Xeelee Redemption by Stephen Baxter (2019)

I am frequently overwhelmed by science-fiction authors who manage to pack the equivalent of one or two Ph.D. dissertations into every chapter. Death's End, the concluding volume of The Three-Body Problem trilogy, comes to mind. Even so, no author I have read rivals Stephen Baxter when it comes to world-building on the largest conceivable scales.

Xeelee: Redemption spans billions of years and unimaginable distances while exploring exotic cosmology, black holes, the limits of general relativity, and strange methods of sending information through time without violating causality. The novel is less interested in conventional adventure than in examining what the universe itself permits. Every few pages Baxter introduces another astonishing physical idea, and I never knew where the story was heading next.

The characters are engaging enough to anchor the narrative, but they are not the principal attraction. The plot occasionally feels contrived, as though it exists primarily to carry the reader from one breathtaking scientific concept to the next. Several narrow escapes and apparent resurrections also stretched my suspension of disbelief.

Those shortcomings hardly diminished my enjoyment. Baxter's universe remains one of the grandest achievements in modern science fiction. The sense of cosmic scale and intellectual awe is unlike anything else I have encountered. 4/5 stars.