Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read.

Start by marking “Ark (Flood, #2)” as Want to Read:

Other editions

Enlarge cover

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Open Preview

Ark

(Flood #2)

Stephen Baxter

3.86 · Rating details · 3,553 ratings · 297 reviews

Hundreds will live, six billion will die.

Our world ended in 2052, the year the last great flood finally overwhelmed the lands.

A desperate bid for survival began in America, in the years before the end. The project which could be our final act could also be an impossible dream: creating a starship to take a few hundred survivors on an epic journey to a new world.

As the wate ...more

Get A Copy

Hardcover, 457 pages

Published September 17th 2009 by Gollancz (first published August 20th 2009)

More Details... Edit Details

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Reader Q&A

To ask other readers questions about Ark, please sign up.

Lists with This Book

Best Science Fiction of the 21st Century

869 books — 8,467 voters

Classic Science Fiction - 2000-2009

290 books — 232 voters

More lists with this book...

Community Reviews

Showing 1-30

Average rating 3.86 ·

Rating details

· 3,553 ratings · 297 reviews

More filters

Sort order

Start your review of Ark (Flood, #2)

Jul 05, 2011 Lori L (She Treads Softly) rated it it was amazing

Ark by Stephen Baxter returns to the Earth as seen in Flood. It's a sequel but at the beginning events from both novels are running concurrently, just in different locations and following different people. Ark follows project Nimrod, or Ark 1. This ark, however, is a spaceship. The story follows the project from the early days when Ark 1 is being developed and young candidates for the crew are being trained, to the flight and subsequent problems that emerge in the flight to Earth 2. Baxter mainl ...more

flag 8 likes · Like · see review

May 05, 2013 Lydia rated it it was ok

Shelves: dystopia, post-apocalyptic

Ark, like Flood, takes a long time to get off the ground (heh heh). I found myself saying "yeah, yeah, enough with the Earth logistics already!" It was frustrating the buildup to the launch was half the book, because I'd felt that the Earth story had been told in Flood. There were some good ideas here, and enough to keep me interested, but I'm frustrated by all the unexplored stories that Baxter sets up. He makes a fair go at building the characters, but I still found them pretty flat. He does t Ark, like Flood, takes a long time to get off the ground (heh heh). I found myself saying "yeah, yeah, enough with the Earth logistics already!" It was frustrating the buildup to the launch was half the book, because I'd felt that the Earth story had been told in Flood. There were some good ideas here, and enough to keep me interested, but I'm frustrated by all the unexplored stories that Baxter sets up. He makes a fair go at building the characters, but I still found them pretty flat. He does this funny thing where he'll dispassionately dispatch the characters, often with one character saying in a later seen "it's a shame that so-and-so was killed by that food poisoning". And then he'll move on to something else. I found that there was so emotional impact when characters died, it was all just mildly depressing throughout. (spoilers below)
Although the main characters in Ark are female, Baxter can't help but keep the old trope of "she's ambitious...therefore unfeeling and ruthless" as applied to Kelly's leadership. Kelly's other character flaw was leaving her child on Earth (albeit with her partner and father), which makes her a bad mother/cold hearted bitch. Many other characters, particularly the male ones, leave their children behind, but they are portrayed as victims of circumstance. Liu Zheng, for example, could have stayed with his wife and child in China but chose not to. The other female characters seem quite weak. I was appalled that Venus and Holle, supposed "strong women" , had tolerated chronic sexual abuse on board the ship for years, barely trying to fix the situation. They both seemed passive and detached to me. Baxter also sets up Grace's character as being central, then does nothing with her at all.

I was hoping that Baxter would explore the actual re-building of civilization (like in the book Red Mars), but he never gets there. Instead, this book mostly describes what happens to a crew of emotionally retarded brats who are suffocated by stale farts and rivalry. It seems that they never really grow up, except in their capacity to hurt each other. I found no hope in this book. That doesn't make it a bad book, but it does become a bit of a slog to read. I would be interested in a third book though, because this one left me damn unsatisfied. ...more

flag 6 likes · Like · see review

Apr 28, 2013 Cécile C. rated it liked it

Shelves: science-fiction

A hard science book that has a lot of very interesting ideas to toss around, but fails somewhat on the "soft" (but no less important) science front.

The nuts-and-bolts details were fascinating. I'm not a scientist, so I have no idea how realistic they are (though let's face it, probably no one has--if we could say for certain it's realistic, we'd be building the thing already!), but they certainly were thought-provoking. And Baxter did succeed in creating a deeply unsettling sense of loss, of diz A hard science book that has a lot of very interesting ideas to toss around, but fails somewhat on the "soft" (but no less important) science front.

The nuts-and-bolts details were fascinating. I'm not a scientist, so I have no idea how realistic they are (though let's face it, probably no one has--if we could say for certain it's realistic, we'd be building the thing already!), but they certainly were thought-provoking. And Baxter did succeed in creating a deeply unsettling sense of loss, of dizzying distance, of sacrifice. Much of the story made me quite uneasy, in fact, because of how well he rendered the claustrophobia of a group of people who might well be the last humans alive but will never know for sure, and the sense of irrevocability of a setting where any separation is for life, and any distance travelled won't be travelled back. On this, the book is a success.

Where I think Baxter failed, on the other hand, is in the description of the human element. While the astronauts on the Ark spent their whole life training for the mission, the society they form is surprisingly traditionalist. The crew members seem to be completely unprepared to deal with would-be dictators or rapists, and they reproduce a patriarchal model without question, as though the author was trying to tell us that it's the only model that could work. I was very surprised that after all the work that went into imagining the technical details, the social issues were solved in such a simplistic way, and Baxter took absolutely no time at all to imagine how an original society might emerge in the conditions of the Ark.

Last problem is literary. The pace takes forever to pick up. While isolated scenes work well to describe life in space, they also give a sense that nothing important ever happens, and that there's no real evolution in the situation. As a result, I read willingly, but put down the book just as willingly after a few pages. Only the last hundred pages or so have actual rhythm. The point of view keeps shinfting between one character and another, but they all mostly sound the same, and they're so unevenly distributed iit sounds like the changes are purely perfunctory. The names of the protagonists have simplistic symbolisms (just read and you'll see what I mean), and that adds to the overall lack of depth of the characters. In a story where the technical aspect is emphasised and the human element is already a weak point, it's a bit unfortunate.

In short: good ideas, thought-provoking concepts, but not taken far enough, in my mind. ...more

flag 4 likes · Like · see review

Aug 27, 2009 Bill rated it it was amazing

Shelves: science-fiction

Ark is a continuation of Baxter's apocalyptic Flood and tells the story of Ark 1 being built somewhere near Denver Colorado in the barely surviving USA, its launch and the struggles of its passengers as Ark 1 tries to save a small remnant of humans from extinction. Baxter tells for me what is a believable hard Sci-Fi story of multigenerational life in a container as its passengers hurtle towards salvation: good story, well developed characters.

It was coincidental and very fortun Ark is a continuation of Baxter's apocalyptic Flood and tells the story of Ark 1 being built somewhere near Denver Colorado in the barely surviving USA, its launch and the struggles of its passengers as Ark 1 tries to save a small remnant of humans from extinction. Baxter tells for me what is a believable hard Sci-Fi story of multigenerational life in a container as its passengers hurtle towards salvation: good story, well developed characters.

It was coincidental and very fortunate that I had just read When Worlds Collide and After Worlds Collide, another hard Sci-Fi duology written in 1933-34. These are essentially the same stories with different Humanity shattering disasters, different emphases, styles and tones due to the different eras during which their authors lived. EG, the main characters, the heroes in When Worlds Collide are several men and 1 women. In Baxter's work they are all female, underscoring the new-wave sexism of the 21st century. Both works include Biblical quotes. The older uses these to give hope and courage from a God as savior point of view. The newer uses these to affirm that Man is on his own in an uncaring universe. Finally from today's point of view, the Science in When Worlds Collide seems right on, whereas Baxter's science, while not obviously breaking any of our current Scientific Laws, uses highly speculative theories to tell his story. I find it interesting that both works use the same method of propulsion to get their respective Arks off the Earth.

Overall I quite enjoyed Ark and am glad I did not have to wait very long for it to be published after reading Flood (though I did have to buy the UK edition, since the US edition is not yet announced). Flood/Ark should have been published as 1 book; it should be read as one book; it should be reviewed as one book. Gollanz hardbacks, expensive in the US, even compared to other UK publishers, are, IMO, cheaply made. Nice covers, though, and that on Ark quotes another great '50's Sci-Fi movie.

...more

flag 3 likes · Like · see review

Jun 03, 2012 Benjamin rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Depressing and brilliant. Heavy spoilers follow.

The sequel to Flood is better than its predecessor. It begins with much the same feel of the first book, in that it follows a sheltered and more-or-less naive group of special, selected few, but Ark puts a lot more stress on the brutality necessary to protect their pocket of safety. It is clear that these are the best humanity has to offer, and it is clear that nothing, including morality, can be allowed to interfere with their mission. This is wel ...more

flag 3 likes · Like · see review

Feb 09, 2010 Nicholas Whyte rated it it was ok · review of another edition

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1392239.html

This is the second book in a series; its predecessor, Flood, which I haven't read, saw the near-future Earth threatened by catastrophically rising sea levels, and Ark follows the story of a group of young survivors sent to colonise a distant planet in order to continue the human race. I will look out for Flood but didn't especially feel the lack of having read it hampering my enjoyment (it is fairly easy to spot which characters must have been in the pre ...more

flag 2 likes · Like · see review

Apr 15, 2014 Tomislav rated it really liked it

Shelves: science-fiction

This was published in 2009, and nominated for both the Locus and the British SF Association Award in 2010, but did not win.

I had previously read Baxter's Flood (2008) a couple of years ago, and while this is a spin-off, a story based on the same events, it is not a direct sequel. Even so, I would recommend reading Flood first.

My main complaint with Flood was the scientific implausibility of the main speculative concept - the release of so much water from the mantle of the Earth so as to slowly a ...more

flag 2 likes · Like · see review

Jul 23, 2011 Jen rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: scifi

Couldn't actually call this a novel, more a string of science bits and pieces and some "characters" made of cardboard. Whoever on the Age book review team thought that this was "pick of the week" - well, it must have been a disappointing week is all I can say.

The world is being flooded, not cause of global warming, but because of great underground reservoirs of water in the earth's crust being released. The predicted height of the flood will eventually flood the entire earth, causing all the co ...more

flag 2 likes · Like · see review

Jun 21, 2012 Patricia Scholes rated it it was ok · review of another edition

After reading Flood, and not caring for it, I read Ark with reservation. It was a good read, mostly, but like the first book it had some problems. I don't think people are as adaptable as Baxter insists. It's as if he believes in one generation we can evolve to meet any environment. I take the opposite view, that we were specifically designed for THIS environment, and the worlds found had too many issues for our life to thrive. Furthermore, who got the seeds? That question was never answered.

Ano ...more

flag 2 likes · Like · see review

Jun 08, 2019 Jordan Anderson rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 2019, 5-stars, re-reads, disaster, fiction, all-time-greats, best-of-2019

Although far more scientifically “dense” and a bit harder to understand than Flood, Ark is not only a worthy successor to that book, but, still, after a second read, nearly 11 years later, remains one of my favorite books, and easily one of the best I have ever read.

My review of Flood (and, to a lesser extent Moonseed) details just why this book, and Stephen Baxter, is so good. I won’t go into it for fear of repeating myself 3 times, but basically, it’s that, in a world of unrealistic and fancif ...more

flag 2 likes · Like · see review

Sep 21, 2012 Sara rated it it was ok

Shelves: 2012

Spoilers below...

Like Flood, Ark is a page turner with some interesting science and some very flat characterization. Expected that, but by the half point, these characters are making such stupid and improbable decisions -- deciding to spend seven years flying back to a flooded out earth after seven years in space, and splitting up their valuable resources three ways -- that whatever suspension of disbelief is required to get them off the ground, is gone. Oh so gone.
And...Baxter's turning the "il ...more

flag 2 likes · Like · see review

May 16, 2010 Nick rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fiction, science-fiction, apocalpyse, authors_stephen_baxter

Exceptional followup to Flood, hard SF with deeply researched background on long-term space travel. Somewhat of a retread or rework of 'generational travel', e.g. And All the Stars a Stage. It's 5 stars because of the author's ability to pull me into an updated view of 'Fermi's Paradox'.

Highly recommended (read Flood first, though). ...more

flag 2 likes · Like · see review

Jul 23, 2009 edifanob rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: my-books, 2009-reads

Even with a slow begin a great read. You should read this before you go on an interstellar flight.

Read my review

...more

flag 2 likes · Like · see review

Jun 05, 2012 Donovan rated it it was amazing

Shelves: sci-fi

I love a good science fiction story that contains a lot of 'Hard Science' than can be researched independently of the novel and Ark contains heaps of it. Next to the characters themselves, I found the hard-science one of the most tantalising aspects of Ark.
One think I will say in regards to Ark is that I seriously recommend you read Baxter's initial novel for this series called 'Flood'. There are elements that some readers may find difficult to understand without that background. In saying that ...more

flag 1 like · Like · see review

Mar 14, 2015 Kit rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: 2015, scifi, waste-of-paper, hard-scifi

I am finally free of this damn series and I am so glad that Baxter has moved on so I don't have to drag myself through another one of these books. I promised myself I would finish out the series. The completionist in me is a terrible horrible soul who clearly hates me.

I hated Flood. It was an incredibly trying 500 pages that left me drained and angry. I don't know why I was expecting Ark to be any different and boy did it disappoint.

Stephen Baxter has great ideas but has minimal writing skills w I am finally free of this damn series and I am so glad that Baxter has moved on so I don't have to drag myself through another one of these books. I promised myself I would finish out the series. The completionist in me is a terrible horrible soul who clearly hates me.

I hated Flood. It was an incredibly trying 500 pages that left me drained and angry. I don't know why I was expecting Ark to be any different and boy did it disappoint.

Stephen Baxter has great ideas but has minimal writing skills which makes for a very frustrating and often unpleasant experience. I give a lot of leeway to hard/realistic scifi authors on prose because the science is often the main attraction, but the combo of Baxter's habits are just insufferable at points. The whole experience is just so dull. The prose is dry and reads like a textbook, the characters suffer from the fact that they are all one dimensional and share the same voice, Baxter has a horrible habit of repeating the same idea/text repeatedly in a short period of time. His pacing is just awful almost the first half of the book is dedicated to a flashback (that ends with an almost WORD FOR WORD COPY OF A PREVIOUS SCENE) and then nothing really happens until the last 100 pages. Everything moves so goddamn slowly and the action is over before any real conflict can develop. There were some really horrendous comma splices in this book too and lots of things that should have been changed/altered to really make them mean anything. The worst part is when things start getting just awful with his writing they slide *fast*. The plotholes become these huge nonsensical holes in the middle of a book that is striving for ultimate realism and the book as a whole suffers. I stopped even pretending to care about the time the lotto scene came up.

Which brings me to content. This book amazingly made Flood even worse and even more pointless, which is really something I didn't think was possible. It's abundantly clear that Hollie was the only really important or developed character - which isn't saying much as she was absolutely flat for 90% of the book - and all attempts at telling the other stories in this book were overshadowed. There was an entire plotline that was just dropped and ignored after all of the drama to set it up. I appreciate the care for the science and the realism, but I feel like there was a lot missing from making the characters feel human. I felt like a lot of it just didn't make any damn sense (see: the lotto, the split, Zach) and there was no real care into crafting the characters who should have been the main focus. I really don't know what else to say.

This whole book needed to be restructured and written in a completely different way. The boring prose ruined any chance at this story being interesting. I know Baxter gets a lot of praise in scifi circles (everyone tells me Flood/Ark are his worst books) but I don't know if I will ever be able to pick up another one of his books. I'm going to enjoy my freedom and move onto books that don't make me cry with frustration. I'll move on to shitty books that at least are bad enough to be fun. ...more

flag 1 like · Like · see review

Jan 01, 2011 Yolanda Sfetsos rated it really liked it

Shelves: sci-fi, adult-dystopian-apoc-futuristic

After reading Flood a few weeks ago, I couldn't wait to read this one. The epic story that started while the world was flooded by the rising sea levels, continues in this installment. And becomes so much more than just a disaster story.

The book opens in 2041, when Grace Gray is taken to Colorado so that she can take part in Ark One. Here, the astronaut Gordo Alonzo gives her a test--she'll have to solve a murder. Of course, at the time I had no idea who Harry Smith (the murdered man) was. Or Hol After reading Flood a few weeks ago, I couldn't wait to read this one. The epic story that started while the world was flooded by the rising sea levels, continues in this installment. And becomes so much more than just a disaster story.

The book opens in 2041, when Grace Gray is taken to Colorado so that she can take part in Ark One. Here, the astronaut Gordo Alonzo gives her a test--she'll have to solve a murder. Of course, at the time I had no idea who Harry Smith (the murdered man) was. Or Holle, the young woman who's charged with showing Grace around.

So it was awesome when the story jumped back to 2025. Where we meet Patrick Groundwater and his six-year-old daughter, Holle. They're attending a meeting about the very secret Ark projects. And so begins Holle's life as a potential Candidate for Ark One. We follow her and a group of kids who will be trained from a very young age, intended to be part of the crew that'll be sent on a mission to find the projected Eath II.

The idea of using a warp drive and launching a spaceship using nuclear bombs is both fascinating and frightening. Yet, it works. I love how Stephen Baxter blends the human condition and science in a way that keeps you glued to every page.

The actual ship blasting off correctly is about the only thing that goes according to plan on Launch day, because half of the crew that was supposed to be onboard actually weren't. The mission to the stars doesn't start well, as the Candidates leave a very chaotic world behind. This pretty much sets the mood for the rest of the trip.

What follows is an amazing, negative, drab, and very claustrophobic trip in search of a new planet to live in, so it can become humanity's salvation. A journey that slowly disintegrates. It was one thing to plan and imagine how this mission would go, but what actually happens is a slow deterioration of spirits, hopes, and dreams. A bunch of humans packed into a tin can that keeps them all too close. Their offspring only add to the madness. Not to mention the Split--where one group goes back to Earth, another settles in the hostile Earth II, and the final group decide to spend another 30 years in search of a better possible planet, Earth III.

I was also very excited to go back to Earth and catch up with Thandie Jones, while getting a little taste of Ark Two.

Ark is another fantastic, epic, and at often times, grim adventure. It's a race for human survival after our planet has been engulfed by the sea. It's an amazing story of human endurance and corruption, when the hard decisions have to be made for the future. The cast is also amazing. Not just the characters we met in Flood, like Thandie and Grace, but also the strong Holle, manipulative Kelly, insane and complicated Zane, and headstrong Venus who never gives up on the ultimate quest.

I absolutely LOVED this book. And I have to admit... I'm secretly hoping that Stephen Baxter writes another installment in this world. ...more

flag 1 like · Like · see review

Oct 03, 2010 Lee rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

Ark mostly concludes the grim story begun by Baxter in Flood , a particularly un-cosy catastrophe novel wherein global sea levels rose without end. Conflicting and ultimately academic arguments were proffered as to why this was happening. Finally the human race was split between those hoping that the waters would stop their rise and the select few attempting survival on a vast unsinkable ship, Ark III.

As the old saying goes, where there's an Ark III, there's probably an Ark I and Ark II. Hint ...more

flag 1 like · Like · see review

May 18, 2011 Jason rated it it was ok

Audiobook. I'm not quite sure why I'm doing this; it's not like I enjoyed the first one (Flood) all that much. But the completest in me is driving this choice I guess. Also, it looks like it might plug into my generational starship thing, appropriately enough coming off the heels of Bear's Hull Zero Three.

.................................
My final verdict pretty much matches my expectation going in. In these two books Baxter has a way of flitting over points of drama without making the reader suf ...more

flag 1 like · Like · see review

Jul 27, 2011 Dave rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Ark is the direct sequel to Flood and, alas is just not as much fun. It's got everything a Stephen Baxter book should have, hard sci-fi, great characters and so forth, but there is an all pervading sense of doom about the book, and the characters' mission (although it's quite optimistic in many ways) that is as relentless as the rising flood waters. He seems to have a quite grim view of humanity.

There are echoes of one of the short stories from Transcendence in here too for the regular Baxter r ...more

flag 1 like · Like · see review

May 12, 2011 Pam rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction

It's well written and obviously thoroughly researched. It's also thought provoking as the characters and the world goes through major climate changes. Unfortunately the story is also slow, plodding in sections making you want to ski. It's also depressing and sad. I know it's all part of the plot but there's absolutely nothing uplifting about this story and every person involved from the beginning of the spaceflight made bad decisions that led to the ultimate failure of the mission. By the time I ...more

flag 1 like · Like · see review

Oct 12, 2012 Joe rated it did not like it

I was very disappointed in this book, in a way that disagrees with most of the reviews I've read. People seem to think it's not much of a story, but has good characters ... I found the opposite. The characters were paper-thin, especially the females who were just unconvincing as human beings. Characters made completely illogical choices utterly at odds with their characters and circumstances. I felt like the author wanted to write certain scenes, and so he manipulated character choices to get th ...more

flag 1 like · Like · see review

Mar 21, 2014 Stonebender rated it liked it

Shelves: ebook

I wasn't aware that _Ark_ was a sequel. This is the first Stephen Baxter book I've read. It's a quick read and I think if I hadn't been looking forward to a book about colonization of another planet, I may have liked it more. This book was much more about the possible social consequences of a really long space voyage. I also thought it was interesting that Stephen spent a lot of time with the people left behind. There were a lot of people who selflessly contributed to a voyage they would never b ...more

flag 1 like · Like · see review

Mar 12, 2013 David rated it really liked it

Shelves: science-fiction

Flood was enjoyable, but Ark was better. Flood followed the slow rise of the oceans over a generation to cover all available land, so half the interest was watching which cities and areas went under first, and the other half was the implications, political and personal, as the available living space shrank and everyone fought for survival. Ark, on the other hand, was much more personal, following the lives of those few selected for the mission to plant humanity elsewhere in the stars.

flag 1 like · Like · see review

Jul 28, 2015 Quinton rated it it was amazing

I really did like it, love it, even. As I said after reading The Flood, I can't wait to continue reading the series and more by Stephen Baxter. WAIT I JUST LOOKED AND THERE IS NO SEQUEL THAT'S MESSED UP I'M SO DISAPPOINTED! ...more

flag 1 like · Like · see review

Aug 19, 2018 Amory rated it did not like it

Story of a world in turmoil. A never ending hell - the pages of ark also seem never ending.
I can only imagine the long dark winters of Northumberland where it rains endlessly inspired this book.
Why does paedophilic content make its way into a sci-fi book?

flag 1 like · Like · see review

Dec 10, 2012 Imane rated it liked it

This book was very interesting to me . It had numerous scientific facts and information.I would highly recommend it for people who are interested in sc-fi ,for this book is worth reading .

flag 1 like · Like · see review

Feb 15, 2019 Drew rated it really liked it

While I enjoyed Flood, I actually found myself enjoying Ark even more. I don't think it's often that I find a sequel to be of higher quality. In fact I almost didn't read this. Wikipedia's labeling it as Hard Science Fiction won me over. I love me some hard SF. That being said, this wasn't the hardest SF I've read. I think it straddled the line well. It described some things that I had to take on faith, and then some of the physics made sense to me, so I suppose it passes on that merit.

The psych While I enjoyed Flood, I actually found myself enjoying Ark even more. I don't think it's often that I find a sequel to be of higher quality. In fact I almost didn't read this. Wikipedia's labeling it as Hard Science Fiction won me over. I love me some hard SF. That being said, this wasn't the hardest SF I've read. I think it straddled the line well. It described some things that I had to take on faith, and then some of the physics made sense to me, so I suppose it passes on that merit.

The psychological elements made this better than Flood, for me. The longterm effects of being trapped in a spacecraft seemed about how I expect they would play out in real life. All of the unrest etc. Sometimes dramatic revolts seem unrealistic in fiction, but given these circumstances, they were completely plausible. I was also fascinated by the psychology surrounding Zane.

SPOILER ALERT.

The sexual abuse and how it manifested later in Zane's life made for a really compelling, if icky, character arc (aha!). The hints early on were pretty blatant, but I was still horrified by the actual abuse scene. I expected it to be less explicit I suppose. Venus sort of trivialized it during the brief murder mystery part, so I thought that would be the end of that. Which then made it all the more effective when the trauma reared its ugly head later in the plot, ultimately putting the entire mission in danger. The recurrence of the theme of men in power sexually abusing minors came back, of course, because why would Baxter not want to make me hate these characters? Who wants likable characters? Oh I mean I guess it furthered the plot while serving to turn us as readers against another member of the crew or whatever but...

I also found the sort of communisty direction the ship went to be interesting. Having recently read several books that deal with alternate political/economical systems (at least alternate to American society) this pleased me. It's sort of been a theme for me this year so far. And then the way that Holle steps in late as an authoritarian figure seemed to be the just conclusion to the narrative arc. I mean what do so many people say about communism? "It sounds good in theory but dictators always ruin it." Holle did everything for the survival of the people. She did nothing for personal gain, it was never (despite what Wilson said) about power for her. She completed their mission in a weirdly satisfying yet simultaneously unsatisfying end to the book. Everything she did was horrifying and terrible, but also logically necessary, regardless of how much pain it caused all of the older crew. I want more. ...more

flag Like · see review

Mar 10, 2019 Michael rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fiction, sci-fi-fantasy-horror

A very enjoyable sequel to Flood. A grim story: the last hope of mankind flies toward the stars in an attempt to continue our species on another world in the face of Earth's drowning. I was put in mind of several other books I've read with similar themes: Children of Time, The Forge of God, and--more recently--Seveneves. The basic takeaway is that no matter how far we travel in the universe, we'll still be taking human beings with us, with all of our strengths and flaws. Humans are selfish, and ...more

flag Like · see review

Aug 29, 2017 Helen rated it liked it · review of another edition

I did really like it but I decided it lost a star, what with all the characters being left up in the air, and the next book is based 400 years plus in the future. Would have been nice to find out what happened to Holle, Venus, Grace, Helen, etc, after they went their different routes.

Over all a very interesting and gripping book, even though it's book 2 which I never realised till I had seen something mentioned on here. I just thought that Flood was another book by the same author, and that was ...more

flag Like · see review

Jun 17, 2019 Phani Tholeti rated it it was ok

Shelves: sci-fi, drama

It's a dull boring read for most of the 500-600 pages with sparks of action and excitement, that make the book slightly bearable, but only slightly. The so called character development and characters' lifes defining the story is, IMO a brain dead scheme, unless they have an interesting story - and when employed in sci-fi, it makes things even worse - interesting in the sense, page-turning, non sleep-inducing, somewhat like Wellsian and not Dickensian.
The only good thing about this book is that t ...more

flag Like · see review

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 next »

new topic
Discuss This Book

There are no discussion topics on this book yet. Be the first to start one »

Recommend It | Stats | Recent Status Updates

Readers also enjoyed

See similar books…

Genres

Science Fiction

197 users

Fiction

49 users

Apocalyptic > Post Apocalyptic

30 users

Science Fiction > Dystopia

14 users

Science Fiction > Apocalyptic

13 users

Fantasy

12 users

Science Fiction Fantasy

7 users

Science Fiction > Hard Science Fiction

5 users

Adventure > Survival

5 users

Audiobook

4 users

See top shelves…

About Stephen Baxter

Stephen Baxter

2,000 followers

Stephen Baxter is a trained engineer with degrees from Cambridge (mathematics) and Southampton Universities (doctorate in aeroengineering research). Baxter is the winner of the British Science Fiction Award and the Locus Award, as well as being a nominee for an Arthur C. Clarke Award, most recently for Manifold: Time. His novel Voyage won the Sidewise Award for Best Alternate History Novel of the ...more