With Stephen Baxter, I always feel like it mattered, but I always feel sad. Forget happy endings - his books don't even have happy middles, or happy beginnings.
Read something more cheerful, like from Peter Watts.
Peter Watts novels play by anime rules half the time. "This biological creature can accelerate its whole body across a room and then decelerate to a complete stop in 40ms." "Vampire is super duper smert so she can stomp her feet to precisely manipulate extremely chaotic physical systems to achieve the exact outcome she wants". No other author keeps me so thoroughly engaged while making me constantly roll my eyes.
Jesus. Don't read Flood. I've never experienced existential dread with anything else.