Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I've thought a lot about this book since I read it a couple of weeks ago--mostly about how very much I did not like it. I think maybe what really upset me most was just how mislead I felt by the book. It is not a spoiler to say that this is not a novel about the colonization of a distant planet. It is a polemic against the very idea that humanity should ever colonize a distant planet. I mean the novel approaches the issue with such passion and really beats us over the head that you'd think this was one of the pressing issues of our time and that we were constantly sending these multi-generational ships out into interstellar space. Everyone in the novel who favors interstellar colonization is a moral monster and everyone who opposes it is a good and decent person. Really. It's very strange. If you are interested in a novel about the struggles involved in colonizing space, that really grapples with the science and technology this is not the novel for you. Look elsewhere. ** OK SPOILERS NOW ** So by about 1/3 of the way through the book it is quite clear that the bulk of the story will not be about the colonization of Aurora, but about a return journey to Earth, which to me has no drama whatsoever and seems pointless. Had I known this I never would have picked up this book. Much of what is wrong with this novel has been covered in other negative reviews, but I do want to get my 2 cents in. Here are some points: * The colony ship left Earth in the 26th century, over 500 years in the future. Much of the technology on the ship demonstrates this. You've got printers that can print any complex object, a big ship that can travel to another solar system and keep 2000 people alive for nearly 200 years, a sentient AI. But much is missing. No mention is made of genetic engineering, which is very odd. * Much is made in the novel of the zoo effect, or the small island effect. This is the idea that a small population will degrade over time due to--well what exactly is never said. This is a key concept of the novel. Colonizing a distant world is impossible because of this zoo effect but we never get any kind of explanation of exactly what this is or what causes it. * OK and if the zoo effect another way of saying a lack of genetic diversity--well there are simple ways of dealing with that. See genetic engineering mentioned above. But also, it is possible with current technology to freeze sperm, eggs, and live embryos of pretty much any species for many years. Why did these geniuses not load up the ship with genetic diversity in the form of such things? This really bothered me a lot. * At one point the people on the ship are starving because their crops are failing. Yeah, they grow crops on the ship. This seemed interesting at first (the growing of crops, that is) but when it got to the point where everyone was starving, well it just seemed stupid. Food is basically certain chemicals arranged in a particular way. It just seems that 500 years in the future there is bound to be a way to create food in a closed system like an interstellar ship that does not involve tilling soil. See genetic engineering mentioned above. Plus, more importantly, as I mentioned, the ship has printers that can print literally anything. Yet no one thinks to ask if said printers can print food for goodness sake. * This may be me just wanting to read a different book, but these people gave up very quickly. After having lived their entire lives just to get to a distant planet, once they made it (a miracle of ingenuity and technology and hard work), at the first sign of trouble everyone gives up and we are supposed to think that this is the only logical thing they can do. I don't know. We in America are raised to revere the founding fathers. I find it impossible to believe that everyone on a multi-generational ship (if such a thing existed) would not be raised to revere the founders of their mission, to be taught from birth that they are special because their life has a purpose. Everyone would not be so quick to give up when said purpose proved to be a little difficult. * The group on the ship that decides to return to earth knows that the return journey will take 170 years, so they will all be long dead by the time the ship gets there. So what is the point of returning. They say it is so their ancestors can return to earth, which is just plain silly. They decide to take half the mission's resources and the mission's very valuable AI and half the mission's population away essentially so that they can all feel less guilty about having children. Think about it. * And one final point (leaving out so much more that I could complain about). So through some nice hand waving (that takes about 150 pages or so) our group of returnees is actually able to make it back to earth while they are mostly still alive. OK, whatever. SF magic to the rescue. To what end you may wonder. Well, so that the main character can go body surfing with some naked hippies back on earth. No I am not kidding. The last 30 pages (30 pages!) of the novel are the main character body surfing with naked hippies. I skimmed most of that section thinking, no, no, surly not. Surly we're not going to just have body surfing till the final page. But yes, yes we did. That whole section of the book was an embarrassment.