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The Medusa Chronicles Hardcover – June 7, 2016

by Stephen Baxter (Author), Alastair Reynolds (Author)
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 1,772 ratings
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A sequel to Sir Arthur C. Clarke’s Nebula Award–winning novella “A Meeting with Medusa,” this novel continues the thrilling adventure of astronaut Howard Falcon, humanity’s first explorer of Jupiter from two modern science fiction masters.

Howard Falcon almost lost his life in an accident as the first human astronaut to explore the atmosphere of Jupiter—and a combination of human ingenuity and technical expertise brought him back. But he is no longer himself. Instead, he has been changed into an augmented human: part man, part machine, and exceptionally capable.

With permission from the Clarke Estate, Stephen Baxter and Alastair Reynolds continue this beloved writer’s enduring vision and have created a fresh story for new readers. The Medusa Chronicles charts Falcon’s journey through the centuries granted by his new body, but always back to mysteries of Jupiter and the changing interaction between humanity and the universe. A compelling read full of incredible action right from the beginning, this is a modern classic in the spirit of 2001 and The Martian.
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Previous page
  1. Print length
    416 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    S&S/Saga Press
  4. Publication date
    June 7, 2016
  5. Dimensions
    5.5 x 1.2 x 8.25 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    1481479679
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1481479677
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"A worthy sequel to a classic." -- Jack McDevitt ― , Bestselling and Nebula award-winning author of SEEKER and STARHAWK

Two of the most acclaimed contemporary hard SF writerssuccessfully team up in this ambitious epic space opera, spanning almost 800years, that expands the themes raised by Arthur C. Clarke’s classic 1971novella, A Meeting withMedusa. Clarke’s hero, Howard Falcon, suffered horrific injuries in anaccident in 2080, surviving only by cybernetic surgery; his new abilities ledhim to a successful search for extraterrestrial life and positioned him to bean “ambassador... between the creatures of carbon and the creatures of metal.”That unsought status tests Falcon as, over the centuries, robots begin tobecome self-aware and seek autonomy. Humankind’s expansion of its reach beyondEarth provides more opportunity for conflict, and the authors do a superior jobof predicting plausible political developments. The novel’s reach does come atthe expense of some psychological depth, but fans of the authors’ other workwon’t be disappointed. -- Publishers Weekly *STARRED REVIEW* ― May 2, 2016

"Clearly reverential but never derivative of Clarke’s original work, Baxter and Reynolds’ respective styles work in near-faultless harmony. A joy to read, it’s yet another feather in Baxter and Reynolds’ well-adorned hats." ― , SciFiNow

"The Medusa Chronicles is a good old-fashioned SF tale, strong on big ideas and filled with sensa-wunda and magical moments. There’s even some genuine surprises. It’s an ambitious if not audacious thing to try, and I’ll happily admit that I am a tough critic of anything connected to one of my favourite authors, who inspired me to read science fiction. My main worry before reading was that it would have been a pastiche of one of my heroes, but instead I found a book produced with respect for one of the genre’s most-loved classic authors. I therefore think it fitting if I say that I think that Sir Arthur would be pleased by this." ― -- SFFWorld

"A surprisingly substantial extension of "A Meeting With Medusa" suggested by chance “by Alastair Reynolds in the course of a nostalgic email exchange” with Stephen Baxter, The Medusa Chronicles tells the story of those very centuries, and it is—if you’ll pardon my hyperbole—frickin’ terrific." -- -- Niall Alexander ― , Tor.com

"The results are remarkable; Baxter and Reynolds may have been working out of reverence for the original story, but this is no mere exercise in nostalgia. It is a breathtaking standalone work, a sci-fi story of rare scope and intelligence, celebrating Clarke’s legacy even as it sets out for new territory." ― , B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog

"The authors exhibit all the speculative brilliance for which they are individually known. With this book, Baxter and Reynolds honor Clarke’s legacy at the same time as they point the way forward for the continuation of Clarke’s brand of optimistic SF which is no mere wish-fulfillment “competence porn” but also a clear-sighted depiction of both the virtues and vices of our species." -- Paul Di Filippo ― , Locus

"A fitting tribute to the original."
― , Booklist

About the Author

Stephen Baxter was born in 1957 and has degrees from Cambridge and Southampton. He is the preeminent science fiction writer of his generation. With Terry Pratchett, he as coauthored the Long Earth novels. As a world-renowned bestselling author, Baxter has won many major awards in the UK, US, Germany, and Japan including the British Science Fiction Award (four times), and he has been shortlisted for the Hugo Award (six nominations), the Arthur C. Clarke Award (seven nominations), and has been awarded the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, the Philip K. Dick Award, and the Theodore Sturgeon Award. He lives in Northumberland with his wife.

Alastair Reynolds was born in Barry, South Wales, in 1966. He studied at Newcastle and St. Andrews Universities and has a PhD in astronomy. He stopped working as an astrophysicist for the European Space Agency to become a full-time writer. Reynolds is a bestselling author and has been awarded the British Science Fiction award, along with being shortlisted for the Hugo Award, the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, the Theodore Sturgeon Award, and the Locus Award.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ S&S/Saga Press (June 7, 2016)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 416 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1481479679
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1481479677
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.06 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 1.2 x 8.25 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 1,772 ratings

About the author

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Alastair Reynolds

Alastair Reynolds

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Alastair Reynolds was born in Wales in 1966. He has a Ph.D. in astronomy. From 1991 until 2007, he lived in The Netherlands, where he was employed by The European Space Agency as an astrophysicist. He is now a full-time writer.

Photo by Robert Day [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
4.3 out of 5
1,772 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Tghu Verd
5.0 out of 5 stars Simply sublime
Reviewed in the United States on June 5, 2016
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The afterword notes a direct homage to Arthur C. Clarke's short "A Meeting with Medusa" but for me this this evocative novel drew more from Iain M. Banks' detailed world building and the centuries spanning ennui of Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy than the late great SciFi Master.

Our protagonist is Commander Howard Falcon, a character directly taken from Clarke, cyborg adventurist who after a full and active life tries to sit on the sidelines but is repeatedly drawn into conflicts as the necessary trusted 'third party' that both sides respect and will listen to. It is a role that incrementally grates on Falcon but each iteration of apparent Statesman is pressed upon him with increasing levels of coercion as conditions in the solar system become ever more inimical to human life and Falcon is forced to consider how his actions may have led to that.

Like in Banks' Culture novels, the technology that underpins Falcon's universe is generally deployed rather than explained. And for the most part it is not at the level of world shattering weaponry we usually find in a Reynolds story, but more human-level tech such as the various robotic bodies that carry Falcon through the centuries. There is also a nice backstory from the early days of NASA that sets the scene for the politics that drive the characters.

This is not an action-adventure novel in the traditional sense. It moves along at a reasonable pace, but it is the pace of one man living a long time while the world occasionally pivots on his shoulders, so there is a languid nature to the plot. Each chapter does not end on an obvious cliffhanger and for the time period spanned, the cast of characters is actually quite limited. All of which might suggest a boring read, but Reynolds and Baxter are experienced story tellers so "The Medusa Chronicles" never dips below the threshold of interesting. The characters are well drawn and the death of one - even though it was clearly going to happen chapters before the event - evoked a sense of loss.

If you like intelligent, thoughtful sci-fi that explores our moral compass and place in the universe and which slowly builds to a satisfying ending, then you will likely really enjoy "The Medusa Chronicles". I certainly did.
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Aeneas
4.0 out of 5 stars It was a good read, kept me turning the pages
Reviewed in the United States on March 20, 2017
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Although the beginning of the book seemed to skip forward a bit too fast and felt a bit uneven, as the story developed it made sense. There was some need to bring the reader up to speed with the book that inspired it,and it was well done, as I have not read the original. It was a good read, kept me turning the pages. I like the development of the machines' personalities. Very interesting. I give this four stars instead of five because the 'negative' characters were rather one-dimensional, almost a caricature and took away from the complexity of the story.
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joe dean williams
5.0 out of 5 stars Just Wonderful
Reviewed in the United States on December 11, 2016
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Such a pleasure to read a complex, thoughtful novel by two masters of the genre. Exquisite to say the least. I have read deeply into the works of both authors, and this collaboration speaks to their skill in story telling and seamless ability to work together in a way that is equal to their individual talents. Nothing is taken away. I also read on occasion, works by other duos that has enriched my experience of immersion into the expansive thinking of super intelligent writers like these, free to expand the human algorithm as we stagger helplessly, at times, into the future. Bless our hearts. Not easy.
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Joanne S. Gordon
3.0 out of 5 stars Inside Jupiter
Reviewed in the United States on May 7, 2017
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A fun book to read, full of interesting possibilities. I did not like the regression back into the 60's with altered historical notes. In fact, I skipped them. The story of Howard, Boss, Hope and Adam held enough interest to move you on to the next page to see what would happen, and the amazing possibilities of life within Jupiter.
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Joe Karpierz
4.0 out of 5 stars which won the Nebula Award for Best Novella in 1972
Reviewed in the United States on October 15, 2017
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There's something about classic short science fiction stories that makes writers want to either expand or write follow ups to them. It's happened to stories by both Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke, for example. Clarke's stories are especially popular for this treatment. The latest is a sequel to the 1971 novella "A Meeting With Medusa", which won the Nebula Award for Best Novella in 1972. This time, a couple of writers joined forces to put together a terrific followup, THE MEDUSA CHRONICLES: Stephen Baxter who, in my mind writes in the tradition of Clarke, and Alastair Reynolds, one of my personal favorites who writes wonderfully complex space operas, among other things.

I probably have read the original novella back in the depths of time - or at least sometime in the 1970s - but I do not remember doing so. Luckily, THE MEDUSA CHRONICLES does not require the original to have been read to enjoy, appreciate, and understand its story. The novel contains a brief but complete summary of its predecessor, which really is sufficient to allow the reader to move on with the larger work. As a brief synopsis here, Howard Falcon is critically injured when an experimental helium airship crashes. He survives due to surgical techniques that leave him part man, but mostly machine. He later goes on an exploratory mission to Jupiter during which he meets the titular Medusae, among other creatures, that live in the upper layers of the Jovian atmosphere.

THE MEDUSA CHRONICLES starts out as a straight sequel to "A Meeting With Medusa" (with a short side stop to Falcon's childhood, some of the details of which play a part in the later parts of CHRONICLES), but evolves into a terrific story of the conflict between man and machine that is, in effect, kick-started by Falcon who also finds himself in between the two factions trying to broker a peace between the two sides. Falcon watches and participates in events that take place starting at Jupiter, where the machines have their base, to the inner solar system as the machines take over each planet in turn, dismantling Earth in the process. Time and again Falcon is called upon to intervene in the situation that he himself started to try to get the machines to end their inevitable march through the Solar System. The last section of the book is devoted to what ends up being a joint mission to the furthest depths of Jupiter with Adam, the machine that was at the start of it all, to find out what really is way down there in the depths of the great planet and in the process maybe find a solution to the conflict.

There's really a lot going on here. Each section of the novel is a story itself, each one being an instance where Falcon is called upon to deal with the machines. It's not until the final story, where he is called to unknowingly be the delivery system for a virus that will destroy the machines, that the ultimate solution - the unification of machine and man - is the way to get the long elusive peace to occur. It's something of a lesson to the current world that the best way to peace is to work together to make it happen; a bit heavy handed perhaps, and maybe a bit too symbolic, but it is done in an effective way so that the reader may not feel hit too hard over the head with it.

While the book is wonderful on its own, it certainly pays homage to Clarke all along the way, sprinkling references to various Clarke stories, most notably 2001: A Space Odyssey. The journey of Adam and Falcon to the depths of the Jovian atmosphere, if it were to be filmed today, would rival the psychedelic trip of Bowman through the monolith on the way to becoming the Star Child. It's clear that both Baxter and Reynolds know and love the work of Clarke, and at several points in the story I was thrown back to the days of my youth when I devoured all things Clarke. This is truly a terrific novel that fans of Baxter, Reynolds, and Clarke will love. It's a throwback to a different time, when the sense of wonder that was present in the science fiction that we read - maybe it was just because we read those books as young people with eyes wide open to the future - was what brought us into the field to begin with.

I was not fond of Peter Kenny as the narrator. He seemed somewhat monotone and unable to either substantially change his voice to represent different characters or sometimes keep me interested in the narration itself. Often times we are attracted to an audio book because of the narrator; Kenny is not one of those narrators. Luckily, the story itself overshadowed Kenny's performance such that I was deeply enough interested in what was going on more than I was being disappointed in the narration. I may have been distracted by the narration in spots, but the story itself pulled me through it.

Other than Reynolds' SLOW BULLETS, I haven't read anything by either one of these authors in quite a long period of time. It seems that I must dig in to my to read list and move a few books to the head of that list. I think it's time I explore these authors again. That's what a book like THE MEDUSA CHRONICLES will do for you.
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gru2
5.0 out of 5 stars Almost a Explanation of the End of 2001: A Space Odyssey
Reviewed in the United States on November 26, 2023
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One of the very best SF novels I have read in my 80 years. The last 30% of this novel would have been highly effective if slightly revised into the end of 2001. The resulting narrative of the drop through Jupiter and discovery of what lay beneath would be immense.
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Top reviews from other countries

Mike Trebor
5.0 out of 5 stars Brillant
Reviewed in France on April 17, 2021
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Great addition to both authors oeuvre , an exploration of our solar system and an extrapolation of our future.
Pity that such a great collaboration was consigned to a cheap flimsy mass paper back formation, readers and the authors should have had the work celebrated with a hard binding.
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Music Collector
5.0 out of 5 stars Imagination
Reviewed in Canada on May 10, 2017
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Although I am not good at actual science, the concepts in this book are understandable. The sweep of the narrative was a panacea to the current chaos of the Trump USA. More scientifically minded people may take issue with some of the concepts, but for me it was pure escapism...and hope.
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Sanjoy
5.0 out of 5 stars Mind Blowing
Reviewed in India on February 25, 2017
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What a book what an imagination hats off to Stephen Baxter .
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Mr. Paul J. Grenyer
5.0 out of 5 stars A fantastic partnership,
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 29, 2016
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Arthur C. Clarke was my favourite author for many years and I loved his collaborations with Stephen Baxter. Baxter brought a new dimension to Clarke's, not just science fiction, but science based fiction. The stories became more human, more exciting and had better characters. So when my current favourite author, Alastair Reynolds, got together with Stephen Baxter to write a story based on other writings by Arthur C. Clarke it had the potential to be something fantastic. And it is!

I love stories with references to other stories and pop culture and the Medusa Chronicles is riddled with them. I've complained about Interstellar (film) being a rehash of Clarke's 2001 in a previous review and there are plenty of references and similarities to 2001 here, especially with the exploration of inner Jupiter and the events which take place inside the sun. However, in the Medusa Chronicles, this is the amazing climax to an all round superb story.

The main character, Howard Falcon, is superbly flippant, sarcastic, cynical and intelligent. He is surrounded by other equally brilliant and well thought out characters. The machine, Adam, is one of the better rehashings of HAL and captures, the young and naïve, yet brilliantly intelligent and developing intelligence perfectly.

If, like me, you're longing for Reynolds to recapture his Revelation space glory, then the Medusa Chronicles, along with Slow Bullets, is the book for you and it goes a long, long way.
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Peter Eerden
5.0 out of 5 stars A truly exquisite SF read
Reviewed in Australia on July 27, 2016
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This book will be forever remembered for its astonishing second half that kept me enthralled till the last. What an extraordinary melding of man and machine. I love the characterizations of Howard and Adam and their separate/conjoined existences. This is a 'must' SF read. Peter Eerden.
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