From the Bookshelf: The Massacre of Mankind

During my vacation in Europe this spring, I managed to find my way back to a science fiction bookstore in Stockholm I'd happened on in my first trip there eight years before. Taking in its mix of Swedish and English-language material of all sorts once more, I noticed a book by Stephen Baxter I hadn't heard of before. The title The Massacre of Mankind did get my attention; seeing it was a sequel to The War of the Worlds reminded me I'd run across a copy of The Time Ships in my university's used textbook store about two decades before. Another continuation of an H.G. Wells novel did seem interesting enough.

I only had so much foreign currency and so much space left in my wallet, though, so I decided I could wait and go looking for this new book on the other side of the Atlantic. Once back from vacation, I checked the nearest bookstore but didn't see it. It was months later before I was surprised all over again to find a North American edition on the shelves there, but that edition being a hardcover did leave me thinking I could save my money and keep waiting. The wait hadn't been that long, though, before there was another surprise in seeing a copy on the new books shelf of the city library; I signed it out at once.
( The rout of civilization? )