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Arkwright
Written by a highly regarded expert on space travel and exploration, Allen Steele's Arkwright features the precision of hard science fiction with a compelling cast of characters.
In the vein of classic authors such as Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, and Arthur C. Clarke, Nathan Arkwright is a seminal author of the 20th century. At the end of his life he becomes reclusive and cantankerous, refusing to appear before or interact with his legion of fans. Little does anyone know, Nathan is putting into motion his true timeless legacy. Convinced that humanity cannot survive on Earth, his Arkwright Foundation dedicates itself to creating a colony on an earthlike planet several light-years distant. Fueled by Nathan's legacy, generations of Arkwrights are drawn together - and pulled apart - by the enormity of the task and weight of their name.
This is classic, epic science fiction and engaging character-driven storytelling that will appeal to devotees of the genre as well as fans of current major motion pictures such as Gravity and Interstellar.
In the vein of classic authors such as Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, and Arthur C. Clarke, Nathan Arkwright is a seminal author of the 20th century. At the end of his life he becomes reclusive and cantankerous, refusing to appear before or interact with his legion of fans. Little does anyone know, Nathan is putting into motion his true timeless legacy. Convinced that humanity cannot survive on Earth, his Arkwright Foundation dedicates itself to creating a colony on an earthlike planet several light-years distant. Fueled by Nathan's legacy, generations of Arkwrights are drawn together - and pulled apart - by the enormity of the task and weight of their name.
This is classic, epic science fiction and engaging character-driven storytelling that will appeal to devotees of the genre as well as fans of current major motion pictures such as Gravity and Interstellar.
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First published March 1, 2016
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About the author
Allen M. Steele
235 books418 followersBefore becoming a science fiction writer, Allen Steele was a journalist for newspapers and magazines in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Missouri, and his home state of Tennessee. But science fiction was his first love, so he eventually ditched journalism and began producing that which had made him decide to become a writer in the first place.
Since then, Steele has published eighteen novels and nearly one hundred short stories. His work has received numerous accolades, including three Hugo Awards, and has been translated worldwide, mainly into languages he can’t read. He serves on the board of advisors for the Space Frontier Foundation and is a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. He also belongs to Sigma, a group of science fiction writers who frequently serve as unpaid consultants on matters regarding technology and security.
Allen Steele is a lifelong space buff, and this interest has not only influenced his writing, it has taken him to some interesting places. He has witnessed numerous space shuttle launches from Kennedy Space Center and has flown NASA’s shuttle cockpit simulator at the Johnson Space Center. In 2001, he testified before the US House of Representatives in hearings regarding the future of space exploration. He would like very much to go into orbit, and hopes that one day he’ll be able to afford to do so.
Steele lives in western Massachusetts with his wife, Linda, and a continual procession of adopted dogs. He collects vintage science fiction books and magazines, spacecraft model kits, and dreams.
Since then, Steele has published eighteen novels and nearly one hundred short stories. His work has received numerous accolades, including three Hugo Awards, and has been translated worldwide, mainly into languages he can’t read. He serves on the board of advisors for the Space Frontier Foundation and is a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. He also belongs to Sigma, a group of science fiction writers who frequently serve as unpaid consultants on matters regarding technology and security.
Allen Steele is a lifelong space buff, and this interest has not only influenced his writing, it has taken him to some interesting places. He has witnessed numerous space shuttle launches from Kennedy Space Center and has flown NASA’s shuttle cockpit simulator at the Johnson Space Center. In 2001, he testified before the US House of Representatives in hearings regarding the future of space exploration. He would like very much to go into orbit, and hopes that one day he’ll be able to afford to do so.
Steele lives in western Massachusetts with his wife, Linda, and a continual procession of adopted dogs. He collects vintage science fiction books and magazines, spacecraft model kits, and dreams.
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April 8, 2016
5 of 5 stars at The BiblioSanctum http://bibliosanctum.com/2016/04/05/a...
First thing I did after finishing this book was go to YouTube and pump my fists to the main theme of Star Trek Enterprise. I know that opening sequence has long been divisive among Trek fans, but personally? I love it. The feelings that song stirs–that glowing hope and belief in humanity’s ability to venture forth into the great unknown through their own tenacity and sheer determination–is perfectly suited to the show’s themes and, as it happens, this book as well. Arkwright is the story of how one man’s dream became a reality, a truly inspirational saga spanning generations amidst familial crises, political roadblocks, technological limitations and many other seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Throughout it all, one family’s conviction endures, its members steadfastly facing down every single kind of challenge in the course of the many centuries it takes to achieve their goal. It’s been a long road getting from there to here indeed.
Interestingly, Arkwright opens with its eponymous character dying. Considered along with Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, and Arthur C. Clarke to be one of the twentieth century’s most seminal science fiction authors, Nathan Arkwright passes away quietly in his New England home where he’d spent most of the last two decades living as a relative recluse. His death, however, is just the beginning. His granddaughter Kate, who’d never gotten the chance to know her famous grandfather when he was alive, decides to attend the funeral and pay her respects. This is how she ends up meeting three of Nathan’s oldest friends and finding out all about her grandfather’s secret project: The Arkwright Foundation.
Concerned about humanity’s future in the event of any extinction-level threats to the world, Nathan had decided many years ago that building a starship for long-distance space travel and colonization is the only hope our species has for survival. Not trusting to the bureaucracy of government agencies to make this happen, he had established his own non-profit organization to do the research and work required, and left the foundation his entire fortune plus all future royalties earned from his books. Now that he is gone, it is up to his family and friends to carry on his vision.
One might find it a little strange, that the death of your most crucial character happens in the book’s very first scene. But in truth, it makes perfect sense. Nathan may be the father of the Arkwright Foundation, but his idea is much bigger than any one person. He never expected to live to see his dream come true, and in fact, not even his granddaughter Kate or Kate’s own grandchildren would see it come to fruition. This is a project generations in the making, and Allen Steele brings us back to the past and forward to the future to show how all the characters in Nathan’s family line are united in this one goal through time and distance. The narrative explores Nathan’s own youth and then moves forward through the decades as each generation grows up, gets married, has children. With so many changes in perspective, no sooner had I gotten to know one set of characters than we were jumping forward to time again to follow another. I should have found this format frustrating, but to my surprise, I didn’t. Once I saw Nathan Arkwright’s legacy as a “character” in its own right, I started to understand why Steele decided to write the story this way.
I was also surprised at what an uplifting book this ended up being. Let’s face it; generation ship stories are seldom happy stories, a fact that’s even pointed out by one of the book’s characters. But Arkwright is a very different kind of generation ship story, and one can even argue it’s not even a generation ship story at all, since so much of it takes place on earth following the work of Nathan’s descendants. Oh sure, the scientists and researchers of the Arkwright Foundation end up coming up with solutions to some of the technological challenges posed by long-distance space travel, but at its heart, Arkwright is also a story about the personal lives of the individual characters. In every section, we see how each person is affected by the weight of Nathan’s legacy, making this one a very heartfelt human story.
While I reviewed the audiobook, I can see Arkwright working well in both print and audio formats. Because this is a generations-spanning story featuring multiple characters with their own sections though, I was surprised they went with only one narrator. It just felt like such a missed opportunity, since having a couple more readers on board might have made this even a fuller experience. Nonetheless, narrator Stephen Bel Davies held his own, bringing a diverse cast of characters to life. This audiobook ended up being a very fast listen because I was just so addicted to the story.
All told, I was so glad I decided to give Arkwright a try. The cover and description didn’t initially grab me, and I almost gave it a pass until some of the fascinating reviews convinced me to give it a shot after all. And now, I wouldn’t be surprised if this ends up being on my list of favorite books for 2016. The ending even left me a bit teary-eyed. What a total gem of a sci-fi novel, an incredibly touching and inspirational story about humankind’s journey to reach for the stars.
First thing I did after finishing this book was go to YouTube and pump my fists to the main theme of Star Trek Enterprise. I know that opening sequence has long been divisive among Trek fans, but personally? I love it. The feelings that song stirs–that glowing hope and belief in humanity’s ability to venture forth into the great unknown through their own tenacity and sheer determination–is perfectly suited to the show’s themes and, as it happens, this book as well. Arkwright is the story of how one man’s dream became a reality, a truly inspirational saga spanning generations amidst familial crises, political roadblocks, technological limitations and many other seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Throughout it all, one family’s conviction endures, its members steadfastly facing down every single kind of challenge in the course of the many centuries it takes to achieve their goal. It’s been a long road getting from there to here indeed.
Interestingly, Arkwright opens with its eponymous character dying. Considered along with Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, and Arthur C. Clarke to be one of the twentieth century’s most seminal science fiction authors, Nathan Arkwright passes away quietly in his New England home where he’d spent most of the last two decades living as a relative recluse. His death, however, is just the beginning. His granddaughter Kate, who’d never gotten the chance to know her famous grandfather when he was alive, decides to attend the funeral and pay her respects. This is how she ends up meeting three of Nathan’s oldest friends and finding out all about her grandfather’s secret project: The Arkwright Foundation.
Concerned about humanity’s future in the event of any extinction-level threats to the world, Nathan had decided many years ago that building a starship for long-distance space travel and colonization is the only hope our species has for survival. Not trusting to the bureaucracy of government agencies to make this happen, he had established his own non-profit organization to do the research and work required, and left the foundation his entire fortune plus all future royalties earned from his books. Now that he is gone, it is up to his family and friends to carry on his vision.
One might find it a little strange, that the death of your most crucial character happens in the book’s very first scene. But in truth, it makes perfect sense. Nathan may be the father of the Arkwright Foundation, but his idea is much bigger than any one person. He never expected to live to see his dream come true, and in fact, not even his granddaughter Kate or Kate’s own grandchildren would see it come to fruition. This is a project generations in the making, and Allen Steele brings us back to the past and forward to the future to show how all the characters in Nathan’s family line are united in this one goal through time and distance. The narrative explores Nathan’s own youth and then moves forward through the decades as each generation grows up, gets married, has children. With so many changes in perspective, no sooner had I gotten to know one set of characters than we were jumping forward to time again to follow another. I should have found this format frustrating, but to my surprise, I didn’t. Once I saw Nathan Arkwright’s legacy as a “character” in its own right, I started to understand why Steele decided to write the story this way.
I was also surprised at what an uplifting book this ended up being. Let’s face it; generation ship stories are seldom happy stories, a fact that’s even pointed out by one of the book’s characters. But Arkwright is a very different kind of generation ship story, and one can even argue it’s not even a generation ship story at all, since so much of it takes place on earth following the work of Nathan’s descendants. Oh sure, the scientists and researchers of the Arkwright Foundation end up coming up with solutions to some of the technological challenges posed by long-distance space travel, but at its heart, Arkwright is also a story about the personal lives of the individual characters. In every section, we see how each person is affected by the weight of Nathan’s legacy, making this one a very heartfelt human story.
While I reviewed the audiobook, I can see Arkwright working well in both print and audio formats. Because this is a generations-spanning story featuring multiple characters with their own sections though, I was surprised they went with only one narrator. It just felt like such a missed opportunity, since having a couple more readers on board might have made this even a fuller experience. Nonetheless, narrator Stephen Bel Davies held his own, bringing a diverse cast of characters to life. This audiobook ended up being a very fast listen because I was just so addicted to the story.
All told, I was so glad I decided to give Arkwright a try. The cover and description didn’t initially grab me, and I almost gave it a pass until some of the fascinating reviews convinced me to give it a shot after all. And now, I wouldn’t be surprised if this ends up being on my list of favorite books for 2016. The ending even left me a bit teary-eyed. What a total gem of a sci-fi novel, an incredibly touching and inspirational story about humankind’s journey to reach for the stars.
February 10, 2017
This SF was pretty much awesome, and more, it was awesome for entirely different reasons as the book progressed.
I've never read Allen Steele before now, but he's just made a fan of me. It's obvious he's well read and respectful of the entire genre from the get-go, and reading about the early days of SF was a huge treat. Nathaniel Arkwright was a fictional author, sliding into one of the Big Four Golden Age SF masters, ranking up there with Heinlein, Clarke, Asimov, Anderson, Pohl, Williamson and so many other great names that I, too, have read and loved, and we read about hob-nobbing and the sheer wonder and the excitement that they all felt about a singular dream of imagination, hope, and, in a few very specific cases, SPACE.
Is this all it's about, though? Of course not. I grew to love Arkwright's granddaughter as she discovered what her estranged grandfather was up to with his colleagues, how he wanted his legacy to continue after his death, and beyond all the damn cool nostalgia aspects, we then get into some very nice riffs with other classic SF tales, such as Sagan's Contact as a plot device, then Anderson's Boat of a Million Years, then Asimov's Robot series about not putting all our eggs in one basket, and then we're suddenly in space, for real, and it's all about Real Science, Real Hope, and then we've even got a taste of dystopia and a classic Big Save for the planet, and if that wasn't enough, we even get a full world-building plot and a classic Save From Ignorance plot, and I was absolutely delighted.
Why? Because the author not only made all my favorite Golden Age SF authors into walk-on characters involved in their own schemes of greatness, but we also changed the whole world into some of the greatest SF ideas and explored so many of the most wonderful plots and hard-science beauties to ever grace the page, as well.
What could make such an SF novel better? Good writing, clear characters, and the love of the genre that just oozes across the page, and here's the beauty... Allen Steele has it. :)
I am FANBOY! :) And this is even better if you're conversant with the old field, too. :)
I've never read Allen Steele before now, but he's just made a fan of me. It's obvious he's well read and respectful of the entire genre from the get-go, and reading about the early days of SF was a huge treat. Nathaniel Arkwright was a fictional author, sliding into one of the Big Four Golden Age SF masters, ranking up there with Heinlein, Clarke, Asimov, Anderson, Pohl, Williamson and so many other great names that I, too, have read and loved, and we read about hob-nobbing and the sheer wonder and the excitement that they all felt about a singular dream of imagination, hope, and, in a few very specific cases, SPACE.
Is this all it's about, though? Of course not. I grew to love Arkwright's granddaughter as she discovered what her estranged grandfather was up to with his colleagues, how he wanted his legacy to continue after his death, and beyond all the damn cool nostalgia aspects, we then get into some very nice riffs with other classic SF tales, such as Sagan's Contact as a plot device, then Anderson's Boat of a Million Years, then Asimov's Robot series about not putting all our eggs in one basket, and then we're suddenly in space, for real, and it's all about Real Science, Real Hope, and then we've even got a taste of dystopia and a classic Big Save for the planet, and if that wasn't enough, we even get a full world-building plot and a classic Save From Ignorance plot, and I was absolutely delighted.
Why? Because the author not only made all my favorite Golden Age SF authors into walk-on characters involved in their own schemes of greatness, but we also changed the whole world into some of the greatest SF ideas and explored so many of the most wonderful plots and hard-science beauties to ever grace the page, as well.
What could make such an SF novel better? Good writing, clear characters, and the love of the genre that just oozes across the page, and here's the beauty... Allen Steele has it. :)
I am FANBOY! :) And this is even better if you're conversant with the old field, too. :)
July 13, 2018
Arkwright is the story of a fictional golden age science writer, Nathan Arkwright - a writer in the mold of E.E. 'Doc' Smith, but as famous as Asimov or Heinlein - who uses his fame and fortune to jumpstart a project to send humanity to the stars. In that sense, the novel is a metafictional throwback to the golden age, as well as a straightforward throwback to the kind of heroic problem solving stories that era was known for. It is the most unabashedly dorky sci-fi novel I have ever read, and to some degree that quality is endearing.
Arkwright arrives as something of an antidote to the deeply flawed pessimism of Kim Stanley Robinson's Aurora, and though Steele's novel was completed before the publication of Robinson's, the arguments seem to systematically respond to and counter many of the conclusions Robinson reaches (and in case you haven't read Aurora, dude is NOT a fan of interstellar travel). Many of the philosophical problems I had with Aurora are addressed in Arkwright - particularly concerning the motives for (and benefits of) developing the technology for interstellar travel - which is why it depresses me that it isn't a very good novel.
The hard SFnal aspects of Arkwright are successful enough to scratch the nerd itch that compels me to read SF in the first place. It's the rest - characters, plotting, etc. - that fails to inspire. The characters are pretty two dimensional and they all seem to transparently make the choices the author needs them to make in order to keep things moving. Obstacles are surmounted a little too easily by developments that are a little too convenient. And while the science is good, some of the reasoning is flawed in execution. There are points in which Steele seems to unwittingly undermine the very premise of his novel, which is a pretty big fail. And then there are the sharks. Note to anyone who reads this novel: think long and hard about the sharks. And the asteroid; don't even get me started on the bloody asteroid.
Since Steele is not nearly the skilled and imaginative storyteller that Robinson is, it is hardly a boon that he replaces Robinson's tendentious cynicism with his own tendentious optimism. All I can do is pray to the gods of science fiction that we will soon be gifted with better written novels in the vein of Arkwright's good intentions.
Arkwright arrives as something of an antidote to the deeply flawed pessimism of Kim Stanley Robinson's Aurora, and though Steele's novel was completed before the publication of Robinson's, the arguments seem to systematically respond to and counter many of the conclusions Robinson reaches (and in case you haven't read Aurora, dude is NOT a fan of interstellar travel). Many of the philosophical problems I had with Aurora are addressed in Arkwright - particularly concerning the motives for (and benefits of) developing the technology for interstellar travel - which is why it depresses me that it isn't a very good novel.
The hard SFnal aspects of Arkwright are successful enough to scratch the nerd itch that compels me to read SF in the first place. It's the rest - characters, plotting, etc. - that fails to inspire. The characters are pretty two dimensional and they all seem to transparently make the choices the author needs them to make in order to keep things moving. Obstacles are surmounted a little too easily by developments that are a little too convenient. And while the science is good, some of the reasoning is flawed in execution. There are points in which Steele seems to unwittingly undermine the very premise of his novel, which is a pretty big fail. And then there are the sharks. Note to anyone who reads this novel: think long and hard about the sharks. And the asteroid; don't even get me started on the bloody asteroid.
Since Steele is not nearly the skilled and imaginative storyteller that Robinson is, it is hardly a boon that he replaces Robinson's tendentious cynicism with his own tendentious optimism. All I can do is pray to the gods of science fiction that we will soon be gifted with better written novels in the vein of Arkwright's good intentions.
August 3, 2016
3.5 stars. I really enjoyed the infectious optimism of this book, infused with the spirit of mid-century faith in science and science fiction. On the other hand, I felt that it retained some of the flaws of that period as well - everything felt almost the same as 20th century America, no matter where we were in the future. Nonetheless, a fun little book.
November 15, 2016
(Audiobook) 2.5 stars
"They will be the citizens of the Galaxy"...Ben smiled. Every time he heard that line he got a kick out of it. He wondered how many people in the room would catch the reference to Nat's favourite Heinlein novel. Probably about as many as those who realised he had lifted this entire scenario from a scene in Asimov's "Foundation"
Arkwright is a fun little book of Science Fiction nostalgia porn. Not only are writers like "Fred" Pohl, "Bob" Heinlein, Robert Silverberg and Isaac Asimov used as minor characters, everything from the writing style to the overall sense of optimism screams "Retro Science Fiction".
I have never read anything by Steele before but his "Coyote" series comes highly recommended and shows up on lots of "underrated classics" lists and discussion.
The structure certainly reminds me of "Foundation". The tension free writing style reminds me of Clifford D Simak and there are tons of little winks at classic Science Fiction past and present. We even visit the first ever Worldcon. What a jive that was!
Nathaniel Arkwright, the story goes, was a contemporary of the great SF writers of the past. I think of him as "Gene Roddenberry" without the actual books. After his death his family finds that Arkwright has left his entire fortune to the "Arkwright Foundation" which exists to further research into space flight and eventually build a "generational star ship" to take humanity to the stars.
Steele has a lot of thoughts on the "Space Ark" trope and "Hard" Science Fiction in general. Namely that these journeys would take way too long, we can't maintain a self sustaining ecosystem on a large ship - and neither cold nor warm storage will actually work. Arkwright's "solution" is BRILLIANT and ORIGINAL and something of a minor spoiler. I have not heard that one before!
What unfolds is the story of 3 generations of Arkwrights, working on Earth to get the ship launched and to it's destination. You can guess what the 4th part is about.
At this point it is hard to avoid comparisons to the 2 recent major works of SF, Neal Stephenson's "Seveneves" and Kim Stanley Robinson's "Aurora". You could certainly make the claim that "Arkwright" is like a highly condensed "Seveneves" without all the NASA porn, nastiness and inbreeding. It almost seems like a direct rebuff to many of the ideas of "Aurora". While this book gave me more warm fuzzies, I believe a lot more in KSR's vision of the future, call me a pessimist. "Aurora" also made me think about it's messages for weeks where my thought after finishing this one was "that was nice"...now on to the next book.
Aside from the premature worship of 1960's SF writers, you could be forgiven for thinking this was published in 1966 not 2016.
Here are a few things I noticed in "Arkwright" that stick out like the proverbial dog's balls in comparison to the other 2016 books I just read.
* Our female protagonist desperately hopes a guy she has just met will ask her to go upstairs with him
* A male protagonist "stares appreciatively" down a female character's top
* The same male character doesn't care about Science, but gets into it in order to get jiggy with the Scientist girl...then he finds out Science is way cool after all. See, positive messages!
* An intelligent woman falls for/bangs a guy *immediately* after he responds to an insult directed at her with violence.
Now I don't mean to sound like I hated this, while it was jarring I also found it kind of quaint and mildly humorous compared to the "2016 appropriate" couplings I have become used to.
Steele get's a bit meta, was all this sexism a tribute to the great "Bob" Henlein?
Or his message "Hey I might be a crusty old man but damnit I am going to have fun when I write and if that makes you think I am a dinosaur, I don't give a turd because I am a crusty old man who likes traditional gender roles and optimistic messages SO GET OFF MY LAWN" Who can say?
I thought the flaws were more that by telling the story of multiple generation's we never really get to spend enough time with any of them to care about them. This is similar to "Foundation" but in "Foundation" we have the epic scope and time jumps and the universe is the main character.
The fact that the character's are kind of 1960's cartoons, didn't help that much either.
As I mentioned earlier, this ambles along at a gentle pace like a Simak, very little tension or plot development but never bores. I didn't mind this until I was 80% of the way through the book and could have summarised the whole thing in 2 sentences. At that point it's like "we should get this show on the road now Mr Steele".
To his credit he does and the "Part 4" was certainly interesting. I thought part 3 was pretty superfluous to the story and didn't really add a whole lot. I think I would have liked it a lot more if part 2 and 3 were combined and part 3 instead focused on the Spoiler I mentioned above. THAT was a story I was interested in that barely got touched on.
There was an anti religious message in the book that while it didn't bother me personally, it was about as subtle as a blowtorch. It did lead to this memorable line said to an anti-Science fundamentalist " Jesus would have laughed his arse off if he'd ever met you"
There are so many grimdark, pessimistic visions of the future out there - maybe a light stroll down memory lane with a happy ending is just what you are looking for.
Briefly on the Audiobook: There was something very odd going on with the room sound in this recording, a weird reverb that made narrator Stephen Bel Davies voice just sound odd. He was a fine narrator other then the weird issue with the recording and is good at playing old people, who we have more then a few of in "Arkwright".
"They will be the citizens of the Galaxy"...Ben smiled. Every time he heard that line he got a kick out of it. He wondered how many people in the room would catch the reference to Nat's favourite Heinlein novel. Probably about as many as those who realised he had lifted this entire scenario from a scene in Asimov's "Foundation"
Arkwright is a fun little book of Science Fiction nostalgia porn. Not only are writers like "Fred" Pohl, "Bob" Heinlein, Robert Silverberg and Isaac Asimov used as minor characters, everything from the writing style to the overall sense of optimism screams "Retro Science Fiction".
I have never read anything by Steele before but his "Coyote" series comes highly recommended and shows up on lots of "underrated classics" lists and discussion.
The structure certainly reminds me of "Foundation". The tension free writing style reminds me of Clifford D Simak and there are tons of little winks at classic Science Fiction past and present. We even visit the first ever Worldcon. What a jive that was!
Nathaniel Arkwright, the story goes, was a contemporary of the great SF writers of the past. I think of him as "Gene Roddenberry" without the actual books. After his death his family finds that Arkwright has left his entire fortune to the "Arkwright Foundation" which exists to further research into space flight and eventually build a "generational star ship" to take humanity to the stars.
Steele has a lot of thoughts on the "Space Ark" trope and "Hard" Science Fiction in general. Namely that these journeys would take way too long, we can't maintain a self sustaining ecosystem on a large ship - and neither cold nor warm storage will actually work. Arkwright's "solution" is BRILLIANT and ORIGINAL and something of a minor spoiler. I have not heard that one before!
What unfolds is the story of 3 generations of Arkwrights, working on Earth to get the ship launched and to it's destination. You can guess what the 4th part is about.
At this point it is hard to avoid comparisons to the 2 recent major works of SF, Neal Stephenson's "Seveneves" and Kim Stanley Robinson's "Aurora". You could certainly make the claim that "Arkwright" is like a highly condensed "Seveneves" without all the NASA porn, nastiness and inbreeding. It almost seems like a direct rebuff to many of the ideas of "Aurora". While this book gave me more warm fuzzies, I believe a lot more in KSR's vision of the future, call me a pessimist. "Aurora" also made me think about it's messages for weeks where my thought after finishing this one was "that was nice"...now on to the next book.
Aside from the premature worship of 1960's SF writers, you could be forgiven for thinking this was published in 1966 not 2016.
Here are a few things I noticed in "Arkwright" that stick out like the proverbial dog's balls in comparison to the other 2016 books I just read.
* Our female protagonist desperately hopes a guy she has just met will ask her to go upstairs with him
* A male protagonist "stares appreciatively" down a female character's top
* The same male character doesn't care about Science, but gets into it in order to get jiggy with the Scientist girl...then he finds out Science is way cool after all. See, positive messages!
* An intelligent woman falls for/bangs a guy *immediately* after he responds to an insult directed at her with violence.
Now I don't mean to sound like I hated this, while it was jarring I also found it kind of quaint and mildly humorous compared to the "2016 appropriate" couplings I have become used to.
Steele get's a bit meta, was all this sexism a tribute to the great "Bob" Henlein?
Or his message "Hey I might be a crusty old man but damnit I am going to have fun when I write and if that makes you think I am a dinosaur, I don't give a turd because I am a crusty old man who likes traditional gender roles and optimistic messages SO GET OFF MY LAWN" Who can say?
I thought the flaws were more that by telling the story of multiple generation's we never really get to spend enough time with any of them to care about them. This is similar to "Foundation" but in "Foundation" we have the epic scope and time jumps and the universe is the main character.
The fact that the character's are kind of 1960's cartoons, didn't help that much either.
As I mentioned earlier, this ambles along at a gentle pace like a Simak, very little tension or plot development but never bores. I didn't mind this until I was 80% of the way through the book and could have summarised the whole thing in 2 sentences. At that point it's like "we should get this show on the road now Mr Steele".
To his credit he does and the "Part 4" was certainly interesting. I thought part 3 was pretty superfluous to the story and didn't really add a whole lot. I think I would have liked it a lot more if part 2 and 3 were combined and part 3 instead focused on the Spoiler I mentioned above. THAT was a story I was interested in that barely got touched on.
There was an anti religious message in the book that while it didn't bother me personally, it was about as subtle as a blowtorch. It did lead to this memorable line said to an anti-Science fundamentalist " Jesus would have laughed his arse off if he'd ever met you"
There are so many grimdark, pessimistic visions of the future out there - maybe a light stroll down memory lane with a happy ending is just what you are looking for.
Briefly on the Audiobook: There was something very odd going on with the room sound in this recording, a weird reverb that made narrator Stephen Bel Davies voice just sound odd. He was a fine narrator other then the weird issue with the recording and is good at playing old people, who we have more then a few of in "Arkwright".
March 6, 2016
In a way, Arkwright is Seveneves on easy mode. A multi-generational science fiction exploration novel, instead of being reliant on super hard science, it's a love letter to science fiction itself to fuel the plot along and make an enjoyable read.
The story is about an author, Arkwright, who is right in line with the golden age of his time generations ago. With his royalties and investments, he starts a secretive fund to eventually launch an interstellar spaceship to a planet believed to be able to sustain life. The story follows his progeny over the generations working toward this goal, the problems that persist in such a feat, and, ultimately, the end result.
This book works in the sense that it's a really pretty, low-stakes investment with an enjoyable outcome. If you're looking for the sort of "against all odds" action and problem-solving that Seveneves provided, you're not going to get it here - this book is more optimistic and is more about the people involved than the science to get there. If you're not okay with a lot of handwaving away of problems and situations, this book might be frustrating as a result, but it's not what the book is for. Instead, it's an appreciation for the Big Thinking science fiction used to provide and an appreciation for those willing to make things work even with no immediate benefit, like those in space industries today who will not live to see the fruits of their effort.
As a read, it was great. I loved my experience with the book. As a science fiction read, I prefer the harder stuff, but that's okay, too. This book was just too fun not to put down, and is a worthy read on its own. A great read overall.
The story is about an author, Arkwright, who is right in line with the golden age of his time generations ago. With his royalties and investments, he starts a secretive fund to eventually launch an interstellar spaceship to a planet believed to be able to sustain life. The story follows his progeny over the generations working toward this goal, the problems that persist in such a feat, and, ultimately, the end result.
This book works in the sense that it's a really pretty, low-stakes investment with an enjoyable outcome. If you're looking for the sort of "against all odds" action and problem-solving that Seveneves provided, you're not going to get it here - this book is more optimistic and is more about the people involved than the science to get there. If you're not okay with a lot of handwaving away of problems and situations, this book might be frustrating as a result, but it's not what the book is for. Instead, it's an appreciation for the Big Thinking science fiction used to provide and an appreciation for those willing to make things work even with no immediate benefit, like those in space industries today who will not live to see the fruits of their effort.
As a read, it was great. I loved my experience with the book. As a science fiction read, I prefer the harder stuff, but that's okay, too. This book was just too fun not to put down, and is a worthy read on its own. A great read overall.
July 10, 2016
[G]oing to the stars says something that digging a hole in the ground doesn’t. It says you’ve got hopes for the future that goes beyond mere survival.
Nathan Arkwright is a popular science fiction writer whose dream is to see humans explore space. When he dies, he leaves behind a legacy devoted to seeing that dream to fruition. This book follows the Arkwright family through the years it takes to plan, to create, and to simply watch and wait faithfully for Nathan Arkwright's vision to unfold.
It isn't always smooth sailing, and as with any project involving generations of a family, not every member is equally suitable or even wants to be a part of it. In fact, it is the later generations of the Arkwright family, whose job it is simply keep the long and silent watch from Earth for decades, who perhaps have the most to come to terms with. But even the most intrepid of explorers still needs someone to remain at the watchtower.
Our lives are short, our friends and family are precious, and sometimes it’s okay to stay in one place if that’s where you find your life’s true purpose.
Nathan Arkwright is a popular science fiction writer whose dream is to see humans explore space. When he dies, he leaves behind a legacy devoted to seeing that dream to fruition. This book follows the Arkwright family through the years it takes to plan, to create, and to simply watch and wait faithfully for Nathan Arkwright's vision to unfold.
It isn't always smooth sailing, and as with any project involving generations of a family, not every member is equally suitable or even wants to be a part of it. In fact, it is the later generations of the Arkwright family, whose job it is simply keep the long and silent watch from Earth for decades, who perhaps have the most to come to terms with. But even the most intrepid of explorers still needs someone to remain at the watchtower.
Our lives are short, our friends and family are precious, and sometimes it’s okay to stay in one place if that’s where you find your life’s true purpose.
March 27, 2016
This was definitely a love letter to science fiction, and it was surprising in a good way.
In this novel we follow a family through multiple generations, all with the end goal of building a starship to colonize an earth like planet out in the universe. We get to see their family struggles, aging, dying, births, etc. All the while working towards the common goal.
It's a kind of wonderful flip on the traditional "generation ship" idea where we have generations building and overseeing the travel of the ship which is only carrying genetic material from the original generation and others who have worked on the project along the way. The payoff in the end was quite lovely.
Thanks, NetGalley for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
In this novel we follow a family through multiple generations, all with the end goal of building a starship to colonize an earth like planet out in the universe. We get to see their family struggles, aging, dying, births, etc. All the while working towards the common goal.
It's a kind of wonderful flip on the traditional "generation ship" idea where we have generations building and overseeing the travel of the ship which is only carrying genetic material from the original generation and others who have worked on the project along the way. The payoff in the end was quite lovely.
Thanks, NetGalley for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
July 31, 2016
A generational epic describing the realization of fictional golden age SF author Nathan Arkwright's plan to finance and build humanity's first interstellar colonization effort.
Nathan Arkwright creates a Foundation with his estate instructing his friends and family to invest it in technologies that are critical to interstellar flight and reinvest profits until an actual interstellar colonization effort can be launched. The book follows the setting up of the Foundation and the generations that follow as the starship is built and launched, and then the generations that follow on Earth as the starship nears its destination. The last section covers centuries in the future as we see what's become of the colonization effort.
This is a fun book that captures and re-presents hope for the future of humanity in the stars while not ignoring the commitment of several life times that this would take to achieve. However, it takes aim at the standard places that scientists and engineering professionals often blame for roadblocks in their work: religion and politics, with absolutely no nuance whatsoever. It's also really sketchy on a lot of the science, particularly around the "soft" sciences. This is precisely the sort of SF thinking that Robinson was criticizing so strongly in Aurora. It's also quite astonishing how much society several generations down the track from us on Earth feels exactly like early 1990s society, both in terms of tech and social change. It's a family epic, but at no point does the family deviate from a traditional nuclear one. Everyone's hetero. Everyone has two parents. Everyone falls in love and has kids, and there aren't any divorces. Generation after generation.
That being said there are a number of really emotionally resonating moments throughout the story that made me let a lot of the basic shortcomings of the story go. Overall, I thought it was ok, if undemanding, and I had real problems with suspension of disbelief, and not even regarding the SF elements.
Nathan Arkwright creates a Foundation with his estate instructing his friends and family to invest it in technologies that are critical to interstellar flight and reinvest profits until an actual interstellar colonization effort can be launched. The book follows the setting up of the Foundation and the generations that follow as the starship is built and launched, and then the generations that follow on Earth as the starship nears its destination. The last section covers centuries in the future as we see what's become of the colonization effort.
This is a fun book that captures and re-presents hope for the future of humanity in the stars while not ignoring the commitment of several life times that this would take to achieve. However, it takes aim at the standard places that scientists and engineering professionals often blame for roadblocks in their work: religion and politics, with absolutely no nuance whatsoever. It's also really sketchy on a lot of the science, particularly around the "soft" sciences. This is precisely the sort of SF thinking that Robinson was criticizing so strongly in Aurora. It's also quite astonishing how much society several generations down the track from us on Earth feels exactly like early 1990s society, both in terms of tech and social change. It's a family epic, but at no point does the family deviate from a traditional nuclear one. Everyone's hetero. Everyone has two parents. Everyone falls in love and has kids, and there aren't any divorces. Generation after generation.
That being said there are a number of really emotionally resonating moments throughout the story that made me let a lot of the basic shortcomings of the story go. Overall, I thought it was ok, if undemanding, and I had real problems with suspension of disbelief, and not even regarding the SF elements.
January 3, 2018
I adored this book - science fiction about science fiction, making it fact and reaching for the stars. If this isn't in my top ten books of the year I'll be amazed.
July 23, 2016
This was disappointing.
For the longest time it has been my fondest wish to get a decent space exploration/colonisation book. I really need to go back and read Red Mars and the rest of the trilogy because as time goes on it is becoming increasingly clear that nothing is going to top it.
Arkwright is less a science fiction novel and more of a very short-form soap opera with the pretence of existing in a science fiction novel. It is split into several parts - beginning with the death of Nathan Arkwright, successful sci-fi author who leaves his entire estate to his dream of humans achieving interstellar flight, it jumps down his family tree to each successive generation of Arkwrights (if not carrying that name) and the trials and tribulations they go through to achieve his dream and - inevitably - fall in love! Aw!
What this amounts to is you spend 50-75 pages with a character, in which time two things need to be ticked off;
a) Contribute to Arkwright Foundation endgoal
b) Find someone of the opposite sex to justify the next generation's existence
Once those two things have been crossed, welp time to spit out a baby and make them the centre of attention for the next 50-75 pages.
I really cannot properly explain how disinterested I was in this book. Halfway through I put it down and didn't pick it back up again for two weeks, and it still felt like it was a struggle.
Not for me. I am done with letting covers decide whether I buy a book or not.
For the longest time it has been my fondest wish to get a decent space exploration/colonisation book. I really need to go back and read Red Mars and the rest of the trilogy because as time goes on it is becoming increasingly clear that nothing is going to top it.
Arkwright is less a science fiction novel and more of a very short-form soap opera with the pretence of existing in a science fiction novel. It is split into several parts - beginning with the death of Nathan Arkwright, successful sci-fi author who leaves his entire estate to his dream of humans achieving interstellar flight, it jumps down his family tree to each successive generation of Arkwrights (if not carrying that name) and the trials and tribulations they go through to achieve his dream and - inevitably - fall in love! Aw!
What this amounts to is you spend 50-75 pages with a character, in which time two things need to be ticked off;
a) Contribute to Arkwright Foundation endgoal
b) Find someone of the opposite sex to justify the next generation's existence
Once those two things have been crossed, welp time to spit out a baby and make them the centre of attention for the next 50-75 pages.
I really cannot properly explain how disinterested I was in this book. Halfway through I put it down and didn't pick it back up again for two weeks, and it still felt like it was a struggle.
Not for me. I am done with letting covers decide whether I buy a book or not.
January 23, 2022
Zu Beginn ist dieser Roman eine wunderbare Hommage an das Science-Fiction-Fandom der frühen Jahre. Im weiteren Verlauf erinnert er stark an Neil Stephensons "Amalthea", aber ohne dessen "intellektuellen Ballast"zu haben. Sehr eingängig geschrieben, eine Freude für jeden Fan des Genres.
August 19, 2016
The Arkwright Chronicles...
If you're looking for a good, classic sci-fi story believe me when I say- this is not it! Go right now to your search function, lists, shelves, whatever and find something else! If I could give this a category, it would be called 'space-historical' or 'space-saga.' This is basically a soap opera that spans from the founding of the Arkwright Foundation through the death of Nathan Arkwright, with a history of every other Arkwright family member and the trials they go through as their starship is built, sent to space and the planet is colonized. But there is absolutely no action- It's a narrative and a rather too long and very boring one at that. *yawns*
Why did I even finish it?? -I have no earthly idea! I think I kept hoping that it was going to switch over to a more hands-on, action based story (for lack of better words at the moment because it's 3 am in the morning) but it never did. I'm just glad to finally put it behind me.
If you're looking for a good, classic sci-fi story believe me when I say- this is not it! Go right now to your search function, lists, shelves, whatever and find something else! If I could give this a category, it would be called 'space-historical' or 'space-saga.' This is basically a soap opera that spans from the founding of the Arkwright Foundation through the death of Nathan Arkwright, with a history of every other Arkwright family member and the trials they go through as their starship is built, sent to space and the planet is colonized. But there is absolutely no action- It's a narrative and a rather too long and very boring one at that. *yawns*
Why did I even finish it?? -I have no earthly idea! I think I kept hoping that it was going to switch over to a more hands-on, action based story (for lack of better words at the moment because it's 3 am in the morning) but it never did. I'm just glad to finally put it behind me.
July 20, 2016
only barely makes a 1.5-star because of the idea of it.
couldn't make myself finish. even from the beginning, it felt like a lot of name-dropping and 'look i know things about scifi', and as it progressed, i only kept reading because i thought something would happen? it would get better? some kind of redeeming quality would appear? and then the last straw was the line "by the time i was in my teens, i was fluent in french, spanish, and indian" which, if you're going to go to the trouble of complaining for a whole section of your book that realism and research in sci-fi is important, it kind of is necessary for you to take five seconds and figure out that there's no possible way to be fluent in indian.
like i said, that was the last straw. there were so many other cringe-inducing moments, both in plot execution and otherwise, the (cliche-filled) writing style and (lack of) character depth. the idea of creating a novel that took a somewhat more realistic approach to space travel and showing it across several generations was all that the book had going for it. that's all. execution was extremely poor.
couldn't make myself finish. even from the beginning, it felt like a lot of name-dropping and 'look i know things about scifi', and as it progressed, i only kept reading because i thought something would happen? it would get better? some kind of redeeming quality would appear? and then the last straw was the line "by the time i was in my teens, i was fluent in french, spanish, and indian" which, if you're going to go to the trouble of complaining for a whole section of your book that realism and research in sci-fi is important, it kind of is necessary for you to take five seconds and figure out that there's no possible way to be fluent in indian.
like i said, that was the last straw. there were so many other cringe-inducing moments, both in plot execution and otherwise, the (cliche-filled) writing style and (lack of) character depth. the idea of creating a novel that took a somewhat more realistic approach to space travel and showing it across several generations was all that the book had going for it. that's all. execution was extremely poor.
April 12, 2016
I don't like to just parrot the cover blurb and call it my review, but Robert Sawyer really nails it when he says: "Arkwright is both a love letter to the science fiction field and a terrific cutting-edge hard SF novel." It's both a recursive sf novel and a generation-starship book, but one from the outside point of view which is really cleverly done. The references to early fandom are enjoyable, but people who aren't familiar with the history of the field won't have the story spoiled because they won't know the references they're missing. The book suffers from quite a few typographical errors and a really boring cover, but I enjoyed it more than any other hard sf book I've picked up in a long time. Forward the Legion!
June 18, 2017
I had purchased a hardback copy of "Arkwright" as one of my partner's Christmas gifts last year. I was excited to finally have a chance to read it, as it was on numerous Top 10 Sci-Fiction of 2016 lists. But when I showed my partner what I was reading, he admitted he'd DNF'd after the first third of the novel.
"But maybe you'll like it," he said.
I took this to mean that "Arkwright" was more character than plot driven. And in some ways this is true. "Arkwright" is a languid novel about sci-fi writer Nathan Arkwright and generations of his descendants, many of whom devoted their lives to making interstellar space travel a reality. The problem for me was that this was a smallish novel, and I didn't get to know any of the characters very long or well before we're shuttled to the next generation. Everyone seemed blissfully devoted to their family's quest except for Matt, Nathan's great great grandson, but I didn't even get to know him very well.
And this would have been okay, if the plot was a bit less languid. Instead of seeing the nitty gritty of building spaceships, or the intensity right before a maiden launch, we get congressional hearings and launches from Matt's perspective, who is more interested in the cute woman with him. We finally get to see the alien planet near the end of the novel, but there's very little time to know the characters showcased there. Time progresses on Earth - the last generation of Arkwrights we make acquaintances with are born in 2070, but we don't get to see much of the technological advances made there, either.
Oh, and there's so little on the page about the aspects I found really interesting. I wanted to be shown scenes of those little babies on the spaceship, engineered to survive their new planet, nannied by AIs. How strange and controversial (no parents, and the AI to baby ratio wouldn't make any day care regulations) this scenario is. This is what I wanted more of, but unfortunately, it's largely glossed over.
"But maybe you'll like it," he said.
I took this to mean that "Arkwright" was more character than plot driven. And in some ways this is true. "Arkwright" is a languid novel about sci-fi writer Nathan Arkwright and generations of his descendants, many of whom devoted their lives to making interstellar space travel a reality. The problem for me was that this was a smallish novel, and I didn't get to know any of the characters very long or well before we're shuttled to the next generation. Everyone seemed blissfully devoted to their family's quest except for Matt, Nathan's great great grandson, but I didn't even get to know him very well.
And this would have been okay, if the plot was a bit less languid. Instead of seeing the nitty gritty of building spaceships, or the intensity right before a maiden launch, we get congressional hearings and launches from Matt's perspective, who is more interested in the cute woman with him. We finally get to see the alien planet near the end of the novel, but there's very little time to know the characters showcased there. Time progresses on Earth - the last generation of Arkwrights we make acquaintances with are born in 2070, but we don't get to see much of the technological advances made there, either.
Oh, and there's so little on the page about the aspects I found really interesting. I wanted to be shown scenes of those little babies on the spaceship, engineered to survive their new planet, nannied by AIs. How strange and controversial (no parents, and the AI to baby ratio wouldn't make any day care regulations) this scenario is. This is what I wanted more of, but unfortunately, it's largely glossed over.
October 29, 2019
Definitely a book that you need to read if you are into science fiction. The work up to the ending is amazing and the way the plot is developed through a whole different generations of the same family is genius. A little too simple towards the end but taken all into account, this is a book I would recommend to any lover of science fiction.
October 24, 2021
Arkwright is a tale told in four "books" with an interlude between each, with each book jumping decades ahead in to the future. In Book One we are introduced to (and say good bye to) golden-age science fiction author Nathan Arkwright, who ultimately decides to use his life earnings as one of the most popular and successful authors of his day to fund his dream of human space exploration by setting in motion the construction of a starship which would ultimately travel to a planet determined to be hospitable located light years from Earth. The process of constructing and launching the starship is described in Books Two and Three, and the results of Nathan's vision is revealed in Book Four.
Like in other Steele novels I've read, this book is full of believable hard science fiction and interesting characters. Unlike other generation ship books I've read, the passengers aboard Arkwright's ship are frozen human egg and sperm, along with the seeds and egg and sperm of fauna. A number of robots are along to look after the humans and see to it that the planet is prepared prior to human introduction. Does Arkwright's dream come to fruition?
I really enjoyed this although I had some nit-picks. I don't like fiction in which the author inserts real people in settings with their fictional settings and Arkwright mixes with the science fiction authors of his day like Heinlein, Pohl, Asimov, Clarke, etc.; however, it was at a convention so it was over rather quickly and didn't take me out of the story too much.
For me, the book got better as it went along and the plot focused more and more on the actual starship. Space is hard and so much was riding on this project. There was nothing flashy about the process or any of the characters in Arkwright's organization. They struggled to get the project completed and I really felt drawn to the hopefulness of the group and the magnitude of successfully completing this monumental vision Nathan Arkwright had many decades before.
The highlight of the book was Book Four. It was a great pay off for the novel, positive and touching. I was captivated and couldn't stop reading until the end. Brilliant.
Like in other Steele novels I've read, this book is full of believable hard science fiction and interesting characters. Unlike other generation ship books I've read, the passengers aboard Arkwright's ship are frozen human egg and sperm, along with the seeds and egg and sperm of fauna. A number of robots are along to look after the humans and see to it that the planet is prepared prior to human introduction. Does Arkwright's dream come to fruition?
I really enjoyed this although I had some nit-picks. I don't like fiction in which the author inserts real people in settings with their fictional settings and Arkwright mixes with the science fiction authors of his day like Heinlein, Pohl, Asimov, Clarke, etc.; however, it was at a convention so it was over rather quickly and didn't take me out of the story too much.
For me, the book got better as it went along and the plot focused more and more on the actual starship. Space is hard and so much was riding on this project. There was nothing flashy about the process or any of the characters in Arkwright's organization. They struggled to get the project completed and I really felt drawn to the hopefulness of the group and the magnitude of successfully completing this monumental vision Nathan Arkwright had many decades before.
The highlight of the book was Book Four. It was a great pay off for the novel, positive and touching. I was captivated and couldn't stop reading until the end. Brilliant.
September 27, 2016
Imagine, a hard science fiction book that focuses the story on the people. That is what you will find here. From the golden early days of science fiction, with homage to the great writers and editors, through generations of a fictional family descended from one of those writers, this is a fun switch on the concept of a generation ship. The generations all live on Earth, working to first build the ship and then to keep in touch with it, receiving information, and sending course corrections over the 150+ years of its interstellar flight. The final section of the book is fascinating, and is a perfect ending to this novel.
June 8, 2016
I wanted to like this novel more than I did. Name dropping from the sci-fi golden era to pique the reader interest is fine but not enough to sustain it for the length of the entire book, the multi generation family story was repetitive and boring. I liked the parts about the science but I found the actual story weak.
July 20, 2017
Nathan Arkwright is an aging science fiction writer with a dream.
One of the Big Four of the Golden Age of science fiction (along with Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, and Arthur C. Clarke), Arkwright wrote the Galaxy Patrol series, which became a tv show and a movie franchise. In his waning years, he wants what he's always wanted: real, manned space exploration.
He's also worried that an asteroid collision could cause another mass extinction, this time wiping out humans.
During the first World Science Fiction Convention in 1939, Nathan and three friends formed a club they called The League of Tomorrow. In the early 2000s, it becomes the Arkwright Foundation, Estranged from his daughter and other remaining family, he leaves his wealth to the Foundation, along with an ambitious plan for human colonization of the stars.
The story is told episodically--Nathan's granddaughter Kate, and her descendants, tell the story of the rising and falling fortunes of the Arkwright Foundation and its ambitious plans. There's family conflict as well as the building and launching of the ship, and the struggle to maintain contact with it on its journey. And the last part of the story takes place on Eos, an super-Earth lit by three red dwarf stars.
All of this could be very dry. It's not. I connected with the characters and their stories in each section. They're human and relatable, and, heck, Nathan and his friends are fans! There are some very familiar names in Nathan's section of the book.
There's also a great, big, huge, hand-wave in the Arkwright project, which is never really addressed, possibly because it can't be. That's all right. Steele is a fine storyteller, and I'm willing to grant him his hand-wave, but honestly, I had to give it some thought before I did. Some people may find it a bridge too far.
Recommended, with that caveat.
I bought this audiobook.
One of the Big Four of the Golden Age of science fiction (along with Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, and Arthur C. Clarke), Arkwright wrote the Galaxy Patrol series, which became a tv show and a movie franchise. In his waning years, he wants what he's always wanted: real, manned space exploration.
He's also worried that an asteroid collision could cause another mass extinction, this time wiping out humans.
During the first World Science Fiction Convention in 1939, Nathan and three friends formed a club they called The League of Tomorrow. In the early 2000s, it becomes the Arkwright Foundation, Estranged from his daughter and other remaining family, he leaves his wealth to the Foundation, along with an ambitious plan for human colonization of the stars.
The story is told episodically--Nathan's granddaughter Kate, and her descendants, tell the story of the rising and falling fortunes of the Arkwright Foundation and its ambitious plans. There's family conflict as well as the building and launching of the ship, and the struggle to maintain contact with it on its journey. And the last part of the story takes place on Eos, an super-Earth lit by three red dwarf stars.
All of this could be very dry. It's not. I connected with the characters and their stories in each section. They're human and relatable, and, heck, Nathan and his friends are fans! There are some very familiar names in Nathan's section of the book.
There's also a great, big, huge, hand-wave in the Arkwright project, which is never really addressed, possibly because it can't be. That's all right. Steele is a fine storyteller, and I'm willing to grant him his hand-wave, but honestly, I had to give it some thought before I did. Some people may find it a bridge too far.
Recommended, with that caveat.
I bought this audiobook.
June 5, 2017
Nathan Arkwright was one of the Grandmasters of science fiction. He rubbed shoulders with Heinlein. He was talked about in the same breath as Asimov. And he created the beloved Galaxy Patrol series, which went on to sell lots of books and launch a TV/movie franchise.
And at the beginning of this book, he dies.
He doesn't want his legacy to be the books, though. He wants it to be getting mankind to the stars, so he's created the Arkwright Foundation. This book is about generations of his family following through on that dream of the stars.
It's hard science, but one with characters that often draw you in. The biggest problem with the book is that it's only a few hundred pages long, so we have a short time to spend with the generations working on the spacecraft. And one of these "generational" sections didn't even seem necessary. I wanted him to focus on other aspects of this story, but we just didn't have time. I liked the ending quite a bit, even though he hand-waved away a few questions I (and other characters) had. But overall, this is solid hard science fiction that's a love letter to the genre, and that ultimately has faith in humanity. And that's a rare thing in a science fiction world that often works toward dystopia.
And at the beginning of this book, he dies.
He doesn't want his legacy to be the books, though. He wants it to be getting mankind to the stars, so he's created the Arkwright Foundation. This book is about generations of his family following through on that dream of the stars.
It's hard science, but one with characters that often draw you in. The biggest problem with the book is that it's only a few hundred pages long, so we have a short time to spend with the generations working on the spacecraft. And one of these "generational" sections didn't even seem necessary. I wanted him to focus on other aspects of this story, but we just didn't have time. I liked the ending quite a bit, even though he hand-waved away a few questions I (and other characters) had. But overall, this is solid hard science fiction that's a love letter to the genre, and that ultimately has faith in humanity. And that's a rare thing in a science fiction world that often works toward dystopia.
August 12, 2017
Optimistic near future SF.
Arkwright is the name of a successful SF writer (in this story). He wills the small fortune he has amassed from a space opera series to a foundation. The foundation, carrying his name, is intended to bring to reality the fiction he wrote; i.e., the development of a galactic spaceship. On this premise, Allen Steele builds a multi-generational tale of a privately-supported trip to the stars.
The story is told in vignettes of various generations of the Arkwright family, as they struggle to bring the founder's dream to fruition. Technically, this is perhaps the only way to tell the story given no faster-than-light, hibernation and longevity technologies to draw from. But it does challenge the reader to follow the thread as it spans decades, then centuries. Later, the author does sneak in an AI to help the narrative along.
I enjoyed the book, and its optimism is a refreshing change from all the dystopia in modern SF. Four stars for me.
Arkwright is the name of a successful SF writer (in this story). He wills the small fortune he has amassed from a space opera series to a foundation. The foundation, carrying his name, is intended to bring to reality the fiction he wrote; i.e., the development of a galactic spaceship. On this premise, Allen Steele builds a multi-generational tale of a privately-supported trip to the stars.
The story is told in vignettes of various generations of the Arkwright family, as they struggle to bring the founder's dream to fruition. Technically, this is perhaps the only way to tell the story given no faster-than-light, hibernation and longevity technologies to draw from. But it does challenge the reader to follow the thread as it spans decades, then centuries. Later, the author does sneak in an AI to help the narrative along.
I enjoyed the book, and its optimism is a refreshing change from all the dystopia in modern SF. Four stars for me.
March 22, 2016
This is the kind of book that long time science fiction fans would enjoy most, but it's also a book that a non-fan would be fortunate to have as an introduction to what science fiction is about.
The first part, with its faithful depiction of science fiction fandom in its earliest days, was a real pleasure to read. The next couple ones have echoes from Carl Sagan's Contact, and the last one reminded me of Arthur C. Clarke's Songs of Distant Earth, among others. I loved a lot the changing pace from one generation of characters to the next. Allen Steele definitely knows his science fiction history, but he's very good at keeping the science part within the realms of plausibility too. In all, this book is a sort of an hymn to science fiction and its power to change people. Highly recommended.
The first part, with its faithful depiction of science fiction fandom in its earliest days, was a real pleasure to read. The next couple ones have echoes from Carl Sagan's Contact, and the last one reminded me of Arthur C. Clarke's Songs of Distant Earth, among others. I loved a lot the changing pace from one generation of characters to the next. Allen Steele definitely knows his science fiction history, but he's very good at keeping the science part within the realms of plausibility too. In all, this book is a sort of an hymn to science fiction and its power to change people. Highly recommended.
March 5, 2016
Wow, was this book boring and over-hyped. I was quite disappointed in the characters, who all felt like re-skins of characters we met previously. None of them had any real personality. Everyone fell in love at first sight with someone who was all to eager to drop what they were doing and jump into the plot. The less said about the ending, the better.
April 2, 2016
Considering all the kerfuffle around SFF awards and fandom in the last year, it would not be surprising if fans felt a little aggrieved with the genre at the moment. What with in-fighting, factions, splinter groups, and often bitterness all around, it can seem like a forbidding place to be associated with.
Allen Steele’s latest book, his twentieth, points out that actually such squabbles in science fiction are actually not new, beginning with the telling of similar events over seventy years ago. And yet….. despite this, Arkwright is a book that shows that, despite such passionate disagreements, good things can happen. Arkwright is a book that those with knowledge of the genre’s past will appreciate, and those relatively new to it will realise why the interest in SF has endured. It is brilliant.
“Nat had never before met anyone else who shared his passion for science fiction; no one else at Brooklyn High had the slightest bit of interest in this sort of thing, and he found himself anxious to fit in.” (Legion of Tomorrow, Chapter 5)
The book is divided into four parts, with interludes between. Part One of the book, Legion of Tomorrow, begins in 2006 with a funeral: that of Nathan Arkwright, who in his time was an SF writer as well regarded as Heinlein, Asimov & Clarke. Kate Morressy, his granddaughter, is the only member of his family to attend – her mother, Sylvia, has had no communication with Nathan for many years and Kate herself had lost contact, no doubt in part to the actions of her mother.
At the wake afterwards Kate is approached by Margaret/Maggie Krough, Arkwright’s literary agent, and two of Nathan’s friends, fellow writer Harry Skinner (writing under the pseudonym of Matt Brown) and physicist George Halloran, who all became close friends with Nathan when meeting at the 1939 World Science Fiction Convention. Giving Kate the only copy of Arkwright’s unpublished autobiography, she is told to read it and contact them afterwards.
It is then that Kate discovers that Arkwright’s legacy is not only his science fiction stories but his creation of a non-profit making organisation, the Arkwright Foundation, which underwrites projects deemed appropriate.
“The Futurians believe that science fiction can change the world… They think it should do more than just entertain people and instead present ways in which science and technology can solve social problems.” (Legion of Tomorrow, Chapter 5)
Although Nathan is the originator of the idea, Arkwright is more about his descendants and his legacy. Kate becomes the family member of the board of directors and consequently aware that Nathan’s apparent seclusion in his latter years was actually a disguise for what he was really doing – developing a viable space programme.
In Part Two of the novel, The Prodigal Son, we move to the 1980’s to read of Matt Arkwright, one of Nathan Arkwright’s grandchildren, whose acceptance of the Arkwright Foundation and the succeeding Galactique space programme is initially rather reluctant. Matt refuses to settle and support the project, having watched his parents Kate and Ben succumb (as he sees it) to the ‘Church of Galactique’. At the same time, we see the Galactique being assembled, amidst political and social unrest, and beginning its journey.
“But going to the stars says something that digging a hole in the ground doesn’t. It says you’ve got hopes for the future that goes beyond mere survival.” (Chapter 11)
The third part of the book, The Long Wait, is a future coming-of-age story of Matt’s grand-daughter Dhanishta Arkwright Skinner in 2070. Whilst Galactique travels through space at 0.6 the speed of light, we are told of the lives and loves of the Arkwright descendants on Earth, whose family lifestyle can be summarised as ‘dysfunctional’. Whilst monitoring the spaceships progress we see the Arkwright Skinner’s lives drift apart and together.
The final part, The Children of Gal, tells of what happens when Galactique arrives at its destination.
Arkwright is an ambitious tale, told in a confident manner, that rewrites the genre’s past to create an alternative history, based on the idea of what *might* have happened had SF helped create the vision that led pioneers into space. By writing the novel as separate stages this allows us as readers to see Allen’s work in different styles. The first section is wonderfully meta, briefly combining the fictional Arkwright with real writers – Asimov, Bradbury, Pohl, Heinlein – to both celebrate the past and show the origins of SF. It is a tale that utilises the optimism of the 1940’s and 50’s Golden Age to good effect. If mere phrases like ‘Galactic Patrol’ and ‘The Legion of Tomorrow’ are enough to make you smile, remember and imagine, with awe and anticipation, then this part of the novel is for you.
But if this weren’t enough, Allen then takes us further, to a future that is both positive and optimistic in its belief that the future of the human race will be enhanced by our expansion of new frontiers into space. Allen manages to distil the essence of an older time when readers genuinely thought we had a future in human space travel and then extrapolate it forward.
The Prodigal Son shows us that a vision of the future can inspire, a story of scientists and engineers working for the greater good of humanity. With a romance thrown in for good measure.
The Long Wait is a Heinlein-esque coming of age tale, of descendants engaging with their heritage. The last section shows us that the grand design comes to fruition and that the sacrifices made to that point were worth it. Think The Songs of Distant Earth or David Brin’s Uplift series, not to mention Allen’s own Coyote series. There’s lots of little touches throughout that shows that the author knows and loves his science fiction.
In short, I loved this. It’s been a very long while since I’ve finished a book with such a sigh of satisfaction, sorry that the tale is over but very, very pleased to have made the journey. The ending is simply delightful, and so appropriate (if, I grudgingly accept, improbable.) I can’t see why this wouldn’t be a Hugo contender for Best Novel this year. It ticks all the boxes by taking all those things that SF holds dear, to show us that, despite all the challenges and tribulations, there is a sense of wonder that still makes entertaining and inspiring SF.
Arkwright is a wish-fulfilment story of the highest order. Echoing the works of Heinlein and the other authors who willed us to go there, it is a novel that in an alternate time and space takes us there. And in doing so, shows us why SF is important.
If (as I’ve often said) Stephen Baxter can be seen to be the successor to Arthur C Clarke, then Arkwright shows Allen Steele to be the worthy successor to Robert A. Heinlein and Spider Robinson. It manages to merge old-style sensawunda SF plotting with contemporary style and characterisation, and so shows us what makes SF great not only in the past but also in 2016. For all those fans of the future wishing for the past, Arkwright is an essential read.
Wonderful.
ADDENDUM: And as an aside, I forgot to say how nice but how sad it was that Allen credited David G. Hartwell at the end. He will be missed.
Allen Steele’s latest book, his twentieth, points out that actually such squabbles in science fiction are actually not new, beginning with the telling of similar events over seventy years ago. And yet….. despite this, Arkwright is a book that shows that, despite such passionate disagreements, good things can happen. Arkwright is a book that those with knowledge of the genre’s past will appreciate, and those relatively new to it will realise why the interest in SF has endured. It is brilliant.
“Nat had never before met anyone else who shared his passion for science fiction; no one else at Brooklyn High had the slightest bit of interest in this sort of thing, and he found himself anxious to fit in.” (Legion of Tomorrow, Chapter 5)
The book is divided into four parts, with interludes between. Part One of the book, Legion of Tomorrow, begins in 2006 with a funeral: that of Nathan Arkwright, who in his time was an SF writer as well regarded as Heinlein, Asimov & Clarke. Kate Morressy, his granddaughter, is the only member of his family to attend – her mother, Sylvia, has had no communication with Nathan for many years and Kate herself had lost contact, no doubt in part to the actions of her mother.
At the wake afterwards Kate is approached by Margaret/Maggie Krough, Arkwright’s literary agent, and two of Nathan’s friends, fellow writer Harry Skinner (writing under the pseudonym of Matt Brown) and physicist George Halloran, who all became close friends with Nathan when meeting at the 1939 World Science Fiction Convention. Giving Kate the only copy of Arkwright’s unpublished autobiography, she is told to read it and contact them afterwards.
It is then that Kate discovers that Arkwright’s legacy is not only his science fiction stories but his creation of a non-profit making organisation, the Arkwright Foundation, which underwrites projects deemed appropriate.
“The Futurians believe that science fiction can change the world… They think it should do more than just entertain people and instead present ways in which science and technology can solve social problems.” (Legion of Tomorrow, Chapter 5)
Although Nathan is the originator of the idea, Arkwright is more about his descendants and his legacy. Kate becomes the family member of the board of directors and consequently aware that Nathan’s apparent seclusion in his latter years was actually a disguise for what he was really doing – developing a viable space programme.
In Part Two of the novel, The Prodigal Son, we move to the 1980’s to read of Matt Arkwright, one of Nathan Arkwright’s grandchildren, whose acceptance of the Arkwright Foundation and the succeeding Galactique space programme is initially rather reluctant. Matt refuses to settle and support the project, having watched his parents Kate and Ben succumb (as he sees it) to the ‘Church of Galactique’. At the same time, we see the Galactique being assembled, amidst political and social unrest, and beginning its journey.
“But going to the stars says something that digging a hole in the ground doesn’t. It says you’ve got hopes for the future that goes beyond mere survival.” (Chapter 11)
The third part of the book, The Long Wait, is a future coming-of-age story of Matt’s grand-daughter Dhanishta Arkwright Skinner in 2070. Whilst Galactique travels through space at 0.6 the speed of light, we are told of the lives and loves of the Arkwright descendants on Earth, whose family lifestyle can be summarised as ‘dysfunctional’. Whilst monitoring the spaceships progress we see the Arkwright Skinner’s lives drift apart and together.
The final part, The Children of Gal, tells of what happens when Galactique arrives at its destination.
Arkwright is an ambitious tale, told in a confident manner, that rewrites the genre’s past to create an alternative history, based on the idea of what *might* have happened had SF helped create the vision that led pioneers into space. By writing the novel as separate stages this allows us as readers to see Allen’s work in different styles. The first section is wonderfully meta, briefly combining the fictional Arkwright with real writers – Asimov, Bradbury, Pohl, Heinlein – to both celebrate the past and show the origins of SF. It is a tale that utilises the optimism of the 1940’s and 50’s Golden Age to good effect. If mere phrases like ‘Galactic Patrol’ and ‘The Legion of Tomorrow’ are enough to make you smile, remember and imagine, with awe and anticipation, then this part of the novel is for you.
But if this weren’t enough, Allen then takes us further, to a future that is both positive and optimistic in its belief that the future of the human race will be enhanced by our expansion of new frontiers into space. Allen manages to distil the essence of an older time when readers genuinely thought we had a future in human space travel and then extrapolate it forward.
The Prodigal Son shows us that a vision of the future can inspire, a story of scientists and engineers working for the greater good of humanity. With a romance thrown in for good measure.
The Long Wait is a Heinlein-esque coming of age tale, of descendants engaging with their heritage. The last section shows us that the grand design comes to fruition and that the sacrifices made to that point were worth it. Think The Songs of Distant Earth or David Brin’s Uplift series, not to mention Allen’s own Coyote series. There’s lots of little touches throughout that shows that the author knows and loves his science fiction.
In short, I loved this. It’s been a very long while since I’ve finished a book with such a sigh of satisfaction, sorry that the tale is over but very, very pleased to have made the journey. The ending is simply delightful, and so appropriate (if, I grudgingly accept, improbable.) I can’t see why this wouldn’t be a Hugo contender for Best Novel this year. It ticks all the boxes by taking all those things that SF holds dear, to show us that, despite all the challenges and tribulations, there is a sense of wonder that still makes entertaining and inspiring SF.
Arkwright is a wish-fulfilment story of the highest order. Echoing the works of Heinlein and the other authors who willed us to go there, it is a novel that in an alternate time and space takes us there. And in doing so, shows us why SF is important.
If (as I’ve often said) Stephen Baxter can be seen to be the successor to Arthur C Clarke, then Arkwright shows Allen Steele to be the worthy successor to Robert A. Heinlein and Spider Robinson. It manages to merge old-style sensawunda SF plotting with contemporary style and characterisation, and so shows us what makes SF great not only in the past but also in 2016. For all those fans of the future wishing for the past, Arkwright is an essential read.
Wonderful.
ADDENDUM: And as an aside, I forgot to say how nice but how sad it was that Allen credited David G. Hartwell at the end. He will be missed.
November 29, 2022
Toller Roman, der zum einen, zum Beginn der SF zurückgeht und dort neben Asimov, Clark und Heinlein einen vierten SF-Autor, Nathan Arkwright, etabliert. Der erfolgreiche Autor steckt sein Vermögen in eine Stiftung, um die Besiedelung des Weltalls zu ermöglichen. Um dann zweitens, den Bau des Raumschiffs und die erste Kolonie der Menschheit schildert.
Gut gemacht und lesenswert.
Gut gemacht und lesenswert.
March 19, 2016
Full review at The Speculative Herald: http://www.speculativeherald.com/2016...
Rarely can a book captivate me so strongly so quickly, but Arkwright hooked me from the very first page. I literally could not put the book aside until I got through the first section. It is a story of vision, aspiration, determination, progress, changing the world and it’s expectations and it is also the story of family, friendships and loyalties. It is a story of genre and evolution that includes the loss of the previous masters of genre as time goes by as readers move on and start to neglect reading the household names of generations past.
This story takes generations to tell, but after a gripping opening, it starts with a character named Kate reading incomplete memoirs left by her recently deceased Grandfather. Kate was not close to him, I’m not sure she new much about him beyond the fact that he was a very successful Science Fiction author whose series launched TV spinoffs, catapulting him to genre’s most recognized authors. The same facts anyone of her generation would know about him. The memoirs illustrate the life and aspirations of a young aspiring author named Nathan Arkwright. It outlines his life, his friends, his successes and then most importantly, his dreams and goals
Nathan’s vision turned into a very interesting tale of a Science Fiction writer who uses his money to actually turn ideas like you might find from science fiction into applied science. Namely with creating a solution to transport humans out of our solar system and colonize another planet. This project is huge, and it takes ages to develop the technology required to even attempt such a thing. The storyline progresses from generation to generation, showing the advances and struggles of completing the mission. Each generation we get a new narrator which gives us a slightly different perspective in each time frame and also pieces things together for any missed years.
Arkwright is an addictive and entertaining read that packs an unbelievable journey that feels larger and grander in scope than should fit in the pages that bind it, but it pulls it off and pulls it off splendidly. It takes the reader through the history and evolution of Science Fiction, rubbing elbows with Asimov, Heinlein and Clarke, and then beyond present day, looking towards the future and the stars for what lays in store for us next. Definitely recommend.
Rarely can a book captivate me so strongly so quickly, but Arkwright hooked me from the very first page. I literally could not put the book aside until I got through the first section. It is a story of vision, aspiration, determination, progress, changing the world and it’s expectations and it is also the story of family, friendships and loyalties. It is a story of genre and evolution that includes the loss of the previous masters of genre as time goes by as readers move on and start to neglect reading the household names of generations past.
This story takes generations to tell, but after a gripping opening, it starts with a character named Kate reading incomplete memoirs left by her recently deceased Grandfather. Kate was not close to him, I’m not sure she new much about him beyond the fact that he was a very successful Science Fiction author whose series launched TV spinoffs, catapulting him to genre’s most recognized authors. The same facts anyone of her generation would know about him. The memoirs illustrate the life and aspirations of a young aspiring author named Nathan Arkwright. It outlines his life, his friends, his successes and then most importantly, his dreams and goals
Nathan’s vision turned into a very interesting tale of a Science Fiction writer who uses his money to actually turn ideas like you might find from science fiction into applied science. Namely with creating a solution to transport humans out of our solar system and colonize another planet. This project is huge, and it takes ages to develop the technology required to even attempt such a thing. The storyline progresses from generation to generation, showing the advances and struggles of completing the mission. Each generation we get a new narrator which gives us a slightly different perspective in each time frame and also pieces things together for any missed years.
Arkwright is an addictive and entertaining read that packs an unbelievable journey that feels larger and grander in scope than should fit in the pages that bind it, but it pulls it off and pulls it off splendidly. It takes the reader through the history and evolution of Science Fiction, rubbing elbows with Asimov, Heinlein and Clarke, and then beyond present day, looking towards the future and the stars for what lays in store for us next. Definitely recommend.
March 4, 2016
Some books take me years to finish (Looking at you Stone of Tears) for various reasons ranging from circumstance to annoyance. I also often ready 5-6 books at the same time, switching off from one book to another at chapter breaks. Its like keeping up with your weekly TV shows... Arkwright didn't let me do that. I read nothing else this week...
I went to the book store to buy a Science Fiction novel about Galactic colonization. After pondering several different, I choose Arkwright. I thought I was going to get a deeply technical, Humans in spaceships and colonies type of novel. Arkwright really isn't that type of book.
Instead, it's about people.
It starts with Kate learning about her Grandfather Nathan Arkwright. The story unfolds to the reader much like it unfolds to Kate. Sure, she knows he's famous for Science Fiction and his Galaxy Patrol novels, but she doesn't really know him. He has passed away but his friends tell his story to Kate one part at a time. It seems he's had a vision ...
From there, the novel proceeds with the story of Galatique, a generation ship that will take Humans to another planet. But the book focuses on the trials and tribulations of the group of men and women (many related to Nathan by blood or marriage) who see his dream to its end.
I loved this dream...this vision. I don't normally like my novels to have characters phase out from one section and have it introduce new characters in the next part...but with this novel it Works.
And the last section is so worth the wait...
And the epilogue brought a tear to my eye...
Bravo Mr. Steele...
I went to the book store to buy a Science Fiction novel about Galactic colonization. After pondering several different, I choose Arkwright. I thought I was going to get a deeply technical, Humans in spaceships and colonies type of novel. Arkwright really isn't that type of book.
Instead, it's about people.
It starts with Kate learning about her Grandfather Nathan Arkwright. The story unfolds to the reader much like it unfolds to Kate. Sure, she knows he's famous for Science Fiction and his Galaxy Patrol novels, but she doesn't really know him. He has passed away but his friends tell his story to Kate one part at a time. It seems he's had a vision ...
From there, the novel proceeds with the story of Galatique, a generation ship that will take Humans to another planet. But the book focuses on the trials and tribulations of the group of men and women (many related to Nathan by blood or marriage) who see his dream to its end.
I loved this dream...this vision. I don't normally like my novels to have characters phase out from one section and have it introduce new characters in the next part...but with this novel it Works.
And the last section is so worth the wait...
And the epilogue brought a tear to my eye...
Bravo Mr. Steele...
August 9, 2016
5 Stars
Arkwright by Allen Steele is a science fiction novel that simply does just about everything right. It isn't a game changer. It isn't a hard science text book story. And, it isn't anything new...However, it is a gleaming beacon of hope for humanity, for the science fiction genre, and for the family of Nathan Arkwright, a fictional science fiction writer that used his fame, money, and contacts to fund a generation starship.
What makes this book unique and worth your time is firstly, the gifted writing of Allen Steele. Steele has written a book about characters about humanity itself as well as where we could have in the future. Unlike most books in this genre Arkwright paints the future with a hopeful brush. The concepts explored are fantastic and I loved the way Nathan used his fame as an author of science fiction to promote something that most considered science fiction...A generation starship.
The second unique thing about Arkwright is it's fantastic format. The story is broken into four parts with an interlude between each. This made for great world building and a dynamic story.
Finally without any spoilers Steele gives us a conclusion that is very rare in today's science fiction world. It is simply fantastic. This is a great summer read as it is not very long. Arkwright has instantly made me into a fan of Allen Steele. This is a must read simply for the fact that it goes places that others seem to shy from.
Arkwright by Allen Steele is a science fiction novel that simply does just about everything right. It isn't a game changer. It isn't a hard science text book story. And, it isn't anything new...However, it is a gleaming beacon of hope for humanity, for the science fiction genre, and for the family of Nathan Arkwright, a fictional science fiction writer that used his fame, money, and contacts to fund a generation starship.
What makes this book unique and worth your time is firstly, the gifted writing of Allen Steele. Steele has written a book about characters about humanity itself as well as where we could have in the future. Unlike most books in this genre Arkwright paints the future with a hopeful brush. The concepts explored are fantastic and I loved the way Nathan used his fame as an author of science fiction to promote something that most considered science fiction...A generation starship.
The second unique thing about Arkwright is it's fantastic format. The story is broken into four parts with an interlude between each. This made for great world building and a dynamic story.
Finally without any spoilers Steele gives us a conclusion that is very rare in today's science fiction world. It is simply fantastic. This is a great summer read as it is not very long. Arkwright has instantly made me into a fan of Allen Steele. This is a must read simply for the fact that it goes places that others seem to shy from.
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