"Aurora" by Kim Stanley Robinson, 2015

"Aurora" by Kim Stanley Robinson, 2015

Aurora is Kim Stanley Robinson’s melancholic and ambitious tale about a generational seed ship on its final leg of a 160 year journey to an Earth analog planet which is actually a moon of a larger planet orbiting the star Tau Ceti, 11.9 light years from Earth.  The name of the analog planet: Aurora.  On board are ~2100 humans who are the seventh, and final, generation of an eventual settlement expedition that will land and live on Aurora.  There are two main characters in the narrative; Ship, an artificial intelligence that is the ship itself; and Freya, a woman around which Ship builds the narrative of the book told through its “eyes” (cameras).  Ship itself is comprised of two rotating rings, each comprised of twelve segments (or biomes), with each ring holding about 1000 humans. The biomes represent biologically and ecologically independent environments.

Aurora is also divided up into three thematic sections: The Arrival, On Aurora, The Return.  These sections are my interpretation, not reflective of the actual named parts of Aurora.

Part I – The Arrival:

As Ship approaches Aurora, a moon of the planet Tau Ceti e, which orbits Tau Ceti, we find that the infrastructure of Ship is in a state of disarray.  Systems are failing and in need of constant repair, biome biology has become increasingly sensitive, and the IQs of this final generation of humans is the lowest it’s been.  The populace is generally unhappy and dissatisfied with conditions on the ship.  They are more than ready to depart.  Devi, Freya’s mother, is suffering from cancer and soon succumbs just as they reach Aurora.

Part II – On Aurora:

Most, but not all, passengers are eager to leave the decaying Ship and begin establishing an outpost on Aurora. The work will be hard while in inhospitable conditions. Approximately half of them move to the cold, windy, and lifeless surface, using molecular printers to create all the tools and resources they need. Even though they never leave their protection of suits, accidents happen and they soon learn that Aurora is even more inhospitable than believed. People are suddenly and quickly dying from an unknown prion that seems to be found in the sand of the planet. It quickly becomes apparent that the mission is doomed to failure . . . 160 years for naught. Two options are proposed: move to the next candidate planet, or return to Earth. There seems no other option since all but one person who landed on Aurora died.

Part III – The Return:

Put to a vote half of those remaining on the ship choose to move on to the next planet, the rest vote to return to Earth, knowing they will be doing so on a Ship that is quickly succumbing to the forces of entropy. Ship is divided into its two rings, one given to each group, and the story follows the return group to Earth. Plans for another generational return via procreation soon evaporates. Starvation, suicide, infertility, Ship failure and the like take their toll. Ship receives communication from Earth that they’ve developed a method of suspended animation that should get them the rest of the way home.

It’s clear the Robinson did his homework while writing Aurora.  It oozes speculated science on how humanity could journey to another star via a generational ship. Is the science accurate? In most respects, probably not.  I expect building a self contained environment and flinging it to a fraction of the speed of light via laser while keeping seven generations of humans alive for 160 years in the cold of space is something current scientists have no tangible idea how to do, other than via speculation.  But the extrapolation of said science to arrive at the overall premise of Aurora is sound . . . or at least comes across as sound for the sake of fiction.

And that’s one of Aurora‘s problems, at least for this reader. The story is steeped in too much science, often told from the point of view of an analytic artificial intelligence.  Yes, at times Aurora is beautiful, powerful, and melancholy . . . its middle sections are also as dry as the Sahara and are a real struggle to wade through. Thankfully the book isn’t overly long, it only feels like it, especially during the middle sections.

Ship is populated with many characters, most of them mentioned in passing, few of them ever given memorable attention. As previously mentioned the two main characters are Freya and Ship.  Freya is the daughter of Ship’s main engineer (Devi) on the last leg of the journey to the planet Aurora.  Being so, Freya inherits many of the problems plaguing Ship. While her characterization is strong, it’s not overly interesting nor is she really likable.  The other character, of course, is Ship, who is significantly more interesting than, and equally as complex as, Freya. When a reader is more interested in a quantum computer and sad that an artificial intelligence “dies,” rather than being happy a significant number of humans return to Earth alive . . . you might have characterization and relatability issues.

Finally, the title of the book is Aurora.  It’s an enigma since very little time is spent on the planet.  It comes across as a destination device simply for something catastrophic to go wrong, with little effort on Robinson’s part to develop it as anything more than a quick stop over point.  The book is essentially about Ship, the people aboard it, and every detailed sacrifice and challenge they face.  Aurora is not about its namesake planet or anything that happens there other than being infected with prions which brings a tragic end to the hope of settlement. If the name of Ship was Aurora, an interesting character . . . then you’d have an appropriate title.

Bottomline:

There’s little doubt that Kim Stanley Robinson crafted Aurora to be a cautionary tale about the tremendous risks involved with space travel and the settling of alien planets.  The takeaway seems to be that humans are far too fragile for such work and that it’s best left to machines and artificial intelligence. Aurora is not a tale of the triumph of discovery, but of the despair of loss and the triumph of survival. Along with it comes a profound sense of beautiful melancholy that can often make it a difficult read.

★★★★☆ (4 out of 5 stars) - I really liked it.

"Death’s End (Remembrance of Earth's Past #3)" by Cixin Liu, 2016

"Death’s End (Remembrance of Earth's Past #3)" by Cixin Liu, 2016

**WARNING: This review contains unavoidable spoilers for The Three-Body Problem and The Dark Forest. If you have not read the first two books and want to remain unspoiled, look away.**

REVIEW
It is fifty years after the Doomsday Battle. The Trisolarans and Earth are locked in an era of deterrence, after Luo Ji has proven that the universe is actually a Dark Forest–any spark of intelligent life will be extinguished by others, protecting their own best interests. But first, let me rewind:

In The Three-Body Problem, humans had broadcast a signal of communication from Earth to the first alien race known to humankind, aka aliens from the planet Trisolaris. Unlike Earth, Trisolaris has a three-body star system, meaning that their planet and civilization undergoes immense catastrophic periods of chaos, followed by intermittent periods of stability during which life thrives. When the Trisolarans learned of Earth–thanks to a broadcasted signal–they sent a colonization fleet to take the planet. Since Trisolaris is considerably more evolved in their technological capabilities, they also sent sophons to Earth–all-powerful supercomputers folded upon themselves in lower dimensions, capable of seeing and overhearing anything on Earth and reporting back to Trisolaris in realtime. The mission for these sophons was simple: obstruct technological progress on Earth so that by the time the Trisolaran fleet arrives in 300 years, they can easily exterminate the Earthling bugs who were so luckily given such a beautiful, stable home planet.

In The Dark Forest, we saw humanity’s prolonged reactions to the impending Trisolaran fleet–some humans embraced the Trisolarans as saviors, others yearned for the alien race to destroy humanity. The United Nations and the leading governing bodies around the world, however, took a different approach: selecting four “wallfacers” who would have unlimited resources and no questions asked as they prepared their grand plans to save humanity from annihilation. Over the years, these wallfacers stumbled with their protective measures and projects–the Trisolarans sent “wallbreakers” to divulge each of these humans’ plans, defeating them one after another… except for Luo Ji. Luo Ji is able to devise the truth of the nature of the universe–it is not a happy place, where life coexists and grows naturally, but a dark forest, where each civilization acts as a silent hunter. Because survival is the primary need of civilization and all civilizations will do whatever they can to ensure their own survival, and because civilizations always grow and expand but the amount of resources in the universe is finite, it follows that civilizations in the universe strive to remain undetected, always hunting for new planets to colonize and destroy.

Luo Ji tests this theory at the end of The Dark Forest, and receives his answer when his test results in the destruction of a star system following his broadcast of its location.

And so, Earth-Trisolaran relations enter a third stage: Deterrence. Luo Ji now becomes the Swordbearer–his mission is to convince Trisolaris that he will broadcast the location of Trisolaris to the cosmos, which will result in the destruction of their world from other civilizations in the dark forest. Should Luo Ji broadcast that location, however, it also means sure death for Earth civilization–as an intelligent alien race capable of destroying a star system will be able to unravel the nature of the relationship between both Earth and Trisolaris. In short, Luo Ji has concocted a tense peace resting on the premise of Mutually Assured Destruction.

It is in this Era that Death’s End begins.

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In Death’s End, there are three very important things happening at once:

The Staircase Project is the first introduction we have to Cheng Xin–a female engineer who has both empathy and creativity in spades. It is Cheng Xin who devises a plan to deliver a payload that will intercept the Trisolaran fleet several decades before it gets to Earth. The hope is that the payload–a human–will be able to infiltrate the fleet and either give humanity an edge, or destroy Trisolaris’ invasion.

At the same time, two warships are locked in deadly pursuit. Gravity, you may remember from the Doomsday battle, breaks away from Earth and holds onboard a broadcasting system that is able to share the location of the Trisolaran civilization. Another Earth ship, the Blue Space, pursues her in hopes of catching her, silencing her permanently, and forcing her crew to face trial and death for crimes against humanity (for, what greater crime could there be than the potential annihilation of all life on Earth).

Finally, a quiet, introverted man faces death from incurable disease. This man, Yun Tianming, is also a scientist who knew and fell in love with Cheng Xin when they were in university together. Before he takes his own life in state-sanctioned euthanasia, he makes a grand, romantic gesture. He buys Cheng Xin a star, spending all of his insurance money, in the hopes that she may one day realize how much he loved her and spark similar feelings.

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I won’t spoil how these three threads mean everything for humanity in Death’s End, but know that each one of them plays vital role in the novel, and under Cixin Liu’s careful puppet-mastery and masterful plotting, each storyline builds to a dramatic crescendo and so much heartache.

From a pure plotting perspective, Death’s End is more like The Dark Forest than it is The Three-Body Problem; this is a book that dwarfs the other two in scope, as it extends not just the centuries before Trisolaris arrives in the solar system, but the decades, centuries, milennia that follow.

This is also a story that carefully dissects the nature of humanity, and our tendency to elect leaders who reflect the overall sentiments of the populace at any given time, and how leaders when elected hold a great deal of power that may change the course of human history.

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Which brings me to the characters in this particular novel. Cheng Xin is the main character of this story, and hers is a tale of Empathy, humanity, and love.

I love that Cixin Liu goes the particular route he does with this particular protagonist. She is our counterpoint, our grounding narrator over the years as she is put into hibernation, skimming over eras, making decisions entrusted to her which will condemn her and absolve her as the centuries turn. Some interpretations or readings of this book may find that Cheng Xin is a weak woman who has made all of the decisions that have damned humanity over this dramatic take–personally, my interpretation is more favorable. Cheng Xin is not a perfect character, nor an ideal leader. She is not A Great Hero, and so she makes predictable, impossible decisions with immense consequence. My reading of Cheng Xin is not that she is weak or wrong; rather, humans are by our nature, flawed, emotional, and prone to our own inherent biases. I thoroughly appreciated this human interpretation–even if it ultimately means humankind is doomed.

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Other things that Death’s End did exceptionally well:

The novel plays with metaphor and literary tradition, including secret messages embedded in fairy tales (which are thrilling and beautiful to read in their own right).

Liu also dives into groundwork laid in the first two novels vis-a-vis dimensions and the implications of two, three, four dimensions–and beyond.

Cixin Liu also poses an inadvertent question: at what point does life become not worth living? What sacrifices are so great that they are not worth the cost of implementing? Faced with an inevitable extinction event, how would humanity prepare or behave?

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★★★★☆ (4 out of 5 stars) - I really liked it.