The Time Ships

Stephen Baxter ★★★½☆ A sequel to H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, written for the novel’s 100th anniversary and authorized by Wells’ estate. It picks up immediately after the end of the original, following the Time Traveler’s journeys through several different futures, Earth’s distant past, and all the way to the dawn of time. Baxter effectively mimics Wells’ style and the 1890s well-off narrator’s perspective, which (combined with the experience of multiple futures) reminds me of Moorcock’s Nomad of the Time Streams trilogy. With the advantage of another 100 years’ worth of scientific discoveries, and knowledge of how the real 20th century turned out, Baxter drastically increases the scope of the travels. Paradoxes and causality loops weave through the many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics. In one timeline, the Morlocks build a Dyson sphere. In another, clusters of nanobots re-colonize a world that’s no longer hospitable to humans. Much of the middle is tied up in an alternate…