Manifold Time, by Stephen Baxter, was a somewhat goofy, but also interesting Science Fiction story. The book discusses the thoughts and feelings of a few characters in the near future who are trying to prevent a predicted catastrophe by mining the asteroids and getting information from the future. It involves super-intelligent kids and squid along with normal humans.

The Bad: To avoid giving too much of the plot away, I'll just say that what the kids are doing at the end is kind of goofy. I would have preferred that they just used the portal and did what they did on the other side of it. Why be destructive like they were when there are better ways to do it? I also thought what happened to Reid Malenfant in the end was also somewhat goofy. There wasn't too deep psychology involved between the characters, so you didn't become them like in some other books, but it didn't really matter for the story.

The Good: The book was well researched, and the science seemed more accurate than some sci-fi stories. Stephen Baxter provided a list of papers in the back to justify the science behind what was written. It provided entertainment, so basically it served its purpose. I explained time paradoxes that occur with time travel nicely.

Overall, the book was an interesting read. I would recommend it over many other sci-fi books, but I can't say its the best out there.

• Number of pages: 472
• Date finished reading: 2/3/07
• Time spent reading: about 1 weeks
• Rating: 4/5 - a decent read