Raft by Stephen Baxter

I started this book as it is the first in the "Xeelee" sequence, which is supposed to be one of the most far-fetching SciFi ever written, helped with Baxter's background in Physics, but it is just too much of a torture.  Kindle says I'm 29% in and I am calling it quits. It is just a badly written book.  Rees is probably one of the most boring characters ever created, along with the Pilot and the Scientist.  The two women (only two) in this novel are caricatures. The science of the Nebula, the Belt and the Raft is passably interesting, but it could have been a 5-page short story (yes, I know this novel is based on an earlier short story).

Even though the Xeelee do not appear in this book, just like the Heechee, they are more interesting when read about in a Wikipedia article than a novel.  Just like the Heechee kids are wearing a metal diaper for microwave radiations, the Xeelee seem to have a penchant for black holes and baryonic (?) matter.  Baxter is just a bad writer.  His prose is bad. The few interesting ideas here and there cannot compensate for the ennui of wading through his cumbersome and uninteresting prose.

I think I am going to switch back to detective fiction for a little while.