ideas are vast in scope, and really quite interesting. Exultant was actually pretty good as an actual novel - characterisation wasn't nearly as bad as ith as been before, and the main character's two selves are actually really well juxtaposed.

He's not a fantastic writer, no. His ability to describe stuff like neutron stars and the galactic core are remarkably vivid, however.

OmegaGuy · Post by **OmegaGuy** » 2007-12-23 11:22am

I like his writing, it is exciting. (LOL THAT RHYMED)

andrewgpaul · Post by **andrewgpaul** » 2007-12-23 11:34am

IMO, Baxter writes a good epic setting. The plots within that setting are usually pretty good, and the characterisation is, sadly, often lacking. I don't mind that, because one reason I read SF is for the settings, as much as for the characterisation and plots.

Post by **Surlethe** » 2007-12-24 12:59am

Even the science seems kind of iffy sometimes. In Moonseed, he presents the atmospherization of the Moon in what seems like a matter of minutes. I haven't crunched the numbers (famous last words), but that seems terribly fast. And in hindsight, the plot is so obviously leading up to the Moon's terraforming that it's absolutely ridiculous; it almost dumped me out of SoD a number of times.

I do like how he accepts that there's no causality in a universe with FTL, though. It's nice for a sci-fi author to step forward and take up that challenge.

Skylon · Post by **Skylon** » 2007-12-24 10:29am

Every Baxter book I read I've ended up utterly hating his characters. I've read Titan and Voyage (a nice, not wank-tastic alternate history). Both had some extremely well written moments, but I think he needs to work on the character end.[/i]

Dahak · Post by **Dahak** » 2007-12-24 03:17pm

Well, he writes a bit stilted, but I still like him better than some other authors out there. At least he has imagination going for him.

Guardsman Bass · Post by **Guardsman Bass** » 2007-12-24 06:18pm

I actually thought the characters in the first book with the Human Hive were pretty solid - but I get your point. A lot of Baxter's works are really more about his creative use of the setting as opposed to the characters themselves.

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2007-12-24 10:42pm

I admit to being influenced by him. I'm enthralled enough with the scope of Baxter's settings and the weirdness of his ideas to ignore his problems with characterization and style.

Sriad · Post by **Sriad** » 2007-12-27 10:28pm

I'm probably one of the bigger Baxter fans on the board, but I agree his characters are usually little more than foreground for epic settings and events, his real selling point.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2007-12-28 02:33pm

I've been tempted to read his Xeelee books at least, but while the stories intrigue, the comments on his writing style sound all too like Michael Crichton who may as well write for pre-school.

I always find Alastair Reynolds and Peter F. Hamilton have surpassed Baxter in my reading preference, and as soon as Banks gets going again, him too.

andrewgpaul · Post by **andrewgpaul** » 2007-12-28 04:02pm

I agree with that. While Reynolds' setting isn't quite as epic as Baxter's, it's still a good setting for stories, and the characters are more than just mouthpieces for the author to lecture the reader.

I might have to disagree about Banks; The Algebraist was chock-full of enormous wodges of exposition, which he didn't even attempt to put into anything other than the narrator's 'voice'.

Imperial Overlord · Post by **Imperial Overlord** » 2007-12-28 04:25pm

Admiral Valdemar wrote:I've been tempted to read his Xeelee books at least, but while the stories intrigue, the comments on his writing style sound all too like Michael Crichton who may as well write for pre-school.

He's like Crichton only in that characterization isn't his strong point. His breadth of imagination and plots are far superior, not to mention his story telling abilities are superior. He's a much more interesting writer. It's just characterization is a noticeable weak point in work that is otherwise excellent.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2007-12-28 05:31pm

andrewgpaul wrote:I agree with that. While Reynolds' setting isn't quite as epic as Baxter's, it's still a good setting for stories, and the characters are more than just mouthpieces for the author to lecture the reader.

I might have to disagree about Banks; The Algebraist was chock-full of enormous wodges of exposition, which he didn't even attempt to put into anything other than the narrator's 'voice'.

The Algebraist is the only Iain M. Banks novel I've not read fully. I didn't get grabbed by it and it pales compared to even the last Culture novel, let alone the masterpiece that is Use of Weapons.

I'd have to say that Reynolds is epic, just with a more realistic scale. The Revelation Space series still takes place over centuries with events in the æon scale being discussed and so on. Hamilton, too, can make a LotR/SW-esque trilogy with such scope that a companion book was written.

All-in-all, those two make my favourite hard/semi-hard SF writers with Banks my favourite soft SF writer, even if he hasn't been on top form lately.

I would add that Crichton's prose leave something to be desired too, not so much his technology over character approach, but the way he conveys anything is simplistic. He actually does use simple sentences in the likes of Prey as if going "The man was scared. The killer pred-prey swarm was unstoppable. Big shit was about to go down". He should write haikus.

andrewgpaul · Post by **andrewgpaul** » 2007-12-28 05:41pm

Oh, I wasn't saying there's anything wrong with Reynolds' stuff (he's probably one of my top 3 SF writers at the moment), it's just it's hard to compete with a series that stretches from a planck time after the Big Bang to about a trillion years in the future, and spans at least 3 universes

Hopefully a new Culture novel will get Banks back on track. Maybe I should read some of the 'non-M' stuff to tide me over ...

Dahak · Post by **Dahak** » 2007-12-29 06:06am

I tried one Reynolds book and I wasn't quite grabbed by it. Haven't tried another one so far...
Banks, well, I loved the Algebraist, but had some troubles with the Culture books. I did read them, but they felt not quite right to me.

I admit to being an avid Hamilton fan-whore, though, I just love his books. Can't wait for the next one.

andrewgpaul · Post by **andrewgpaul** » 2007-12-29 08:08am

Heh, Dahak, looks like our tastes are pretty much opposite (although I did like the series from which you lifted your username).

I like Hamilton, although the Night's Dawn trilogy was about a book too long, and the whole 'search for the maguffin' plot in book 2 was pointless. I'm also not impressed by any book with a 10-page characters list.

OmegaGuy · Post by **OmegaGuy** » 2007-12-30 05:21pm

How would you compare Greg Bear to these guys?

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2007-12-30 05:55pm

Dahak wrote:I tried one Reynolds book and I wasn't quite grabbed by it. Haven't tried another one so far...
Banks, well, I loved the Algebraist, but had some troubles with the Culture books. I did read them, but they felt not quite right to me.

I admit to being an avid Hamilton fan-whore, though, I just love his books. Can't wait for the next one.

Curious. Which Reynolds book was it? I started Absolution Gap before getting 100 pages in and figuring out it was the third and final book in a trilogy (some would say anthology for the loosely related books during the same time line). Banks I find off too. The Algebraist was hard for me to get into. I'm sure I can read it fully now if inclined, but I always think of his better Culture novels and wish it was a new one I was reading, rather than a stand alone complex.

andrewgpaul · Post by **andrewgpaul** » 2007-12-30 06:43pm

OmegaGuy wrote:How would you compare Greg Bear to these guys?

It's been a while since I read any of his stuff. He wrote Eon, didn't he? I liked that, even if I bounced off it the first time. His fantasy two-parter was quite good, as well.