Find a sequence of 7 consecutive primes, creating an arithmetic progression.

There are several solutions, all are big numbers.

As author of collaborative multinovel epics with Terry Pratchett and Arthur C. Clarke, Baxter has the credentials for the task. The thrill of reading The Massacre of Mankind arises from the monumental scope and wild literary conceit of Baxter’s continuation of the story. I would blasphemously suggest an analogy between Scripture (Wells) and Talmud (Baxter): For every scene, every character, every theme in Wells’ account, Baxter provides copious commentary, filling in Wells’ narrative gaps, inventing an entire alternative history for Europe and the world at large, proposing what must have happened after the trauma of a first interplanetary invasion and during the onslaught of a second. (Spoiler alert! In Baxter’s sequel, there’s no World War I, but there remains an uncanny shadow effect of that indelible disaster.) It’s a family affair, too: The ingenious narrator is the sister-in-law of Wells’ original narrator, Walter Jenkins. The feminist edge is delightful and profound. Julie Elphinstone not only tells a broader tale than the hapless and unreliable Jenkins; she actually helps save the world.

Posted by Orlando Haynes on 2020-08-25 05:13:15