World Engines Creator

In the end it was a struggle to complete the second book in the World Engines series by Stephen Baxter.

The story of a travel through the manifold (multiple path of reality) in our Solar system continues through this book with the known characters of the previous book. Crossing into a different reality the crew of Harmonia (the British spacecraft which connects the dots between the depressed 24th century world of Deirdra and Malenfant and the lively spirit of a 20th century exploration age) lands by accident to a gigantic planet Persephone II.

Half of the story is on the imagined world of Persephone II where the author imagines a gigantic Zoo of samples taken from all stages of evolution of life on earth. He imagines a place where Neaderthal and Homo erectus live together with Dinosaurs and other giant mammalians.

The team escapes from that planet with help from a another failed crew from a Russian mission. They improvise a rocket and managed to reach back the Harmonia on the planet's orbit.

From there, the characters are taken into yet another path of the manifold where Deirdra and Bartholomew manage to reach a 'world engineer' called Michael.

The end of the novel is bizarre. I would have written it differently.