Hearthspace

By: Stephen Baxter

Narrated by: Patricia Rodriguez

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 . . .©2025 Stephen Baxter

Ripping good yarn.

Great story. Hard to stop listening. Great narrator.
Baxter always brings the big ideas. Very enjoyable.

Returned. Baxter should't write without a coauthor

Baxter’s like a brilliant but emotionally tone-deaf engineer - You hand him a collaborator who knows how to translate awe into something human, and suddenly the man’s magic. With Clarke (The Light of Other Days, Time’s Eye, Sunstorm, etc.) you get that perfect balance: Clarke’s quiet grandeur giving Baxter’s hard edges some soul. The Long Earth series with Pratchett worked for the same reason - Pratchett smuggled warmth and humor into Baxter’s cold mechanics. Left to his own devices Baxter builds immaculate cosmic engines that hum beautifully and leave you wondering why you don’t care who’s inside them. He’s the guy you want designing the universe, not necessarily populating it. He’s the cosmic civil engineer of sci-fi. Brilliant structural integrity, zero curb appeal. You can admire the interstellar scaffolding all day long, but step inside and it’s like, “ah yes, another corridor of people being awful to each other under fluorescent lights.” Which is the crux of my annoyance. Yet another far flung future were humanity regresses to slavery and totalitarianism. I think we have enough of that going around right now, so I'll pass.