Hearthspace, Stephen Baxter
Hearthspace, Stephen Baxter
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Hearthspace

Author: Stephen Baxter

Narrator: Patricia Rodriguez

Unabridged: 11 hr 24 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Gollancz

Published: 09/25/2025

Categories: Fiction, Science Fiction


Synopsis

Thousands of years ago, a massive colony ship arrived at the Hearth - the celestial birthplace of millions of planets, ranging from habitable earth-like worlds to unimaginable hellscapes of pressure and heat. Using lightsails to navigate, humanity has spread itself across dozens of these worlds. But they have also forgotten their beginnings, where they came from... and a terrible secret is about to be unveiled.

For Commander Ulla Breen, on her first tour of duty aboard a patrol sail-ship, the universe is about to change around her. Attacked by an unknown and unthought-of enemy, she and her fellow crewmembers will face slavery, punishment and death - and so will their home planets. Because someone else has seen the richness of the inner Hearth, and plans to take it for themselves. A new enemy, but one who seems disturbingly familiar. And perhaps knows more about the history of the Hearth than even Ulla and her crew.

Faced with a complete upheaval of all she thought she knew, Ulla must survive long enough to come up with a plan - one which will unite all the disparate elements of the Hearth, and perhaps discover the reason why humanity came to Hearthspace in the first place . . .

About Stephen Baxter

Stephen Baxter is the pre-eminent SF writer of his generation. With Terry Pratchett he has co-authored the Long Earth novels. Published around the world he has also won major awards in the UK, US, Germany, and Japan. Born in 1957 he has degrees from Cambridge and Southampton. He lives in Northumberland with his wife.Visit Stephen Baxter's website at www.stephen-baxter.com.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Mark on October 04, 2025

I’ve mentioned more than a few times in the past that one of the attractions of SF for me is its ability to look at current issues and extrapolate them to make some sort of point. Indeed, it is often said that as well as being a way of looking at a possible future (or futures!) such distancing allows......more

Goodreads review by MICHAEL on October 02, 2025

We have met the enemy and they are us (sort of) Two groups of humans form Earth colonize widely separated groups of planets in the same solar system surrounding a super massive dark matter star. One group discovers the other after they've been developing separately for about 1000 earth years. How much......more

Goodreads review by Peter Ward on October 31, 2025

Stephen Baxter continues his exploration of the far future. He provides a fast-paced but thoughtful insight into an imagined 'Hearthspace' where multiple planets co-exist around a huge 'star'. Always interesting; his explanation of how such a thing might exist includes some thoughts about how human s......more

Goodreads review by Steven on September 30, 2025

2.5 stars. Almost DNFd this gruesome tale a couple of times, but decided to slog through and see if there’d be redeeming qualities (narrator voice: there were not). There are lots of little issues with the pseudoscience but ultimately sadistic space slavery with cartoonish characters is not somethin......more

Goodreads review by Linda on October 04, 2025

Sadistic space nazi takes over worlds in a thin and not believable plot I was a great fan of Baxter in his early days but this book is a disappointment. He should have stopped writing after Sunstorm imho......more