On Mars, in Robinson’s trilogy, there are poets, and composers, and dramatists - a rich cultural and artistic life. The ship’s AI suggests that it be called “Ship.” But I cannot imagine that human beings living for generations on a starship wouldn’t name the damned thing. But that exhausts the cultural life of the ship - which the people haven’t even named. One group of people, living in one biome, had developed a kind of ritual in which they introduce young people to the fact that they are living in a starship … but if any of the other biomic cultures had done something similar, we don’t hear about it. They were all focused on personal relationships, political questions, and the technologies needed to manage life in a strange environment. Still, as I read Aurora I kept thinking about the two-dimensionality of lives of the people living on their ship headed for Tau Ceti. And you could make an argument that the richer cultural world of the Mars trilogy is a function not only of its greater length but its dominant setting.

The proportions vary greatly: the Mars trilogy is overwhelmingly about number 3, Aurora more focused on number 2.

The decision to send human beings to another world.

But the stories have a fundamental three-part structure in common: But I didn’t care for Aurora, and I think I can say why: I was not moved or convinced by the cultural world it portrays.Īdam writes, “ Aurora is a magnificent piece of writing, certainly Robinson’s best novel since his mighty Mars trilogy, perhaps his best ever.” So since he compared it to the Mars trilogy, I will too - even though in one sense that’s unfair, since the Mars books gave Robinson at least three times as many words in which to portray a fictional world. If I had liked it more than Adam did I wouldn’t be bothered but I’d prefer not to be the sort of reader whose insufficient catholicity of taste, or readily insensitivity, blocks him from appreciating things that deserve appreciation.

And while such differences in literary experience are inevitable and commonplace - “People who like this sort of thing will find this the sort of thing they like” is the most truthful of all reviews - I’m a little uncomfortable to be so far from Adam in my response.Īnd that’s because I didn’t like the book. My friend Adam Roberts, whose critical judgment is superb, loved Kim Stanley Robinson’s new novel Aurora I didn’t.

Kim robinson aurora