Aurora
A major new novel from one of science fiction's most powerful voices, Aurora tells the incredible story of our first voyage beyond the solar system. Brilliantly imagined and beautifully told, it is the work of a writer at the height of his powers. Our voyage from Earth began generations ago. Now, we approach our new home. AURORA.
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Community Reviews
Aurora is the story of mankind’s first voyage outside of the Solar system. In the case of Aurora, it is a voyage intended to settle one of the planets within the habitable zone of the Tau Ceti system 12 light years from Sol. This voyage began almost 200 years prior to when we first encounter the inhabitants of the dual ringed ship as they are making their final approach to Tau Ceti, which is still another 20 years out. It is during this time that we meet Freya and her parents Devi and Badim who live in the Nova Scotia biome aboard the ship. Freya is a curious girl, although apparently a little slower than what she should be at her age. As the narrative continues, we watch Freya grow up, journey around the ship to the various biomes (her wanderjahr), fall in love, deal with loss and heartache, and become a leader to the people aboard.
One of the things I love about “hard” science fiction is, while remaining grounded in known scientific understanding, gives us a realistic vision of what the future of manned space travel could be like. Don’t misunderstand me, I love Star Trek and similar Sci-fi/fantasy series (and am still holding out hope for a matter replicator and holodeck), but I get stupid happy when I think about how things like the technology in The Martian is an actual, viable route being explored for manned Mars missions. I think it pushes us to intentionally explore possible solutions to help humanity reach the stars (which, by the way, we should be 30 years or more ahead of where we are now with space exploration, but don’t get me on that soap box). The point is, I appreciate how novels such as this are grounded in “reality” simply because it helps me to actually picture how this would, and could, work for us in the near future.
Some of the cool things about this book:
- The Biomes. The ship itself consists of two rings connected with a spine running through the middle (see picture on the front of the book). Each ring consists of 12 biomes, each simulating various regions, peoples, plant and animal life from their respective climates from around Earth. This was intentionally done so that when the ship reached its destination, the settlers could begin introducing familiar wild life and plant life to their new world, not to mention to supply food for the people while they are sailing.
- “Discovering” one of the actually known planets within the habitable zone that we know of. Once the ship arrives in the Tau Ceti system, the people aboard then decide to settle on Planet E’s moon, due to its smaller and more manageable size than E itself. They name this planet Aurora.
- SPOILER ALERT! - - - - Hibernation/Suspended Animation. This is just cool because of the possibilities it affords for long term space travel. Without the advent of something such as hyper or warp drive, space travel to even the nearest star system would take 200 + years, as is the case here. When some in the group decide to return to Sol, they eventually have to resort to hibernation to keep from starving to death, which allows them to make the full trip as well as allow the ship to heal from being used long past its intended shelf life.
Negatives:
- In my opinion there are two major negatives about this book. SPOILER ALERT: The first is that there is no follow up with the group that elected not to return to Sol other than a brief comment made by the ship about it being over 20 years since their last report. My only hope is that Mr. Robinson will write a follow-up novel that finishes the story from that angle, as I am interested in their efforts to terra form a lifeless moon in the Tau Ceti system. This shouldn’t be too hard of a job for the author as his Mars trilogy chronicled the first long term settlement on Mars all the way through making it Earth like. I would enjoy this.
- The ending. I’m all about happy endings, don’t get me wrong. But the ending to this story really left me feeling… meh. I don’t want to give it away (go read it yourself!) but due to the trials and troubles that the characters had to go through, and what the ship did for them, I feel a little cheated with the ending. Both for the group that returned to Sol and the ship itself. It just… stopped.
Read this and other reviews on my blog: backporchreview.weebly.com
One of the things I love about “hard” science fiction is, while remaining grounded in known scientific understanding, gives us a realistic vision of what the future of manned space travel could be like. Don’t misunderstand me, I love Star Trek and similar Sci-fi/fantasy series (and am still holding out hope for a matter replicator and holodeck), but I get stupid happy when I think about how things like the technology in The Martian is an actual, viable route being explored for manned Mars missions. I think it pushes us to intentionally explore possible solutions to help humanity reach the stars (which, by the way, we should be 30 years or more ahead of where we are now with space exploration, but don’t get me on that soap box). The point is, I appreciate how novels such as this are grounded in “reality” simply because it helps me to actually picture how this would, and could, work for us in the near future.
Some of the cool things about this book:
- The Biomes. The ship itself consists of two rings connected with a spine running through the middle (see picture on the front of the book). Each ring consists of 12 biomes, each simulating various regions, peoples, plant and animal life from their respective climates from around Earth. This was intentionally done so that when the ship reached its destination, the settlers could begin introducing familiar wild life and plant life to their new world, not to mention to supply food for the people while they are sailing.
- “Discovering” one of the actually known planets within the habitable zone that we know of. Once the ship arrives in the Tau Ceti system, the people aboard then decide to settle on Planet E’s moon, due to its smaller and more manageable size than E itself. They name this planet Aurora.
- SPOILER ALERT! - - - - Hibernation/Suspended Animation. This is just cool because of the possibilities it affords for long term space travel. Without the advent of something such as hyper or warp drive, space travel to even the nearest star system would take 200 + years, as is the case here. When some in the group decide to return to Sol, they eventually have to resort to hibernation to keep from starving to death, which allows them to make the full trip as well as allow the ship to heal from being used long past its intended shelf life.
Negatives:
- In my opinion there are two major negatives about this book. SPOILER ALERT: The first is that there is no follow up with the group that elected not to return to Sol other than a brief comment made by the ship about it being over 20 years since their last report. My only hope is that Mr. Robinson will write a follow-up novel that finishes the story from that angle, as I am interested in their efforts to terra form a lifeless moon in the Tau Ceti system. This shouldn’t be too hard of a job for the author as his Mars trilogy chronicled the first long term settlement on Mars all the way through making it Earth like. I would enjoy this.
- The ending. I’m all about happy endings, don’t get me wrong. But the ending to this story really left me feeling… meh. I don’t want to give it away (go read it yourself!) but due to the trials and troubles that the characters had to go through, and what the ship did for them, I feel a little cheated with the ending. Both for the group that returned to Sol and the ship itself. It just… stopped.
Read this and other reviews on my blog: backporchreview.weebly.com
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