Transcendent (novel)
First edition
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| Author | Stephen Baxter |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | EkhornForss |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Series | Destiny's Children |
| Genre | Science fiction novel |
| Publisher | Gollancz/Orion |
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Publication date
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October 2005 |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) ebook |
| Pages | 489 pp |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 58478602 |
| 823/.914 22 | |
| LC Class | PR6052.A849 T74 2005 |
| Preceded by | Exultant |
| Followed by | Resplendent |
Transcendent is the third novel in the Destiny's Children series by Stephen Baxter, and a 2006 Campbell Award nominee.
The story alternates between two timelines: the world of Michael Poole in the year 2047, and that of Alia, a posthuman girl who lives approximately half a million years in the future.
Engineer Michael Poole is recovering from the death of Morag, his pregnant wife. Poole works as a consultant designing space propulsion systems, and dreams of being able to one day explore the stars. However, there are more pressing matters; humanity faces a serious bottleneck, with the Earth reeling from the effects of anthropogenic climate change and resource depletion; automobile production has all but ceased, except for hydrogen-based mass transit, and air travel is limited to the very rich. Due to climate change, the oceans have become dead zones, with rising sea levels and severe weather displacing millions.
While working in Siberia, Michael's son Tom is injured by an explosion of methane gas from previously frozen hydrates, suddenly released from the now-melting tundra. Michael begins to research whether this is an isolated incident or the beginning of something more serious. With the help of an artificial sentience named Gea, he discovers that a potential release of all such frozen greenhouse gasses could destabilise the environment enough to make the Earth untenable for human habitation, in a repeat of the Permian extinction.
Michael consults members of the Poole family, who come together to work on the problem. Tom, John, and the elderly George (a principal character of Coalescent) reunite, and a maverick geoengineering company funds the project. Michael designs a subsurface refrigeration system that could stabilise the frozen hydrates. Meanwhile, Michael continues to be haunted by visions of his dead wife, apparitions he has been seeing his entire life, even before he first met her. He becomes obsessed with discovering the origin of this phenomenon, and his quest for answers drives a wedge between him and his family. Aunt Rosa Poole (from Coalescent), a Catholic priest and ex-member of the Order, helps Michael research the problem, drawing on her vast knowledge, stemming in small part from her relationship with the Coalescent hive and its historical archives. The rest of the Poole family joins the investigation when Morag appears during a trial test of the engineering project. This time, everyone sees Morag, even observing drones recording the event. After the project is bombed by a terrorist group, Morag goes from being an apparition to reincarnating in physical reality. This frightens everyone, even Michael.
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