"Such realistic brilliance you can see a whole civilisation in it" - The Times "Simply amazing science fiction that will have me grabbing book two" - Goodreads Reviewer, 5 stars "one of the best scifi concepts out there" - Amazon Reviewer, 5 stars Stephen Baxter's highly acclaimed first novel and the beginning of his stunning Xeelee Sequence. A spaceship from Earth accidentally survives the transition to a radically different universe. Five-hundred-years later, their descendants still struggle for existence. The Miners live on the Belt, a ramshackle ring of dwellings orbiting the core of a dead star. They trade for food from the Raft, a structure built from the wreckage of the ship, and where a small group of scientists preserve the ancient knowledge which makes survival possible. Rees is a Miner whose curiosity about his world makes him a stowaway on a flying tree. And what he finds will change his world...