Ark (novel)
| Author | Stephen Baxter |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Hard science fiction novel |
| Publisher | Gollancz |
Publication date | 20 August 2009 |
| Publication place | United Kingdom |
| Media type | Print (Hardback) |
| Pages | 512 pp |
| ISBN | 0-575-08057-4 |
| OCLC | 320406261 |
| Preceded by | Flood |
Ark is a hard science fiction novel[1] by UK author Stephen Baxter. It comes as the sequel to Baxter's acclaimed 2008 novel Flood. Ark deals with the journey of Ark One, which Baxter has revealed to be a long-range spaceship, and the continuing human struggle for survival on Earth after the catastrophic events of Flood. It was published August 20, 2009 by Gollancz.
Plot summary
Readers are initially introduced to the principal characters in a flashback to 2031. At this time, the rising sea levels have inundated most of the Pacific and Atlantic coasts of North America and the flood waters have risen as far north as Kentucky, causing a considerable influx of internally displaced persons ("eye-dees" is a derogatory term used to describe them). For the moment, Denver and most of Colorado are safe from harm, and has become the new capitol of a drowning United States. Although civil war is brewing with separatist Utah over control of untainted fresh water supplies and former Interstate Highway System roads. With the future of humanity uncertain, affluent inhabitants of the United States have funded a desperate and far-fetched get-away plan called 'Nimrod'; to ensure the continued survival of the human race, they construct a massive interstellar spacecraft christened as 'Ark One' under the sponsorship of the AxysCorp company. The plan is that the children and descendants of the wealthy who built the ship, will travel to a neighboring earth-like exosolar planet to start civilization anew, given that shortly before the onset of the Flood, SETI technology had advanced to the point where it could detect potentially habitable worlds in other planetary systems.
The main character, Holle Groundwater is the daughter of one affluent man, Patrick, who were first introduced to the project by Jerzy Glemp, a former Polish millionaire; his shy but intelligent son, Zane, becomes Holly's best friend as he helps her progress through the project to become a candidate for one of the ship's many specific functions each person must contribute, with her specializing in environmental control systems and Zane as the Ark's warp drive specialist. Other candidates are introduced and excluded due to the thorough screening process of the project for the candidates in question are required to have specialized fields of knowledge for either the ship's function and/or for preservation of civilization's history and culture; and to create a secular-minded crew with a diverse gene pool to breed. Kelly Kenzie becomes the designated mission leader during the first phases of the mission, Wilson Argent is her sometime partner who succeeds her as mission commander later in the book, and with Venus Jenning is the Ark's celestial navigator. As noted above, there is some overlap between the earlier novel in this trilogy and its successor - aging astronaut Gordo Alonzo and Thandie Jones, the bisexual oceanographer from Flood, appear as influential characters, and Grace Gray is also a pivotal character, as is her daughter Helen, who is born on the Ark en route to its initial interstellar destination.
During the 2030s, President Linda Vasquez serves four terms of office under the crisis conditions and the remnants of the federal government and armed forces take over control of the Nimrod Project. During that time, experimental use of antimatter results in several tragedies and during this time, the flood waters rise inexorably. By 2041, the Ark is ready to be launched, although a relentless winnowing process has reduced the number of potential candidates to eighty in number. On the day of the launch, desperate civilians and military personnel escaping the approaching floodwaters attempt to storm the Ark, resulting in a hurried evacuation of the candidates to the starship in question. The chaotic launch is successful, but causes fatal irradiation of the surrounding area, owing to the use of nuclear fission– powered thruster technology (derived from Project Orion (nuclear propulsion) of the 1960s).
Once under way, the crew find that they have inadvertently left some prior designated Candidates behind, and some of the security personnel mutiny to find a new life shipboard. In addition, some of the female candidates are pregnant and give birth to children who become a shipboard generation. By 2042, they have harvested enough antimatter from Jupiter's magnetosphere to propel their warp drive starship to 82 Eridani's planetary system, twenty-one light-years from Earth's planetary system, which is reached nine years later. By that time, most of Earth now lies underwater and Mount Everest is calculated to become submerge in 2052.
However, problems arise, due to the nature of the targeted planet, designated "Earth II." Although 82 Eridani is a yellow G5 star, it turns out that the 'earthlike' world in question is on the fringe of its planetary system ecosphere and the prospects of prolonged extremes of temperature are further worsened by a high axial tilt relative to the system's ecliptic (rather like that of Uranus in our own solar system). (This planetary configuration, called "Urania", is used by Baxter in his story "Grey Earth". It is ultimately derived from a book called What if the Moon Didn't Exist?.) There is debate over what to do next, and three factions decide to split up. One colonizes Earth II, while another lead by Kelly travels back to Earth in one of Ark One's twin hulls, Halivah, making planetfall in 2059.
A third faction with Holly, Wilson, Venus, and Zane takes the ship's other hull, Seba, and takes a further thirty years to travel outward to an (unnamed) M6 red dwarf star and its super-earth terrestrial world, designated "Earth III" and situated 111 light years from Earth, within Lepus (constellation). Unfortunately, generational tensions arise between the rebellious youth born on the ship and the original crew, with Wilson forming a gang-like leadership breeding with the majority of the females onboard. Tensions are further worsened by Zane's dissociative identity disorder, whose fragmented personalities preaching to the younger crew make them disillusioned of the idea that they are all enclosed in a simulated bio-sphere environment as a social test; eventually this all leads to further mutiny, which results in a large loss of life and the destruction of one of the onboard shuttle craft. Holle takes command of the ship by unwillingly forming a dictatorship under her rule, using threats to shut off life support for those who do not partake in the maintenance of the ship's systems and keeping order except for those are too vital for the ship, as done with Zane as she orders him to be isolated and kept alive only for the purposes of keeping the warp drive functional. This act shatters the friendships of the original crew, and with no hope to help his deteriorating state of mind and being kept alone and alive as merely a slave, Zane commits suicide.
While this is occurring, the floodwaters inundate Denver, and Kelly's ex-husband Don, Gordo, and Mel, ex-Candidate and Holle's former lover make a last stand at Alma, Colorado, which was the nearest habitable area near the former starship launch site and Mission Control for the Ark before it departed from Jupiter. In the ensuing melee, Don is killed.
In 2061, when Halivah returns to Earth, Lily Brooke (Flood's principal protagonist) has been dead for the last three years. Thandie Jones continues to survive and has links to 'Ark Two', which turns out to be a (new) seafloor settlement which taps the geothermal energy from the submerged former Yellowstone National Park's supercaldera. Kelly meets her aged father and estranged son Dexter, whom she voluntarily abandoned for a place onboard. Mel has also survived, but Gordo Alonzo died defending Ark Two from ID interlopers before the rising floodwaters made further interference impossible. Human genetic engineering is postulated to assist the descendants of Ark Two to adapt to their new and arduous and environmental conditions. This idea ("pantropy"), used by James Blish in his story suite The Seedling Stars, is a powerful theme in almost all of Baxter's fictional series.
Two years before Seba arrives at Earth III, Venus intercepted a strong, brief signal of unknown origin and was not repeated (similar to the Wow! signal), and it is speculated to be extra-terrestrial. She keeps the knowledge of the signal to herself.
In 2081, the ship arrives at Earth III which turns out to be in a close proximity to its orbiting star, its surface is active with volcanoes and its climate frigidly cold from the weak solar heating of the red dwarf, but the planet is nonetheless habitable. With only one shuttle craft left after the mutiny years earlier, Holle is forced to halve the crew through a careful selection of those to colonize the planet, specifically young children who are as diverse as possible to eliminate the risk of inbreeding, Wilson is selected for despite his age he is the only one who can pilot the shuttle, and finally Helen is selected to go to educate the young colonists for the process of building a civilization. After a painful goodbye to her mother Grace, and to her own children, Helen and the settlers disembark. However, Holle and Venus resolve to explore the star system's other planets using small warp-jumps. The novel is left open-ended: Wilson, Helen, and the children of the shuttle craft successfully land on Earth III to begin rebuilding human civilization and see the Ark one last time before it disappears into the cosmos, suggesting that the starship has effectively become a generation ship until the rebuilt civilization of Earth III, that may not rise for centuries or even millenniums, can reunite with the descendants of the Ark.
Two pendant stories have been published since in Asimov's Science Fiction: "Earth II" and "Earth III"; each deals with characters struggling with the legacy of Ark One's colonization of their world in the face of military consolidation of the planets. As of April 2010, it is unclear whether there will be further continuance of the stories.
Hard Science Background
In an appendix, Baxter describes his "hard science" basis for what is depicted in Ark. His grounding includes references to source articles for generation ships, interstellar Alcubierre warp drive vessels, Project Orion and exosolar planets. The references can be found on pp. 456–457.
Critical reception
Writing in the Guardian, Eric Brown gave the novel a very positive review, concluding that “Never has Baxter presented a more thrilling and moving glimpse of a possible future: Ark could well be his masterpiece.”[2] In The Times, Lisa Tuttle also wrote approvingly, calling Ark “a grim but exciting tale of the ultimate in pioneering adventure, in the most unforgiving environment of all.”[3]
Bibliography
- George Dyson: Project Orion: Holt: 2002.
- Casoli and Encranz: The New Worlds: Springer-Praxis: 2007.
- Paul Glister: Centauri Dreams: Copernicus: 2004.
- Extraterrestrial Life and Planetary System Ages: Icarus: 151: 307-313: 2001.
- Yoji Kondo: Interstellar Travel and Multi-Generation Starships: Apogee: 2003.
Warp Drive and Field References:
- Miguel Alcubierre: Classical and Quantum Gravity: Volume 11: L73-L77: 1994.
- C. Clark et al.: Classical and Quantum Gravity: Volume 16: 3965-72 (1999).
- C.Van Broek: Classical and Quantum Gravity: Volume 16: 3973-9 (1999).
- D.Weiskopf: Visualisation of Four Dimensional Spacetimes: Dissertation, University of Tübingen: 2001.
- Journal of the British Interplanetary Society: 61:9: September 2008: Seminar on Interstellar Propulsion Systems.
See also
- Doomsday event
- Exosolar planets
- Flood (Baxter novel)
- Red dwarfs
- Faster than light
- 82 Eridani
- Lepus (constellation)
References
- ^ Stephen Baxter: Ark: London: Gollancz: 2009: ISBN 9780575080577
- ^ Brown, Eric (1 August 2009), “Ark by Stephen Baxter”, The Guardian (London)
- ^ Tuttle, Lisa (5 September 2009), “Sci-fi / fantasy: New work by Kim Stanley Robinson, Stephen Baxter, Chris Beckett and Alexandra Sokoloff”, The Times (London)