Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson

Aurora is a 2014 science-fiction novel by Kim Stanley Robinson. The book is set on a generational ship travelling to Tau Ceti in order to begin a human colony. However things don’t quite go according to plan.

AURORA BY KIM STANLEY ROBINSON

SUMMARY

Our voyage from Earth began generations ago.

Now, we approach our destination.

A new home.

Aurora.

MY THOUGHTS ON AURORA

I really enjoyed Aurora, it’s one of those books set on a generational ship. I’ve found that most books like this usually occur about halfway through the journey and almost always have some sort of plot twist. Aurora is different because it does not have a plot twist and deals with what happens when the ship gets to it’s destination.

One thing I found great about it is that the main character is mentally stunted, it’s never properly explained what her problems are, though we learn that it may be caused by living on the ship. The thing I love about this is that her disability is not the whole point of the story, it’s just something she has and despite having it, is still able to get on with her life just like everyone else on board.

Now this book is a hard sci-fi, I love hard sci-fi and I really enjoyed all the science-y bits in this, but I found some parts were just a little too technical. I ended up skipping pages because I didn’t understand the physics. I still enjoyed the book despite this but it was annoying that I had to skip bits.

THE ENDING

My only problem with this book was the final section. I’ll try to not give away any spoilers but I basically thought it didn’t do a very good job of wrapping up the story. It almost felt like this final section should have been cut during the edit. It left me with more questions than answers.

The actual last part of this book wasn’t even a proper end, it sort of just stopped. I don’t know if that means Kim Stanley Robinson is going to write a sequel or what. But yes, apart from the ending (which was a bit of a let down) I did enjoy this book.