What do you think?
Rate this book
Ark
Earth’s wealthiest man attempts to save humanity from an impending apocalypse The planet’s first and only trillionaire, Henry Peel, did not make his fortune by being a fool. A gifted inventor and scientist, he possesses an imagination on the scale of history’s greatest thinkers, and he has turned it to the problem of Earth’s core. Two decades ago, scientists learned that the core spins faster than the rest of the planet, storing up a cache of energy that, if released, could cause an earthquake that would obliterate human life. To begin mankind anew, Henry Peel is going to lead us to the stars. He gathers the world’s leading physicists and engineers and asks them to design a spaceship large enough to safeguard a sample of humanity and durable enough to survive a thousand-year voyage. Money is no object, but time is short. The apocalypse is on its way.
- GenresFiction
516 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2011
52 people are currently reading
109 people want to read
About the author
Charles McCarry
30 books318 followersMcCarry served in the United States Army, where he was a correspondent for Stars and Stripes, was a small-town newspaperman, and was a speechwriter in the Eisenhower administration. From 1958 to 1967 he worked for the CIA, under deep cover in Europe, Asia, and Africa. However, his cover was not as a writer or journalist.
McCarry was editor-at-large for National Geographic and contributed pieces to The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and other national publications.
McCarry was best known for a series of books concerning the life of super spy Paul Christopher. Born in Germany before WWII to a German mother and an American father, Christopher joins the CIA after the war and becomes one of its most effective spies. After launching an unauthorized investigation of the Kennedy assassination, Christopher becomes a pariah to the agency and a hunted man. Eventually, he spends ten years in a Chinese prison before being released and embarking on a solution to the mystery that has haunted him his entire life: the fate of his mother, who disappeared at the beginning of WWII. The books are notable for their historical detail and depiction of spycraft, as well as their careful and extensive examination of Christopher's relationship with his family, friends, wives, and lovers.
McCarry was editor-at-large for National Geographic and contributed pieces to The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and other national publications.
McCarry was best known for a series of books concerning the life of super spy Paul Christopher. Born in Germany before WWII to a German mother and an American father, Christopher joins the CIA after the war and becomes one of its most effective spies. After launching an unauthorized investigation of the Kennedy assassination, Christopher becomes a pariah to the agency and a hunted man. Eventually, he spends ten years in a Chinese prison before being released and embarking on a solution to the mystery that has haunted him his entire life: the fate of his mother, who disappeared at the beginning of WWII. The books are notable for their historical detail and depiction of spycraft, as well as their careful and extensive examination of Christopher's relationship with his family, friends, wives, and lovers.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
November 3, 2012
Charles McCarry and his ‘spy’ novels featuring Paul Christopher have been my little secret for awhile. McCarry, for my money, is the only spy novelist that can stack up to John John Le Carré. His prose are brilliant, his books are without fail, excellent. But, almost nobody has heard of him.
Despite the same “wink, wink” insiders knowledge shared by Le Carré and McCarry (they both worked for their countries spy agencies at the same time) McCarry is more ‘old boy’ Georgetown, upper crust uber patriot where Le Carré maintains an air of cynical, seedy glamour.
What separates McCarry’s Paul Christopher from the usual American spy novel is that he eschews the tongue-in-cheek derring-do of superheroes on the order of James Bond instead writing realistic character studies of complex human beings under stress and the interaction of different cultures and the characters that inhabit those cultures. Additionally, McCarry’s story lines somehow seemed drawn from actual CIA case books. In short, they were topical. For instance, The Miernik Dossier (1973). Is the story of how every intelligence agencies on both sides of the Cold War swarm like vultures over an obscure Polish functionary who may be about to defect. There is an air of doubt in the protagonist and in the major players on both sides that lends a certain ambiguity that borders on the mythical.
While trying to determine whether this potential defector, of dubious value, is the real thing or a red herring thrown out as bait by one or the other of the competing sides brings to question just how much time and effort and money was spent by both sides and just what the return on value was for those investments. This moral dilemma weaves through an exciting search for an answer and leads to a vivid chase story through Eastern Europe and the Middle East. And adding another intellectual layer to the plot is an even deeper trek through the mind and personality of Miernik himself, an irritating, untrustworthy, courageous and obstinately undecipherable man in his motivations and importance.
"The Tears of Autumn" was another brilliantly portrayed story dealing with the CIA in Vietnam, almost a sequel to Graham Greene's "The Quiet American." It tells another, rather believable alt-history of the assassination of JFK. Through nearly 40 years of McCarry’s spy novels, I felt that I had my own private, intellectual alternative to the adventure-spy novels that were en vogue. Don’t get me wrong, a number of McCarry’s novels made the NYT Best Seller’s List, but they were the type of books that made the list then swiftly disappeared, like one of his characters. What’s worse is they went out of print as well.
All of this is in preference to why I picked up Ark when I saw it in the publishers catalog. I was somewhat disappointed when I saw the book was Sc- Fi and not another Paul Christopher novel, but it was not just the subject matter that kept me reading McCarry since the early ‘70s. It was also for the beauty of his prose, the depth of his stories and the marvelous, flesh and blood character studies.
I grew up on the Sci Fi of Bradbury, Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke and others. Writers who put the emphasis on Science in science fiction. I had slowly migrated away from the genre over the past couple of decades when Sci Fi took on more of a fantasy bent, but I figured that with McCarry’s talents, and his seeming insider knowledge of the world of government espionage, he might bring that to the world of Sci Fi.
I’m sorry to say that I was wrong. First. Ark takes a dead horse and bets it some more; the world’s about to end, and lets save it. Its almost a cliché from plot to print. An apoplectic story that adds nothing to the canon.
The story revolves around the worlds first trillionaire, Henry Peel. Henry starts off as an unbelievable character, not because his net worth is astronomical, but because we are led to believe that he got it all honestly, without making many major enemies of business men or governments. He’s also the worlds smartest, most brilliant mind. Equally astronomically talented in science, engineering – all fields of course – mathematics, art, you name it, Henry has it. He’d embarrass the Corona guy. Henry is a recluse, and other than his clichéd genius attributes (his mind tends to wander, he’s not a great conversationalist, dresses shabbily, etc…) he’s likeable. He’s sort of a Bill Gates Howard Hughes mish-mash with rock star overrtones. The odd thing here is that Henry, despite his unrealistic background and trite makeup, is an interesting character study worthy of McCarry’s reputation.
Henry has discovered that the world is about to end. The ‘disaster’ is the all too familiar “earths core-swapping poles” variety of disaster. Further, he has calculated the exact date and in genius fashion has come to the conclusion that collectively, all the worlds governments and scientists can’t or won’t in time, do anything to prevent it or mitigate the outcome. So, he sets out on an ultra secret mission to save mankind, or at least preserve it. He assemble a team of experts in all fields and a team of scientists and engineers from all of his companies to come up with his solution.
The book is narrated by a female author, recruited for her ‘creative imagination’ in solving puzzles in her literature. Her purpose for being recruited is unconvincing, but I guess he needed a writer since she is telling the story. The plan, as it evolves is to build a series of space “Arks” that will transport a few hundred or thousand people into space, sending them on a thousand year mission, carrying a cargo that is not revealed until nearly half way through the book.
There are minor subplots involving the narrator dealing with stalkers, the ethical questions in who to save, how to keep it secret, what to save, etc… there are also the inevitable “leaks” to be plugged, romantic disharmonies and so on. None of these subplot seem to lead the reader to new ground, and most fizzle out before being resolved.
The story further asks the reader to suspend belief in the setting Henry, in his uber genius, choses for building these never before achieved in scope engineering projects under the nose of one of the most suspicious governments in the world. And in their backyard. Throughout the story, the need for secrecy is paramount. If governments catch wind of this project, they would naturally want to take it over and bend Henry’s logic, selection process and decisions to their own national goals. So Henry decides to build and launch the Arks from Mongolia. China’s neighbor and proxy. China being ultra protective of anything in Asia, and he decides to carry this out under their nose. This grows even more odd, and reeks of misogamy, racism and a Nazi-like “superior race” , among other things, when Henry choses Chinese women, of a particular racial purity as the only ones fit to do repetitive manual labor and have small hands but not be fit to save, he also sets out to”improve” the breeding stock of those chosen to be the progenitors of the human race a thousand years from now.
The only redeeming quality of the book is that McCarry’s prose are engaging and will keep the reader reading, despite the other failings. The plot at times is interesting, and believable for stretches (before ultimately falling flat) and Henry Peel, in a twisted way, is likeable despite being alternately, a genius on a par with Asimov’s “Mule” of The Foundation Trilogy, a hustler, a mad scientist visionary or an Asperger-ish nerd that owns half the worlds money supply and has options on the other half. Discounting the pedestrian nature of the coming disaster, Henry’s plan to save mankind seems heroic and unselfish and then tainted with “master race” motivations. In total, a jig-saw puzzle of a novel with a lot of pieces missing.
Article first published as Book Review: Ark by Charles McCarry on Blogcritics.
The Dirty Lowdown
Despite the same “wink, wink” insiders knowledge shared by Le Carré and McCarry (they both worked for their countries spy agencies at the same time) McCarry is more ‘old boy’ Georgetown, upper crust uber patriot where Le Carré maintains an air of cynical, seedy glamour.
What separates McCarry’s Paul Christopher from the usual American spy novel is that he eschews the tongue-in-cheek derring-do of superheroes on the order of James Bond instead writing realistic character studies of complex human beings under stress and the interaction of different cultures and the characters that inhabit those cultures. Additionally, McCarry’s story lines somehow seemed drawn from actual CIA case books. In short, they were topical. For instance, The Miernik Dossier (1973). Is the story of how every intelligence agencies on both sides of the Cold War swarm like vultures over an obscure Polish functionary who may be about to defect. There is an air of doubt in the protagonist and in the major players on both sides that lends a certain ambiguity that borders on the mythical.
While trying to determine whether this potential defector, of dubious value, is the real thing or a red herring thrown out as bait by one or the other of the competing sides brings to question just how much time and effort and money was spent by both sides and just what the return on value was for those investments. This moral dilemma weaves through an exciting search for an answer and leads to a vivid chase story through Eastern Europe and the Middle East. And adding another intellectual layer to the plot is an even deeper trek through the mind and personality of Miernik himself, an irritating, untrustworthy, courageous and obstinately undecipherable man in his motivations and importance.
"The Tears of Autumn" was another brilliantly portrayed story dealing with the CIA in Vietnam, almost a sequel to Graham Greene's "The Quiet American." It tells another, rather believable alt-history of the assassination of JFK. Through nearly 40 years of McCarry’s spy novels, I felt that I had my own private, intellectual alternative to the adventure-spy novels that were en vogue. Don’t get me wrong, a number of McCarry’s novels made the NYT Best Seller’s List, but they were the type of books that made the list then swiftly disappeared, like one of his characters. What’s worse is they went out of print as well.
All of this is in preference to why I picked up Ark when I saw it in the publishers catalog. I was somewhat disappointed when I saw the book was Sc- Fi and not another Paul Christopher novel, but it was not just the subject matter that kept me reading McCarry since the early ‘70s. It was also for the beauty of his prose, the depth of his stories and the marvelous, flesh and blood character studies.
I grew up on the Sci Fi of Bradbury, Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke and others. Writers who put the emphasis on Science in science fiction. I had slowly migrated away from the genre over the past couple of decades when Sci Fi took on more of a fantasy bent, but I figured that with McCarry’s talents, and his seeming insider knowledge of the world of government espionage, he might bring that to the world of Sci Fi.
I’m sorry to say that I was wrong. First. Ark takes a dead horse and bets it some more; the world’s about to end, and lets save it. Its almost a cliché from plot to print. An apoplectic story that adds nothing to the canon.
The story revolves around the worlds first trillionaire, Henry Peel. Henry starts off as an unbelievable character, not because his net worth is astronomical, but because we are led to believe that he got it all honestly, without making many major enemies of business men or governments. He’s also the worlds smartest, most brilliant mind. Equally astronomically talented in science, engineering – all fields of course – mathematics, art, you name it, Henry has it. He’d embarrass the Corona guy. Henry is a recluse, and other than his clichéd genius attributes (his mind tends to wander, he’s not a great conversationalist, dresses shabbily, etc…) he’s likeable. He’s sort of a Bill Gates Howard Hughes mish-mash with rock star overrtones. The odd thing here is that Henry, despite his unrealistic background and trite makeup, is an interesting character study worthy of McCarry’s reputation.
Henry has discovered that the world is about to end. The ‘disaster’ is the all too familiar “earths core-swapping poles” variety of disaster. Further, he has calculated the exact date and in genius fashion has come to the conclusion that collectively, all the worlds governments and scientists can’t or won’t in time, do anything to prevent it or mitigate the outcome. So, he sets out on an ultra secret mission to save mankind, or at least preserve it. He assemble a team of experts in all fields and a team of scientists and engineers from all of his companies to come up with his solution.
The book is narrated by a female author, recruited for her ‘creative imagination’ in solving puzzles in her literature. Her purpose for being recruited is unconvincing, but I guess he needed a writer since she is telling the story. The plan, as it evolves is to build a series of space “Arks” that will transport a few hundred or thousand people into space, sending them on a thousand year mission, carrying a cargo that is not revealed until nearly half way through the book.
There are minor subplots involving the narrator dealing with stalkers, the ethical questions in who to save, how to keep it secret, what to save, etc… there are also the inevitable “leaks” to be plugged, romantic disharmonies and so on. None of these subplot seem to lead the reader to new ground, and most fizzle out before being resolved.
The story further asks the reader to suspend belief in the setting Henry, in his uber genius, choses for building these never before achieved in scope engineering projects under the nose of one of the most suspicious governments in the world. And in their backyard. Throughout the story, the need for secrecy is paramount. If governments catch wind of this project, they would naturally want to take it over and bend Henry’s logic, selection process and decisions to their own national goals. So Henry decides to build and launch the Arks from Mongolia. China’s neighbor and proxy. China being ultra protective of anything in Asia, and he decides to carry this out under their nose. This grows even more odd, and reeks of misogamy, racism and a Nazi-like “superior race” , among other things, when Henry choses Chinese women, of a particular racial purity as the only ones fit to do repetitive manual labor and have small hands but not be fit to save, he also sets out to”improve” the breeding stock of those chosen to be the progenitors of the human race a thousand years from now.
The only redeeming quality of the book is that McCarry’s prose are engaging and will keep the reader reading, despite the other failings. The plot at times is interesting, and believable for stretches (before ultimately falling flat) and Henry Peel, in a twisted way, is likeable despite being alternately, a genius on a par with Asimov’s “Mule” of The Foundation Trilogy, a hustler, a mad scientist visionary or an Asperger-ish nerd that owns half the worlds money supply and has options on the other half. Discounting the pedestrian nature of the coming disaster, Henry’s plan to save mankind seems heroic and unselfish and then tainted with “master race” motivations. In total, a jig-saw puzzle of a novel with a lot of pieces missing.
Article first published as Book Review: Ark by Charles McCarry on Blogcritics.
The Dirty Lowdown
July 17, 2019
First, let me say I enjoyed this, but I couldn't honestly recommend it. At one point I had to check that the author was really the same Charles McCarry who created the subtle, thoughtful, and nuanced Paul Christopher novels. This one is pure pulp science fiction, with two-dimensional, stereotyped characters - an enigmatic billionaire genius, an evil but clever giant psychopath, an irresistable lothario, a Judi Dench-as-M-like English secret agent, and the narrator, a damaged, cynical New York writer. This against a background of approaching apocalyptic end of civilisation, with many improbable plot loose ends. If the author was to let slip that he wrote this as a joke or a bet it would explain a lot. Bring back Christopher!
April 19, 2023
Being somewhere around 50%, may I recommend instead Stephen Baxter's Flood + Ark novels, plus Neal Stephenson's Seveneves. Replace earthquake and earth-core with other natural disasters (Poles melting and meteor shower) and you get a similar story but much more value for money and undeniable quality. IMHO, McCarry's Ark features certain stylistic, plot, character development and prose choices that undermine the result. I wanted to like but it just mehs. I'll finish it notwithstanding. It's mere wake-up commuting stuff.
February 20, 2014
I started reading this book because Charles McCarry is one of my favorite authors, but Ark is nothing close to his best work. A clever story about the end of the world, but hard to suspend disbelief and more difficult to like the annoying main character.
June 14, 2019
Ark is the second book I have read by McCarry, the first was Old Boys. Ark is written in the first person and from the point of view of a female author. The plot is a bit of a stretch as Henry is the only person on our planet who has aggregated scientific evidence that the world will end sooner than people think. He has money and a plan to save the human race and puts it into motion with the assistance of many people and a couple of other nations. McCarry's technical detail is excellent and the prose is smooth. I'm not really a sci-fi fan, but this book weaves an entertaining story that maintained my attention to the end.
March 7, 2020
3.5 stars. McCarry is my favorite spy novelist. This is his lone sci-fi book and it's a grand story, along the lines of When Worlds Collide.
September 18, 2024
Quite a tale
Dystopia at it's finest...difficult to put down in any way shape or form. Will remind the reader just how insignificant and lucky we truly are.
Dystopia at it's finest...difficult to put down in any way shape or form. Will remind the reader just how insignificant and lucky we truly are.
December 23, 2011
This is the first book by Charles McCarry that I have read but I wasn't disappointed. It cleverly mixes fiction and science fact to deliver an intriguing tale that kept me turn the electronic pages of my kindle into the night. Told in the first person, or rather observed by the narrator the story takes the reader around the world and presents and develops characters that make the book very real and give a tremendous amount of depth.
The book was a little slow to begin with, but quickly picked up and the detail of the tale was great. It was this attention to detail, and the combinations of genres that worked well, it's never quite clear where fact and fiction blend together to create something quite different.
I was reminded of the late Michael Crichton at his best, reading this novel, and Charles McCarry can weave a tale in the same way that Crichton could, keeping the reader guessing what's going to happen next but making the outcome believable.
A strong and intriguing read, recommended.
The book was a little slow to begin with, but quickly picked up and the detail of the tale was great. It was this attention to detail, and the combinations of genres that worked well, it's never quite clear where fact and fiction blend together to create something quite different.
I was reminded of the late Michael Crichton at his best, reading this novel, and Charles McCarry can weave a tale in the same way that Crichton could, keeping the reader guessing what's going to happen next but making the outcome believable.
A strong and intriguing read, recommended.
June 30, 2012
As soon as I started reading this book, I hated it. I chose it because I was ready for another end-of-this-world apocalyptic thriller. Soon, though, I was swayed and courted by the characters and the story. I started to see this wasn't a book about the apocalypse at all--it was a book about people that the apocalyse just happened to.
And, before I knew it, I loved this book!
The main character is a writer who has been contracted by a scientific genius zillionaire, Henry, to be in his think tank. He tells her that life on Earth will be ending soon and he is gathering various people to help him work through his rough draft of human survival. The main character is puzzled by what Henry sees in her but they seem to be drawn to one another like magnets.
There were a few weird plot happenings (why the brutal red-headed giant?) that keeps this book from being great. Still, it's a good read with danger, thrills, romance and enough twists and turns that should please most dystopian readers.
And, before I knew it, I loved this book!
The main character is a writer who has been contracted by a scientific genius zillionaire, Henry, to be in his think tank. He tells her that life on Earth will be ending soon and he is gathering various people to help him work through his rough draft of human survival. The main character is puzzled by what Henry sees in her but they seem to be drawn to one another like magnets.
There were a few weird plot happenings (why the brutal red-headed giant?) that keeps this book from being great. Still, it's a good read with danger, thrills, romance and enough twists and turns that should please most dystopian readers.
February 10, 2025
Charles McCarry, the dean of spy novelists, American or otherwise, takes on the end of the world. This was a brilliantly conceived story of the apocalypse and construction of the titular Ark in space by a benevolent trillionaire. A massive departure in subject matter by the author could have been clumsy and uninteresting, but this story was in too good of hands for that to happen.
September 4, 2015
Another end-of-the-world book. And only one guy has the smart and vision to see how to save the earth.
December 29, 2015
Not my usual read but a sci fi/ sci fact book about the end of the world. It was enjoyable but I need to get back to McCarry's thrillers
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews