Flux is a 1993 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...

 novel by British author Stephen Baxter

Stephen Baxter

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

. It is the third book in Baxter's 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...

.

Plot introduction

Dura and her fellow human beings live inside a neutron star, as they have for generations. As long as they can remember, "glitches

Glitch (astronomy)

A glitch is a sudden increase in the rotational frequency of a rotation-powered pulsar, which usually decreases steadily due to braking provided by the emission of radiation and high-energy particles. It is unknown whether or not they are related to the timing noise which all pulsars exhibit...

" (instabilities of the magnetic field inside the star caused by changes in the star's rotation) have happened from time to time. As the novel starts, the worst glitch that anyone can remember threatens to destroy her home. To survive, Dura must travel to a far off city, and eventually outside of the star itself.

Explanation of the novel's title

Flux is so called as the main race featured, microscopic human-like beings who live within a star, travel around by manipulation of the magnetic field lines within that star. It also relates to a bigger element of the plot, dealing with instabilities in this field which affect many characters in different ways.

Plot summary

As the novel begins, a glitch—an instability of the magnetic field inside the star caused by changes in the star's rotation—is about to destroy a net made up of ropes, where a group of 50 humans live. During this several of the older humans are killed, and importantly the humans lose their main food, a herd of "air pigs", animals indigenous to the star.

To find more food, Dura, together with her young brother Farr, Adda (the eldest of the Humans and one of the novel's main characters), Philas (wife of a man killed during the glitch; this man was also seeing Dura), and 6 other adults travel high into the top of the mantle of the star to find food in the forest.

Whilst there Adda is injured by a pregnant sow air pig. Just after, the humans encounter Toba Mixxax, a human from Parz City. Parz is a massive wooden city where other star humans live, with a functioning economy and upper and nether classes etc. As becomes apparent, the ancestors of Dura's group did originally live in Parz, but left when their belief that the Xeelee should ultimately be accepted as being for the good of humanity was not accepted by the rulers of Parz. A hospital, "The Hospital of the Common Good" in the heart of Parz City is Adda's only chance for survival.

While in Parz, we meet several other characters: Muub, the head physician and advisor to Hork, the administrator of Parz. To pay for Adda's treatment, Dura's labor is sold to a "mantle farm" (where trees are harvested for use as fuel or as building blocks for the city), and Farr is sold to work in the underbelly of the city.

Farr makes two friends whiles here: Toba Mixxax's son Criss and Byza, a fellow miner. Criss teaches Farr to board (using a specially constructed plate to "surf" along the flux lines), an ability which allows him to escape from the eventual attack by the Xeelee.

After various plot points, the characters realise the instabilities are actually being caused by the attack of 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...

, and the next instability could destroy both Parz and possibly the star itself. Hork calls a combination of Muub, Dura (called due to her experience as a star human), Adda, Farr and a scientist to go down into the inhabitable centre of the star and try and retrieve ancient weapons, supposedly left by the humans who originally created the star human race.

Main characters

• Dura: daughter of Logue, the leader of the small tribe of star humans and the story's main protagonist
• Farr: younger brother to Dura
• Adda: curmudgeonly elder of the tribe, with knowledge of the history, beliefs and stories that have been passed down through the generations
• Hork: Vice Chair and leader of Parz City, son of Hork IV
• Muub: Head Physician and administrator of the hospital in Parz
• Toba Mixxax: Ceiling farmer who takes Dura, Adda, and Farr to Parz City
• Ito Mixxax: Toba's wife
• Cris Mixxax: Toba and Ito's son who becomes friends with Farr and introduces him to surfing
• Hosch: hard nosed supervisor of the fishermen that plumb for corestuff bergs from the Parz City harbour
• Bzya: pragmatic fisherman that takes Farr under his wing, and one of the few civilized men that Adda warms to

Lesser characters

• Logue: the leader of the small nomadic star human tribe, who is lost in the glitch in the opening pages of the book
• Esk: another member of the tribe who lost his life in the initial glitch. Had a relationship with Dura despite being married
• Philas: widow of Esk who, despite the awkwardness of their situation, still looks to Dura for leadership
• Dia: female of the tribe that gives birth during the initial glitch
• Mur: Dia's husband
• Deni Maxx: hospital doctor who treats Adda, extremely committed to her work
• Ray: friend of Cris who teaches Farr how to surf. Both boys clearly intoxicated by her!
• Jool: Bzya's wife, who cultivates pleasant smelling feed for the city's air-pigs' diet...
• Qos Frenk: ceiling farmer who employs Dura
• Rauc: a "coolie" (ceiling farm worker) and friend of Dura's at Frenk's ceiling farm
• Brow: Rauc's husband, who works the lumber caravans and is only able to see Rauc once a year
• Kae: colleague of Brow (and who is in love with him)
• Seciv Trop: Magfield expert and engineer, who is instrumental in the design of the "Flying Pig"
• Borz: ex-coolie and leader of a small colony of runaways
• Karen Macrae: the "Colonist" (a downloaded standard human construct) that Dura and Hork meet in the Flying Pig