{4\/5} “During the crowded centuries a lot of wild animals, mostly in small relic populations, had adapted to nocturnal living. They were like the little squirrelly mammals that had survived at the feet of the dinosaurs… And so in the new British forest there were nocturnal deer, wild boar, wolves. For now, it was too soon for them to have lost the adaptation — even though the humans, like the dinosaurs, had mostly gone.”<\/p>\n
World Engines: Destroyer<\/strong> by Stephen Baxter, published in 2019<\/p>\n Reid Malenfant heroically tries to save people from a crashing space shuttle. NASA freezes him because of how badly he’s burned, and he’s awakened in 2469. There’s a countdown clock on the wall — it’s counting down to some sort of doom in the year 3397. Someone tells him there’s a message from his wife Emma, but she died in 2005. They play the message for him, and it’s her.<\/p>\n It has some great ideas, but the story didn’t grab me quite as much as usual. It’s a bit science-y, a lot of time is spent summarizing things that happened in the past, and it’s only halfway through that we get to the mission.<\/p>\n The 2nd half is more interesting than the 1st — so I’m going to read the sequel, as I want to find out what happens.<\/p>\n There’s some interesting speculation about what would have happened if Neil Armstrong had died on the Moon, and if Winston Churchill hadn’t become Prime Minister of Great Britain.<\/p>\n It’s about the relationship between humans and AIs, and mysteries that are billions of years old.<\/p>\n