Aurora (2015)

by Kim Stanley Robinson

The vivid and believable illustration of a possible near future almost makes up for what’s lacking in plot and character development.

Having recently read the Mars trilogy it wouldn’t be fair to expect anything more or less from Kim Stanley Robinson. Aurora is a first cousin to Red/Green/Blue Mars in that they share the same 2Xth century technology give or take a few developments here or there conveniently introduced to drive the plot along.

The characters tell the story in Aurora, not the other way around. Each is set up to provide his/her/its unique perspective on their journey and Robinson seems content to let every character sit happily inside the box in which he/she/it started for the four-hundred-odd pages of this novel. When named characters are removed from the narrative by death or circumstance it is because they’ve outlived their usefulness as plot elements.

Most of the story is narrated by an artificially intelligent quantum computer named Ship as it actively learns to leverage the English language as a summarization device. Perhaps Robinson listened to the critics of his previous novels and found a literary mechanism to state, in no uncertain terms, “don’t mistake this for classic literature.” I enjoyed how this contract with the reader allowed for sometimes brutal, numbers-heavy exposition that helps the reader build a detailed and airtight mental model of their world. Plus, who reading a book like this doesn’t geek out on a novel written around back-of-the-napkin math?

Ship developed the most out of any character in the book by no insignificant margin. Witty at times and candid always, through Ship Robinson explored an intriguing intersection between logic, power, compassion, and duty. An introspective computer’s take on their pilgrimage. Ship turned quickly from a stale and unwelcome trope to the only character in the book that was relatable, or for lack of a better word, human.

Unfortunately, key moments of decision in the plot are swept over in a page or two to make room for seemingly endless passages exploring characters thoughts and feelings. This is not inherently a bad thing, however, much (most?) of this book is whittled away in this fashion without managing to add a single third dimension to a cast of uniformly flat characters (Ship not included). Actors are born, develop, and die as if encased in amber. You can turn the glossy stone over in your hands and examine it from all angles and lighting conditions, still, the caterpillar fossilized within will never metamorphose into a butterfly.

Plot-wise, I found the situation that unfolded in orbit around Tau Ceti to be underdeveloped. The section on Aurora was all about “what”: people start dying and half of the crew wants to go back. As a result there was very little room left to flesh out “why”. A token effort was given towards diagnosing the problem pathogen but as soon as the first settler died of the unknown disease you could feel Robinson readying the reader to abandon the Tau Ceti system altogether.

The subsequent decision to split the team was told from the political perspective only. What were the calculations or emotional motives behind most named characters declaring Aurora and Iris a lost cause? The shift in attitudes was so jarring and thinly justified that I found myself worrying that I had skipped pages or a section. Was Robinson afraid of simply rehashing Red Mars and telling a feel-good settler story? I was dumbfounded by the way the stint in the Tau Ceti system was mumbled over.

Shortcomings aside, Aurora was an enjoyable read because I knew what I was getting into and was ready to sign up for an exposition-only “technical manual” science fiction novel.