Article — 3 min read
Recommendations for early autumn
Article — 3 min read
Recommendations for early autumn
Kim Stanley Robinson imagines a future in which China is the main colonizer of the Moon. A future that many of us think about with fear.
The novel follows Fred Fredricks, an American employee of a Swiss telecommunications company, sent to the Moon to deliver a highly secure communication device. Once there, he becomes trapped in the struggles for control of the various Chinese factions and becomes a fugitive alongside the daughter of an important communist member of the Chinese Party.
Although the novel is thought of as a thriller, it is read slowly, slowly. Kim Stanley Robinson creates historical context, and the reflections of the characters carry you through quantum physics, economics, feng-shui and poetry. Like the SF masterpiece – Mars Trilogy – Kim Stanley Robinson gives depth and substance to the characters: they interact normally, coherently and, considering the context, as humanly as possible.
Other recommandation from Kim Stanley Robinson. In Aurora, the author sets aside the concept of “faster than light” interstellar engines. Instead, it presents us with a self-sufficient ship, where generations of the earthmen are born and die until they reach their destination. A generation-ship with the mission of colonizing a planet-like planet in the Tau Ceti system.
What strikes us is the simplicity of the story and the feeling that this scenario is very plausible if we travel outside the Solar System.
It is a simple story, where the Artificial Intelligence of the ship becomes the main narrator of the voyage. A ship consisting of two large rings that generate gravity and a central axis, divided into 12 biomes, from tropical to tundra. About 2000 people travel on this trip.
The novel deals with major topics such as: ecology, human psychology, artificial intelligence and space travel. Themes that obsess Kim Stanley Robinson from the first published SF books.
The ship’s artificial intelligence notes: “Life is complex and entropy is real.” A painfully simple and true conclusion.
Aurora is published by Nemira Publishing House, Armada collection, in Gabriel Stoian’s translation.
What are you reading this month? What are your recommendations for autumn?
Photo sources: Red Moon, Aurora, An unkindness of magicians, personal archive
