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| | The Alien Online - Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror News, Reviews, Articles and more... (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-31) |
 | | But Baxter has encompassed similar scales with many of his earlier novels, so much so, in fact, that a Steve Baxter novel that didn't cover millions or even billions of years would be something of a disappointment. |
 | | Baxter's is not the first book to argue that 'intelligence' may not be the pinnacle of evolution that we too often think it is. Kurt Vonnegut made the same point in his Galapagos (1985). |
 | | Baxter locates a distinctively human intelligence as beginning 60,000 years ago when a individual he names 'Mother', suffering a form of schizophrenia, makes superstitious connections in her consciousness - drought must be caused by divine displeasure, a human sacrifice would appease the gods and so on. |
| www.thealienonline.net /columns/rcsf_baxter_jan03.asp?tid=7&scid=55&iid=1318 (2691 words) |
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