Stephen Baxter - Raft

Stephen Baxter's Raft was first published in 1991 but it bears the imprint of an earlier generation of science fiction which made science and technology the focus of the story and world building, rather than personal characters and plot. That said, Baxter's universe is certainly unique. It is set among the descendents of humans who inadvertantly entered an alternate universe where the gravitational force is much stronger. This means that massive structures cannot exist, there are powerful localised forces - in this world humans could attract each other quite literarily - and planets do not exist. Stars are tiny, and have brief lives. 

Most humans live on the raft, which is inside a nebula of breathable air. Some miners live separately, a symbiotic relationship with the raft which seas them mining burnt out stars for metal to be traded to the raft in exchange for food. There are lifeforms that travel through the nebula, and even an exile planet of, well, you'll have to see.

The plot mostly derives from the interactions between these three planets as there is a growing realisation that the nebula is dying. Rees, a miner, comes to this realisation and stows away on a transport tree to get to the raft, where he swiftly proves his scientific ability. The Raft is a technocracy - ruled by scientists who protect and hoard the knowledge of the old spacecraft - its books and machinery, to carefully manage the human population size and share out its limited resources.

Except such sharing isn't equal, and the scientists are resented and hated by small groups of rebels - who eventually, well, rebel. The ensuing revolution is the scene for the end of the novel. Not plot spoilers here.

The problem is that Raft feels like novel that only exists to discuss the universe building. But on closer examination there are some bigger problems. The plot hinges on the role of science and technology, and Baxter appears to be saying that the only scientists are those who are dispassionate and clever enough to run society. In an era when populist politicians and rightwingers are sowing distrust at science and experts, it can feel tempting to support this thesis. But surely the problem with the raft is not the ignorant masses and the clever scientists - it is the material limitations of the society that mean the future is only getting worse. Baxter's only idea in this is that the scientists - through their dispassionate, all seeing knowledge - have the only answers. The masses are ignorant fools who disrupt the natural hierarchy.

It is, sadly, all to superficial. Scientists aren't the best rulers based on their knowledge. It would have been a far better story had Stephen Baxter explored these themes in greater depth and tried to really interrogate what it is about the interaction between society and environment that can produce progress or collapse. Sadly Raft doesn't do the context justice.

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