Reviews

Ultima by Stephen Baxter

thetimmeister's review

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adventurous dark mysterious reflective slow-paced

3.75

phaeri's review against another edition

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4.0

Funny ending haha :D this was long but fun to read. Review tomorrow!

blodeuedd's review against another edition

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3.0

The things he comes up with, my heads always spins after reading a Baxter book. He also seems to like the End Time.

I always feel all WoW. Here we have multiverses and hatches, and, aye beyond me.

The two people from the last book stumbled into a multiverse in the last book, and here Rome never fell so Rome went to space.

But that is not the only multiverse. A few other characters also from that previous verse makes it here and explore this brand new reality. And it is fascinating. What if this and that never happened, what if time took another direction. So much to explore.

The possibilities are endless.

Good book. He is a great author

aiwendil's review against another edition

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  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot

3.0

elisenic's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

finlaaaay's review against another edition

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2.0

Not as good as its predecessor [b: Proxima|17983396|Proxima|Stephen Baxter|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1375157355s/17983396.jpg|25216071], but I avoided the audiobook this time because the last time it was just that bad. Reading this on paper was a lot easier than listening to that awful fake accent.

The story is about characters who kind of get transferred into an alternative reality after a catastrophic event at the end of the first book - they end up in a world where Rome never fell, and Imperial Rome lasted into the modern day. That's completely ludicrous, in a word, but "Romans in space" is interesting as high-concept sci-fi, so I let that slide. It gets even more batshit further into the novel, though:
Spoilerthey later end up in a world where Inca is the dominant culture, and they've relocated off-world to a spinning tube in the sky... yet the inhabitants are mostly described as primitive farmers and superstitious. Then the world ends with a sudden heat-death when they travel to Ultima, which is actually the same as Proxima - the concept was explained and backed up with some statistical reasoning (apparently it's a real thing), but I didn't buy the argument. Just as in the earlier book, they have to circumnavigate to the dark side of the planet for some reason.


Also, I didn't like several of the characters. There wasn't really any character development over the novel, and the Romans were entirely interchangeable except for one with a distinctive tic - which he only develops in the later chapters.

I much preferred Proxima's storyline. I got into it near the end, though, and read about a third of the book in one sitting, more than usual. So it certainly has its ups and downs.

gullevek's review against another edition

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3.0

While by far not as good as the first book, it also is not as bad as I feared. The main issue is, that it drifts off into a sci-fi style that is really not my main interest. Sort of "alternate Universe/what if" scenario. So if you read the first book, be prepared that the second one is not the stunning conclusion as you might expect but really goes off into a total different direction.

tmikerx's review against another edition

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5.0

This one started out pretty slow - I had a hard time being convinced that society was able to reach space without electronics, and that kind of hampered my ability to get through the beginning. However, I was able to suspend my disbelief and progress through the story and by the end I couldn't put the book down. It gets pretty deep in the end regarding the end of the universe, and I found myself dreaming about being on Per Ardua, looking at Andromeda as it filled the sky. That's really indicative of a good book - it grasped me so hard that it incorporated itself into my unconscious thought. Highly recommended.

chickadee2's review

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3.0

Lots of big interesting ideas wrapped in a boring story about Romans and Incas in space with bland forgettable characters.

adarossiwrites's review against another edition

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adventurous informative slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25