Stephen Baxter’s gripping page-turners are feats of bold
speculation and big ideas that, for all their time-and-
space-spanning grandeur, remain firmly rooted in
scientific fact and cutting-edge theory. Now Baxter is
back with the final volume in his monumental Destiny’s
Children trilogy, a tour de force in which parallel
stories unfold–and then meet as humanity stands poised on
the brink of divine providence . . . or
extinction.
DESTINY’S
CHILDREN TRANSCENDENT
It is the year 2047, and
nuclear engineer Michael Poole is still in the throes of
grief. His beloved wife, Morag, died seventeen years ago,
along with their second child. Yet Michael is haunted by
more than just the memory of Morag. On a beach in Miami,
he sees his dead wife. But she vanishes as suddenly as she
appears, leaving no clue as to her mysterious
purpose.
Alia was born on a starship, fifteen
thousand light years from Earth, five hundred thousand
years after the death of Michael Poole. Yet she knows him
intimately. In this distant future, when humanity has
diversified as a species and spread across the galaxy,
every person is entrusted with the duty of Witnessing the
life of one man, woman, or child from the past, recovered
by means of a technology able to traverse time itself.
Alia’s subject is Michael Poole.
When his
surviving, estranged son is injured, Michael tries to
reconnect with him–and to stave off a looming catastrophe.
Vast reservoirs of toxic gases lie buried beneath the
poles, trapped in crystals of ice. Now that ice is
melting. Once it goes, the poisons released will threaten
all life on Earth. A bold solution is within reach, if
only Michael can convince a doubting world. Yet as Morag’s
ghostly visitations continue, Michael begins to doubt his
own sanity.
In the future, Alia is chosen to become
a Transcendent, an undying member of the group mind that
is shepherding humanity toward an evolutionary apotheosis.
The Witnessings are an integral part of their design, for
only by redeeming the pain of every human who has lived
and died can true Transcendence be achieved. Yet Alia
discovers a dark side to the Transcendents’ plans, a vein
of madness that may lead to an unthinkable renunciation.
Somehow, Michael Poole holds the fate of the
future in his hands. Now, to save that future, Alia must
undertake a desperate journey into the
past. . . .