Review: Ark - Stephen Baxter

Rating: 2
Husband: Didn't Read
Got it: Second Hand Bookstore
Price: $3.50
Finished it: last month


Synopsys:
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 waters rise, as savage wars are fought over the remaining high ground, the work goes on. Those who will live, of the billions who will die, are chosen. Families are torn apart and the resources of our drowning world are marshalled for one last gamble.

Ark is the story of three women, Grace, Venus and Holle, and their part in humanity's struggle to reach a new home. For the few survivors, the day of the launch will be only the beginning of the nightmare

Review:

I was sadly disappointed in this book. I really like the idea, but I had to force myself to read this one. It really should be rated a 1, but I pushed hard to get through because there were some pretty interesting concepts that could have been fully flushed out. Sadly, not many of them did.

The end of the world is here, water is creeping up inch by inch and there is only going to be a few ways that people can survive. This book focuses on the people/children that get sent up into space to re-populate a new planet and carry on the human race.

I don't know where to really begin, but every awesome idea that peeked my interest, was never fully explored. I found the lack of discipline by the chosen/trained survivors to be annoying. WHO would train their whole life to become the first idiot jerk in space and knowingly FUBAR the mission when your lives totally depend on it, not to mention the entire human race? Forget all the science and calculations on how long to get there, resources on ship for the number of people etc.

Also, if we could make faster than light space travel that could sustain life in a vacuum for 45 years, then I think maybe they could have made a floating city that would have been able to manage to keep people on earth alive a little better then a "giant submarine with only 100 people on it".

Anyway, there are enough thought provoking ideas in the book that it’s going to get a 2, but really it should be a 1. I skimmed many a chapter. I cursed at many a chapter. If you like space exploration, coupled with extreme human drama, the second half of this book is for you. If you like post apocalyptic human drama as resources become more and more scarce, then the first half of this book is for you.