Xeelee: Vengeance

Stephen Baxter

Half a million years in the future on a dead war-ravaged world at the centre of the Galaxy there is a mile-high statue of Michael Poole.

Poole born on Earth in the fourth millennium was one of mankind's most influential heroes. He was not a warrior not an emperor. He was an engineer a builder of wormhole transit systems. But Poole's work would ultimately lead to a vast and destructive conflict a million-year war between humanity and the enigmatic powerful aliens known as the Xeelee.

The Xeelee won but at a huge cost. And defeated in a greater war the Xeelee eventually fled the universe. Most of them.

A handful were left behind equipped with time travel capabilities their task to tidy up: to reorder history more to the Xeelee's liking. That million-year war with humankind was one blemish. It had to be erased. And in order to do that a lone Xeelee was sent back in time to remove Michael Poole from history . . .