Name: Vacuum Diagrams
Author: Baxter, Stephen

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Stephen Baxter is undoubtedly one of the stars of modern, scientifically literate sf, and he really stakes his claim to be one of the masters of space opera with the Xeelee Sequence, which to date includes nine novels, several novellas and a host of short stories. The sequence covers several billions years of human expansion into space, their contact with a variety of alien species, the long war with the Xeelee, and the Xeelee's own war with the Photino Birds. The whole sequence is full of extraordinary invention, including the alternate universe in Raft in which gravity is a billion times stronger than in our universe, or Flux where humans live inside a neutron star, or the generation ship in Ring that is on a five million year journey. You don't come across space opera as huge or as devastating as this very often. Quite frankly, if we didn't include Stephen Baxter on this list, it would be a travesty, and you only have to look at the Xeelee Sequence to discover the scale and the awe-inspiring wonder that is space opera at its very best.