Vacuum Diagrams

Vacuum Diagrams is a collection of science fiction short stories written by Stephen Baxter which connects the books of the Xeelee cycle and gives a feeling of the development of mankind, aliens and the universe. Every story is self-contained but interconnected by short words of the character Eve.

The time line at the end of the book shows the events during the life time of our universe. Every short story and book from the cycle is noted.

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

• "The Sun-People"
• "The Logic Pool"
• "Gossamer"
• "Cilia-of-Gold"
• "Lieserl"
• "Pilot"
• "The Xeelee Flower"
• "More Than Time or Distance"
• "The Switch"
• "Blue Shift"
• "The Quagma Datum"
• "Planck Zero"
• "Eve"
• "The Gödel Sunflowers"
• "Vacuum Diagrams"
• "Stowaway"
• "The Tyranny of Heaven"
• "Hero"
• "Secret History"
• "Shell"
• "The Eighth Room"
• "The Baryonic Lords"

Publisher: HarperCollins/Voyager
ISBN 0002254255

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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 in 1990.

The title "Vacuum Diagrams" refers to the violation and reassertion of the uncertainty principle in our universe. Set in A.D. 21124, the story concerns the main character's attempt and failure to terraform a colony due to its upset of the agenda of the galactic-scale builders known as the Xeelee.