Vacuum Diagrams is a collection 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...

 short stories written by Stephen Baxter

Stephen Baxter

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

. The collection connects the novels of the Xeelee Sequence

Xeelee Sequence

The Xeelee Sequence is a series of novels and short stories by British science fiction author Stephen Baxter. The novels span several billions of years, describing the future expansion of Mankind, its war with its arch-nemesis , and the Xeelee's own war with dark matter entities called photino birds...

 and also shows the history of mankind in the Xeelee universe, and ultimately the universe. While each short story in the collection is self-contained, the stories are presented as being contained in the context of the first story, Eve, about a man who is forced to witness the events in the short stories by a god-like being. Eve acts as a structure for the short stories, with an introduction at the beginning of Vacuum Diagrams, short scenes occurring between each "era" (with "Eve" character explaining and introducing the next section), and an ending that wraps up the plot for the Eve story itself. Vacuum Diagrams was nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award in 1999.

At the end of the collection, a chronology of the Xeelee Sequence is provided. Every short story and book from the cycle (up to 1997) is noted, with notable events from each story plotted

Vacuum Diagrams contains the following stories (all previously published except for "Eve"):

Prologue: Eve

ERA: Expansion

• "The Sun-People" (published 1993)
• "The Logic Pool" (1994)
• "Gossamer" (1995)
• "Cilia-of-Gold" (1994)
• "Lieserl
  Lieserl
  Lieserl is the title of the fifth story in Stephen Baxter's science fiction anthology Vacuum Diagrams. It was originally published in Interzone in 1993 and represents a small, but integral part of the novel, Ring.-Synopsis:...
  
  " (1993)

ERA: Squeem Occupation

• "Pilot
  Pilot (short story)
  "Pilot" is the title of a short story in science fiction author Stephen Baxter's Xeelee Sequence. Sixth in the anthology Vacuum Diagrams, it is a revision of a story first published as a chapbook by Novacon in 1993....
  
  " (1993)
• "The Xeelee Flower" (1987)
• "More Than Time or Distance" (1988)
• "The Switch" (1990)

ERA: Qax Occupation

• "Blue Shift" (1989)
• "The Quagma Datum" (1989)
• "Planck Zero" (1992)

ERA: Assimilation

• "The Gödel
  Kurt Gödel
  Kurt Friedrich Gödel was an Austrian logician, mathematician and philosopher. Later in his life he emigrated to the United States to escape the effects of World War II. One of the most significant logicians of all time, Gödel made an immense impact upon scientific and philosophical thinking in the...
  
   Sunflowers" (1992)
• "Vacuum Diagrams" (1990)

ERA: The War to End Wars

• "Stowaway" (1991)
• "The Tyranny of Heaven" (1990)
• "Hero" (1995)

ERA: Flight

• "Secret History" (1991)

ERA: Photino Victory

• "Shell" (1987)
• "The Eighth Room" (1989)
• "The Baryonic Lords" (1991)

Epilogue: Eve

----
Vacuum Diagrams is also the title of the fifteenth short story by Stephen Baxter in his anthology-science fiction novel of the same title. It was originally published in Interzone

Interzone (magazine)

Interzone is an award-winning British fantasy and science fiction magazine. Published since 1982, Interzone is the eighth longest-running science fiction magazine in history and the longest-running British SF magazine...

in 1990.

The title "Vacuum Diagrams" refers to the violation and reassertion of the uncertainty principle

Uncertainty principle

In quantum mechanics, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle states a fundamental limit on the accuracy with which certain pairs of physical properties of a particle, such as position and momentum, can be simultaneously known...

 in our universe. Set in A.D. 21124, the story concerns the main character's attempt and failure to terraform

Terraforming

Terraforming of a planet, moon, or other body is the hypothetical process of deliberately modifying its atmosphere, temperature, surface topography or ecology to be similar to those of Earth, in order to make it habitable by terrestrial organisms.The term is sometimes used more generally as a...

 a colony due to its upset of the agenda of the galactic-scale builders known as the Xeelee

Xeelee

The Xeelee are a fictional hyperadvanced species from Stephen Baxter's Xeelee Sequence. They were first remotely mentioned in the 1994 novel Timelike Infinity and were later central actors of several novels and a substantial number of short stories...

.

External links

• Vacuum Diagrams at Worlds Without End