Arkwright

by Allen Steele

Hardcover, 2016

Status

Available

Publication

Tor Books (2016), Edition: First Edition, 336 pages

Description

"Written by a highly regarded expert on space travel and exploration, Arkwright features the precision of hard SF 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 twentieth century. At the end of his life he becomes reclusive and cantankerous, refusing to appear before or interact with his legion of fans. Little did anyone know, Nathan was 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 Earth-like 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, which will appeal to devotees of the genre as well as fans of current major motion pictures such as Gravity and Interstellar"--… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member AliceaP
I had high hopes for Arkwright by Allen Steele because the premise sounded so promising. A sci-fi book about a sci-fi author (touted as being a contemporary of Isaac Asimov) that bankrolled a gargantuan scientific project that could only be cooked up by a sci-fi enthusiast? Yes, please! The basic
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outline of this book is that through multiple generations of one family, the Arkwright clan, an interstellar space craft would be created and launched into the vast reaches of space in the hopes of colonizing a distant planet for future human inhabitation. Each section of the book focused on a different descendant of the original creator, Nathan Arkwright. The major problem for me was that I didn't especially like any of these characters. It isn't a necessity to like the characters you read about of course but it helps if you feel invested in them because otherwise their actions make no difference to you one way or the other...which is what happened to me. Halfway through, I almost gave this book up as a lost cause but I decided to soldier through in the hopes that the ending would knock my socks off. It did and it didn't. You can probably guess what the last chapter of a book about interstellar travel will contain but if you're looking for a huge crescendo then you're going to be disappointed. When I was contemplating giving this one up I looked up other reviews and someone mentioned how it would have been better if the ending had been expanded further. I agree. By focusing on the management of the company, the fiscal pitfalls, the construction of the ship, and the foibles of each of the family members Steele missed an opportunity to really knock it out of the park. If you're a huge sci-fi nerd (as I am) then you most likely won't fall in love with this book but if you're new to the genre or a fan of the generation ship trope then maybe this one will be a win for you. 4/10 for a great concept that didn't really deliver.
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LibraryThing member joecanas
Ultra-pedestrian writing -- unforgivable in a work of speculative fiction! I was going to give this 2.5 stars, but I subtracted 0.5 for the many typos and missing words. Who edited this? Bueller? Bueller?
LibraryThing member kleos_aphthiton
Enjoyed Seveneves, but wish it was shorter? Enjoyed Aurora, but wish it was more optimistic? Enjoyed Among Others, but wish it was less fantasy and more science fiction? Well, then Arkwright might just be the book you're looking for -- a celebration of the history of science fiction as a genre and
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community, and a tale of humanity's expansion across the galaxy, spanning generations , but coming in at just over 300 pages.
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LibraryThing member EmpressReece
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
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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.
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LibraryThing member neurodrew
The first chapters are an ode to the early days of science fiction, imagining the relationships among the classic authors of the genre, Asimov, Pohl, and van Vogt among others, at a science fiction convention of the 1950's when authors who thought they should promote space travel were banned from
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discussions at the convention of more literary storytellers. Nathan Arkwright (the name gives away the subject of the book) is a fictional author who makes a lot of money writing space opera, then devotes all of it to a foundation to send a spaceship, with human genetic material, to an extra-solar world. The saga of the generations that supported the foundation ensues, with a final chapter on contact between the new inhabitants of the extrasolar world and a ship from earth. Each story seems to begin with a rather adolescent male and female courtship, and then states the problem for that generation. The last chapter imagines a rift between populations on the new world, and a final resolution. The novel seems more like a short story collection, but it was interesting and held together like a family saga.
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LibraryThing member gypsysmom
This was disappointing. From the premise I thought I was going to love this book. It promised "classic, epic science fiction and engaging character-driven storytelling" (from the Amazon blurb). It was also promoted as being a paean to the genre of science fiction, especially the golden age of
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science fiction. I didn't find that it achieved either of those purposes. Add in the fact that there were numerous instances where words, usually small prepositions, were left out of sentences and I couldn't give this book any more than 3 stars.

Nathan Arkwright reached adulthood just before World War II. Like many youths of that time he was a devoted reader of the science fiction pulp magazines of the time. In the back of one he read about a convention taking place near to where he lived and he decided to go. There he met three other fans who would remain lifelong friends. He and one other wrote science fiction for a living. The sole female became a literary agent for both of them. The other person was a gifted scientist who helped the two authors write fiction that was grounded in scientific knowledge. Nathan became very wealthy and he decided to use his wealth to promote interstellar space travel. Just before his death he set up a foundation to achieve that goal. His three friends and his granddaughter started the process running. Successive generations worked to achieve the goal. In time a ship carrying genetic material to colonize a new world including the genes of the people involved with building the space ship took off for a distant planet.

I admit that the idea of using a science fiction premise to achieve scientific aims is unique. However, there was so much about the circumstances surrounding the time period that was glossed over that I just felt it was operating in a vacuum. I would have like to know, for example, how the ravages of climate change were dealt with and reversed because they certainly seem to have been. There are mentions of sea levels rising to flood coastal cities and towns but no discussion of the devastation that must have caused. As I said at the beginning it was disappointing.
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LibraryThing member LisCarey
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
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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.
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LibraryThing member TobinElliott
An ambitious story that pays homage to all the giants of SF that came before, while still looking ahead.

Unfortunately, in my limited view (I really don't read a lot of SF anymore, but I've read damn near every one of the authors namechecked in this book), this story suffers the fate of almost every
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multi-generational SF story I've ever read: that is, it almost has to work in shorthand, or summary. Characters need to meet and fall immediately in love for the plot to progress to their grandkids. So we get scenes where someone goes to interview an Arkwright Foundation member and, within pages, they've fallen in love and she becomes a member of Arkwright, both the family and the foundation, on the basis of being attractive. Or another scene where a young family member who's completely directionless until he meets a lovely woman finds everything he needs all in one package. But then, for the plot to progress, when we skip ahead ten years, he's done yet another abrupt about-face.

In perfect Asimov fashion, any person with a problem immediately meets someone else who will solve that problem.

My other concern is, there's no conflict here. Things all come relatively easy. The only disagreements come from belief - belief in technology or religion. When a disaster happens, it's not even remotely engaging because the solution is there.

Finally, when we get to the last bit of the book (which, truth be told, I thought was going to make up the bulk of the novel), we're fed yet another faith vs. science question. I don't think I spoil a damn thing when I say I wasn't shocked that science wins. Don't get me wrong, I'm no believer in religion, and have a lot of faith in science overall, but did it need to be so damn one-sided and heavy-handed? Every outcome in this novel is a foregone conclusion.

I know they're out there, but I wish I could find a hard-SF author who pays the same amount of attention to their characters as they do to their tech. And I wish they could be a little less biased.

Not a horrible book, but yet again, not one I'd hold up as a solid example of the genre.
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LibraryThing member Cataloger623
A science fiction writer during the Golden Age of science fiction writers devotes his considerable fortune to developing a starship to colonize a distant world.This book guest stars most if not all of the GoldenAge writers from Asimov to Williamson. Written like a series of biographies the story
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chronicles the inception of Arkwright Foundation, the development of its starship and the outcome of colonization effort.The story kept me engaged. While it lacks the action of his Coyote Universe series, it more than makes up for this in the depth of his character development and his knowledge of and use of hard science.
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LibraryThing member dcunning11235
This whole book is an homage to the "golden age" of Sci Fi. And in some ways that's nice... but I found myself not liking it more and more because it (perhaps intentionally?) faithfully replicates some of the great weaknesses of "sci fi of a certain age": characters are thin, plot runs and jumps
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over what are kind of holes, what would be emotional in real life is handled at great remove, etc.

The references to e.g. Asimov and Heinlein are obvious, but others are less so (e.g. to Asimov's Foundation and Sagan's religious anti-project protesters/terrorists) but get to a point where I felt like, "Yes, I get it..."

I'm torn: two stars or three? But forced to pick, I'm saying two.
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Language

Original language

English

Barcode

9180
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