The English Student

Not worth it.

Proxima is set in the 22nd century, when population pressures and an overheating, dying Earth have sent vast waves of humanity out to live in domes on the Moon, Mercury, Mars and the larger asteroids. Yuri Eden, a man from Mars, is swept together with a bunch of other ne'er-do-wells and flown out on a three-year voyage to Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to the Sun, which happens to have a handy Earth-like planet for humans to colonise. Yuri and his companions are dumped there and told, essentially, to get on with pioneering or die forgotten on an alien planet.

Proxima just feels like a very male book, which, OK, I don't always have a problem with, but these fourteen colonists are dumped on this alien planet, with no hope of survival unless they all work together and start farming, but actually the main priority of all the men is (you guessed it) SEX.

They literally kill each other over who gets the women.

I'm bored already.

Also, the book uses rape early on to establish just how Violent and Nasty things are in this environment, and please male authors just stop doing this.

I think Baxter probably thinks he's being feminist and progressive, but actually he's just reinforcing the stereotype of women being weak and in the power of/needing to be looked after by men. "But look! Women shouldn't have to have babies if they don't want to!" Yeah...but the woman you're saying this about GOES ON TO HAVE A BABY. WITH THE PROTAGONIST. Fairly quickly.

Also, here be infodumps.