Ark (A Novel of the Flood)

Believe it or not, the man responsible for the famous Alcubierre Drive, theoretical physicist Miguel Alcubierre is, as of today, September 2020, only 56 years old. Judging by the frequency his warp drive is being used by FTLists, one would expect him to be at least contemporary of Einstein and Bohr.However, a FTL copout to escape time dilation is not the Ark’s greatest sin. I would rather think of two major problems. On the one hand we have a severe case of belief dilation where the decades in the Ark lead to bizarre situations and decisions which make no sense and shutter believability (and also artificially extend the novel to 98 chapters).On the other hand, fascinating as a Generation Ship/Ark long-time-in-space storyline is, it does not really amount to anything special, unless something really terrible or bizarre happens. If a voyage is all the way idyllic, then there is no novel. If the Orient Express is not snowed up in Yugoslavia and no crime occurs, what’s the point of writing the novel?So, basically, how “good” are the bad things happening to the Ark’s people? Are they terrifying like things that happen in Russo’s Ship of Fools? Are they mind-boggling like the truth behind the tribes in Aldiss’ Non-Stop? Are they bending the fabric of the universe itself like Anderson’s Tau Zero spaceship?The answer is that, although the book has its moments, there is nothing very special about how calamities occur in Ark – you‘ve read the heresy and the mutiny and the simulation angles in various novels of the genre (and executed much more better) and most of the unexpected incidents in the crew’s lives are unexpectedly dull.Besides, the buildup, up to the launch of the spaceship is so huge, almost a third of the novel, that a reader comes to expect miracles – which never happen. Finally, the characters are mostly like Chinese rooms – data gets in and out of them and that’s about it.Unless you are, yourself, confined to a generation ship for the next few centuries you can safely pass on Ark.

After having read flood, which was a very unique and engaging novel, I downloaded this to my Kindle. Ark is a sequel in a way to flood with some of the same characters appearing and the background premise being at play, namely that the world is slowly flooding. However, while the previous novel dealt with the discovery of the flood phenomenon and some Earthbound characters' attempts to deal with it, this novel covers an attempt to escape the planet and send a viable group of colonizers to another habitable planet. The story begins with the selection, training and construction process and follows through the launch and mission itself which covers many decades. I am not sure how realistic it is to think that a completely untested warp ship could be built and launched while society is crumbling under an relentless flood, but that aside, this is a very interesting tale of what it might be like to embark on a journey to a relatively nearby stellar destination. While most of the action surrounds the Ark, or spaceship, there is some reference to events back on Earth which gives a bit of closure to the previous novel. Of course this book ends by leaving open the possibility of further sequels involving both the people left on Earth as well as those who traveled to another planet. I don't read a lot of science fiction, but I do enjoy an engaging and well-written tale from time to time and this book fits the bill.

Before getting to the meat of my review, I must begin with the global warming controversy surrounding this book. Personally, I am a skeptic in this matter and shied away from the novel for some time due to my perceptions. Rest assured this is NOT a "man made climate change" disaster story. Oh, its pretty obvious Baxter is sympathetic to such theories, but he has not written this as a cautionary tale. Mr. Baxter leaves the issue open to each of us to decide.With that out of the way, I've read a number of interstellar colonization novels and short stories over the years. The typical story I sampled has a well engineered and fully stock ship heading off to the stars with one or perhaps two speed bumps along the way. Baxter's Ark goes way off the beaten path. Because of various political, resource and time constrains, Baxter's Ark is a God awful mess. The launch method is less than optimal, the crew is very small, the ship's command structure is (in my opinion) imperfect, crew dynamics are a mess, the ship itself has a Rube Goldberg feel to it, little is known about the target planet, etc. But oh how these imperfections make for a great tale!I did find some problems. Most importantly, the first third of the story concerns the contruction of the ship and the mission along with following the collapse of civilization as dry land disappears. I found all this interesting, but at times was chafing for Baxter to light the candle. Also, there are some issues surrounding the ship Baxter never really explains. A minor one that irked me was the Ark coffee-holic navigator who seems to have a multi-decade supply of instant coffee! Where is all this being stored?Other than some small blemishes, this is a novel worth picking up.

Ark is interesting for two reasons. First, it has a very engaging story with several interesting characters. The sci-fi ark theme has been done often. This plot has several twists that keep it fresh and engaging. Second, it has a storyline that leaves you wondering somewhat about what happened to the rest of the story. When the storyline divides into three (good twist), one is dealt with as a full fledged story, the second is told in a somewhat, and in too brief, manner, and the third is almost an afterthought. Often, I think many works of fiction are too "fat" with details that don't add to the story. In this book however, we needed more heft in the other two stories.

I feel I should preface this review by explaining that I've read Ark without first having read Flood, or any of Stephen Baxter's previous works. I note from other reviewers' comments that there is considerable overlap with Flood, as well as repetition of themes from Baxter's previous novels, such that long-time readers may find little new here. As a newcomer to Baxter's writing, however, I found this a magnificent, richly satisfying work of hard science fiction.In the near future, Earth is being slowly drowned by the release of subterranean reserves of water. As society crumbles, a cabal of world leaders and billionaire businessmen set about trying to ensure the future of humanity by launching an interstellar mission to colonise an earthlike exoplanet. Viewing the end of the world through the eyes of numerous protagonists, and ultimately covering decades of time, Ark sets out to be an epic. In my view, it succeeds.Despite its premise, Ark's first half is confined to terra firma. Detailing the inception of the mission and its progress through the slow-motion apocalypse unfolding outside, readers of Flood may this portion of the novel repetitive. The Ark Project is a fascinating one to follow, however, mixing intriguing engineering and tales of individual brilliance and folly with a cold-eyed view of the compromises and sacrifices which would inevitably befall such a resource-hungry undertaking in an environment of desperate scarcity. One of Baxter's greatest achievements in Ark is to portray the tragic consequences of individual selfishness or hurried decisions, sometimes reverberating down the decades.The second half of Ark is less measured, and more closely resembles the interstellar adventure readers may have been hoping for when they bought the novel. The Ark's confined spaces provide a more intimate environment for the protagonists to scheme and bicker; sometimes with terrible results for the mission as a whole. Baxter is unsentimental in his portrayal of human nature; never more so than the gut-punch of the book's downbeat ending. Whilst the plot is compelling, and maintains a focus on its characters' emotional arcs, there is little doubt that the science is the star of the show. The unfolding environmental catastrophe gives Baxter the opportunity to explore fascinating concepts in climatology and sociology rarely covered in SF. One the Ark launches, he throws some fascinating material on exoplanet astronomy into the melting pot.Ark is a fine tale of noble endeavor and resourcefulness in the face of adversity, elevated to greatness by its wonderful depth, fascinating central concepts and an eye for the less admirable aspects of human nature. That said, some of the usual cautions for SF apply, including broad-brush characterisation and a slightly analytical, even misanthropic bent. Several plot threads are also left dangling at the book's conclusion, and the downer ending may not please everyone. Nevertheless, I found this one of the most rewarding works of hard SF I've read in a long time, and it comes highly recommended to all genre fans.

I really enjoyed the book and had to keep on turning the pages. It's a good story in several distinct phases and it explores all how a group of people might co-exist in the confinement of a long space flight. Stephen Baxter has obviously done a lot of research on the potential viability of such a long space flight however there are gaps. For example he doesn't really explain how the crew of about eighty manage to eat during a 40 year space flight.Some of the characters' behaviour stretches credibility a bit. I know it's a science fiction fantasy but the characters still have to be true to themselves. For example, the behaviour of Wilson in leaving in one of the shuttles when the rebellion starts doesn't ring true, although it is convenient for the plot that he then manages to wreck the shuttle in the warp bubble but still survive.In spite of things like that it's a really good story and a well written one. I enjoyed it.

This is the sequel to the author's earlier novel Flood. That novel told of the growing flooding on Earth and the impact it had on the population. One of the options taken by a small powerful part of the population was to try and find alternatives for the human race to continue if, as was feared, Earth disappeared compltely under the rising water.Ark takes a back step for the first 200 or so pages; we get to see the impending catastrophe from the perspective of another group of humans, struggling to build a spaceship that would take a genetic pool hopefully to a new planet. In Flood we saw, from a distance, the Ark take off. Now we get to read its story while the timeline catches up to about 2040 again. Once the timelines are back in sync, we get to see a little of what life is like for those left on Earth, but mainly the story follows those in Ark I as they travel through space. I have no idea whether the `science' offered in the story is in any way realistic, but there's a lot of it offered for the reader - perhaps a little too much, as it makes the story drift from the people themselves. Given the long timelines as the novel leaps ahead in periods of several years at a time (I found myself having to go back to see what year the last section was in), the story gets a bit choppy; and unfortunately the characters in the story suffer most. They become more distant to the reader; I found myself become more detached from their ultimate fate. That's unfortunate, as there's a lot of action in the last half of the book, as the Ark project takes a few unexpected twists.Ultimately, this is a good story, which maybe could have been written better. The idea is great; but the delivery fell a bit flat. There is not, as you would expect in a book that purports to tell of humanity's future fate, a neat wrapping up at the end; but there is hope for humanity, and I guess that's the real story the author is trying to tell.

Just finished reading this straight after "Flood". I must say that Baxter is a dreadful man but wonderful author: his writing forced me to read the 2 books in a week! I had no choice, his books were so compelling. He presents a chilling future, bleak, awful, terrifying, with no possible hope ... BUT the human spirit finds hope even in the worst situations.He writes of HUMANITY and what this means in all its complexity and manifestations: Don't look for simple heroes or villains but find ordinary people and their leaders in extraordinary circumstances. There is a strand of melancholy that can run through his writing [see his wonderful "Evolution" with its memorable ending] but always a small spark of hope keeps reappearing.Is it too much to hope for an "Ark 2"?

Baxter weaves world's of horror so close to a possible reality it is frightening. As Baxter focus's on human interaction in situations of complexity, his world's become real and their demands realised. Often these are tough choices thrust on an ill prepared people as society, just trying to survive takes on everything Baxter can originate as he works the hard pressed characters through their destiny.