From the Bookshelf of Niners (io9)…

Aurora

Kim Stanley Robinson

Start date: August 5, 2015

Finish date: September 1, 2015

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Aug 24, 2015 Tobias Langhoff rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: scifi

Last year (2015) saw the release of novels from two well known hard science-fiction authors whom I, for some reason, had never read anything by. The first was Neal Stephenson’s Seveneves, which I read earlier this year with the SciFi and Fantasy Book Club and also gave 5 stars. The second was this book, Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson, which I read as the monthly Sword & Laser pick. After reading them both, I will surely check out the rest of their bibliographies. The two books have more in commo Last year (2015) saw the release of novels from two well known hard science-fiction authors whom I, for some reason, had never read anything by. The first was Neal Stephenson’s Seveneves, which I read earlier this year with the SciFi and Fantasy Book Club and also gave 5 stars. The second was this book, Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson, which I read as the monthly Sword & Laser pick. After reading them both, I will surely check out the rest of their bibliographies. The two books have more in common than just their publication years: They’re both about human diasporas that leave Earth and encounter ecological as well as political strife. The human societies in both books are slightly totalitarian, by necessity. Diverging cultures emerge and clash.

While the protagonists in Aurora are human, most of the story is told from the point of view of an omnipresent AI that controls the spaceship.The ship’s AI is very intelligent, and recognizes and works around the numerous cognitive fallacies of the humans (for more of this I recommend You Are Not So Smart). It doesn’t understand humans very well, however. As the book progresses, the AI gradually learns how to tell a story, both linguistically but also in how to perform the act of good storytelling – there are certainly aspects of metaliterature here. This form of progressing the novel also reminded me of Destination Void; although the AI in this book already had a level of sentience, it evolves as it learns how to articulate itself and use language in other ways than before, perhaps gaining a form of “sapience” or higher level of awareness in the process. It made me think of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis – that the structure of a language determines or greatly influences the modes of thought and behavior characteristic of the culture in which it is spoken. As the AI’s understanding of human language develops, it begins using idioms a lot more. It also goes from using no subjective pronoun at all, to using “we”, and then finally “I”. As this develops, the AI’s narrative voice slowly becomes more and more distinct and unique.

The main human protagonist is a girl named Freya. She’s the daughter of the brilliant chief engineer who has saved the ship countless times over the last generation. Unfortunately, Freya is a bit dim-witted and is having problems continuing her mother’s legacy. She’s not very stupid by any means, but like the AI, she lacks certain skills and insights. Freya and the AI complement each other as beings with different levels of intelligence in different areas, and they grow alongside each other while the book explores the differences between consciousness and self-consciousness. (I was reminded a bit, but just a bit, of Blindsight.)

The ship with the AI is a generation ship headed for Tau Ceti, and Freya is part of its human population, which has grown up on the ship and never been on Earth. They encounter many hardships along the way, and have also left some behind, the most important being ecological/environmental (a common theme for this author, I’ve gathered): Earth’s sea levels have risen, Mars is having trouble with terraforming (as opposed to in the author’s Mars trilogy), the carefully balanced environments in the ship are perhaps too delicate, and as the humans land on their new home, the eponymous moon Aurora, the novel started reminding me heavily of Cibola Burn.

Meanwhile, there are political strife along the way. Allusions are made to something that happened in the ship’s past but which has been institutionally forgotten, akin to a plot point in Chasm City. One main political schism reminded me of Pushing Ice, a novel which Seveneves also has been compared to (at least by me). I think the novel posits that humans are, by and large, driven by ideas, not morality. For better and worse.

There’s also a thrilling and fast-paced spaceship race, reminiscent of House of Suns (although it’s not at relativistic speed in this case) and involving some orbital mechanics like Seveneves is full of. However, the novel doesn’t feature a lot of action scenes like that. Most of all it’s slow, thoughtful, philosophical. I found the questions and observations about humanity mostly profound. There’s poetry, soul searching (both figuratively and literally), searches for purpose, both for AIs, single humans and for humanity, there’s poetry and beauty and awe. ...more

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Sep 12, 2016 Sue rated it it was amazing

Shelves: cozypunk-hopepunk, protagonist-of-the-global-majority

I love a good benevolent AI narrator. This was a particularly winsome story that made me ugly cry at the conclusion.

No spoilers, but ship's climactic monologue reminded me of my favorite Sagan quote: "For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only though love."

A wonderful novel with a profoundly wonderful and gentle secular humanist tone. ...more

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Jul 09, 2021 Clémentine rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction

I don't know exactly what I think about this. A wordy and depressing series of events. Too much human stupidity. I found Ship and their evolution to be the most interesting part of the book. The end was not good. ...more

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