The Manifold Trilogy is a series of science fiction

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 books by Stephen Baxter

Stephen Baxter

Stephen Baxter is a prolific British hard science fiction author. He has degrees in mathematics and engineering.- Writing style :...

. It consists of three novels and an anthology of short stories relating to the three. The three books in the trilogy are not ordered chronologically; instead, they are thematically linked stories that take place in alternate universes.

The series consists of:

• Manifold: Time
  Manifold: Time
  Manifold: Time is a 1999 science fiction novel by Stephen Baxter. It is the first of Baxter's Manifold trilogy , although the books can be read in any order because the series takes place in a multiverse.The book was nominated for the 2000 Arthur C...
  
  - Arthur C. Clarke Award nominee, 2000
• Manifold: Space
  Manifold: Space
  Manifold: Space is a science fiction book by author Stephen Baxter, first published in the United Kingdom in 2000, then released in the United States in 2001. It is the second book of the Manifold series and examines another possible solution to the Fermi paradox...
  
  
• Manifold: Origin
  Manifold: Origin
  Manifold: Origin is a science fiction novel by author Stephen Baxter from the Manifold Trilogy.This is the third installment in Stephen Baxter's Manifold trilogy. It sees Manifold regular Reid Malenfant and others once again dealing with possibilities of primate evolution in all forms and...
  
  
• Phase Space (short stories)

Similarities

Each novel contains the same or mostly similar characters, though these characters find themselves in wildly different circumstances in each story. In each of the three novels, the main character is a man named Reid Malenfant, a brash, ambitious entrepreneur and former astronaut who gets drawn up into the complexities of each novel's plot. Each novel starts off on Earth, in a relatively mundane near future, but eventually expands into the far future and deep space.

Fermi Paradox

Each one of the main novels deals with a possible resolution to the Fermi Paradox

Fermi paradox

The Fermi paradox is the apparent contradiction between high estimates of the probability of the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations and the lack of evidence for, or contact with, such civilizations....

. The first, Time, is set in a universe that is completely devoid of intelligent life beyond that of mankind and its creations (i.e. A.I.

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...

 and uplifted animals

Biological uplift

In science fiction, uplift is the development or transformation of animals into an intelligent race by other, already-intelligent beings. The concept appears in David Brin's Uplift series and other science fiction works.-History of the concept:...

).

The second in the series, Space, proposes the opposite: that life is endemic to the universe, and there is intelligence in nearly all possible places of the cosmos. The solution to the Fermi Paradox in this novel is that intelligent life is continually wiped out by cosmic disasters before it has time to spread too far.

The third novel, Origins, is set in a multiverse that is a compromise between the ideals in the first two novels: that life is only on Earth, but at the same time is everywhere. This novel solves the Fermi Paradox by suggesting that intelligent life is segregated into separate parallel universes.