Ark, by Stephen Baxter

Ark
Stephen Baxter
Roc: 2010

Damn, I’ve been meaning to write about this book for a while now. Ark is Stephen Baxter’s quasi-sequel to his excellent novel Flood (review). I say “quasi-sequel” because much of Ark runs concurrent to the events of Flood, just in different locations. There is some overlap with characters and major events, but not from the same perspectives.

The premise of Flood, if not guessed from the title, is that for whatever reason the ocean waters begin to rise and rise and rise above their current levels. Now, this may spoil some of the events of Flood, so if you don’t want to be spoiled, please put this blog post down and run, don’t walk, to the nearest copy of Flood and start reading immediately. It’s a wonderful book, so I won’t blame you. Just come back when you’re done. Okay. Now that you’re back, don’t care if you’re going to be spoiled, or are comfortable with a brief refresher, let’s move on. Flood is a novel of a global catastrophe on a scale that boggles the mind if people not named Stephen Baxter think about it for too long. The central cast of characters of Flood are focused on survival for themselves and for a remnant of humanity – on something called Ark Three, which can be described in the grossest of terms as a “giant raft” – a way to survive on the surface of the ocean when there is no land left. Can it be built? Will it work? The novel answers both.

As can be guessed by its name, Ark Three is one of a number of projects to save as many people as possible (a “select” many people, but people all the same). What about Ark One and Two?

Ark, the novel, is the story of the building, training, and mission of Ark One – a mission of sending a colony to the stars, so that even if life is extinguished on Earth, humanity will survive somewhere.

Ark features and references many of the same characters of Flood, but shifts the focus differently. Characters who stay behind on Earth, like Lily Brooke and Thandie Jones are not major players here. They are referenced by the children, like Grace, but the novel focuses more on the next generation – the would-be crew of Ark One.

Also, Ark prominently features the actual space mission and that lends a very different tenor to the novel.

So, while Ark could arguably be described as the sequel to Flood, it is more thematically a sister novel. Ark deals with much of the same stuff, the same issues, fears, and hopes, but it does so differently. Stephen Baxter understands that the initial discovery and wonder of how high the sea will rise and what it means for humanity just isn’t there this time around. Readers know what happens to the world and to the characters. Baxter plays with that sense of inevitability and doom that hangs over Earth and shows what else was happening, what other events were occurring that demonstrate humanity’s capacity for survival. The story of Ark is in the quiet moments during global destruction.

In a very real sense, Flood and Ark are hopeful novels. The promise implicit in Baxter’s story is that humanity will ever strive to survive as a species, and even in the most impossible conditions that have eliminated so much life, a remnant will adapt and survive and find a new way to persevere. Ultimately, it is a beautiful sentiment if one can get past the billions who have perished.

Though it is a very different sort of novel from the excellent Flood, Ark is a very welcome and able companion novel.  Ark does not have the same sort of awestruck wonder at the looming and encroaching disaster, but it is moving and wonderful all the same.

Flood, by Stephen Baxter

Flood
Stephen Baxter
Roc: 2009

Let me start with a disclaimer about myself. I am inexorably drawn to disaster movies, even the cheesy made-for-tv disaster movies. Especially the cheesy made-for-tv disaster movies. I am endlessly fascinated by various ways the environment can cause destruction across the globe, and even more fascinated by the potential for changing landscapes and coastlines. When I was a child there was a television special on various “prophecies” of how our world would change and that Denver would be a coastal port city. There was a map on the screen showing just what America would look like. I was hooked on the concept. Hypothetical disaster is *cool*. That personal history absolutely colors how I read a novel like Stephen Baxter’s Flood and what it triggers in my mind.

Flood is a novel centering on that hypothetical disaster which I so adore in fiction.

Rather than working as a print version of a disaster flick with buildings crashing down under the force of huge tidal waves, Flood is a thoughtful examination of a future in which the sea levels rise beyond all current predictive models. The novel takes place over thirty-six years, allowing for Baxter to demonstrate both the human cost of such a global flood as well as capacity for human adaptation to seemingly impossible situations.

The first Section of the novel begins in 2016 with a note “Mean sea level rise of 2010 datum: 1-5 m.” As time passes, that simple note shows the inexorable rise of the sea, and through Baxter’s prose, the reader learns what that means for the world.

The pacing and tonal content of Flood is nothing like that of a disaster movie, but that same itch of curiosity of how high the water levels will rise and what the shape of the world will look like is still there for me. While I no longer want most of the novels I read to include maps or graphs, there is a part of me that really wishes that Baxter had included an appendix with maps showing the drastic changes the titular flood caused. It is a petty want that stems entirely from that childhood fascination with global destruction, the kind that doesn’t think too deeply about what is happening to real people.

Flood is concerned with real people. Though the protagonists of the novel are the fortunate elite who are connected to those with both means and money, Stephen Baxter is very concerned with the human cost of the global catastrophe.

The novel opens with the rescue of four hostages: Lily, Helen, Piers, and Gary. They were taken five years prior and were passed from terrorist organization to terrorist organization. They knew nothing of the increased sea level and the beginnings of the global flood that had occurred between 2011 and 2016. Stephen Baxter tells the story through the eyes of these characters, most often Lily. The hostages are rescued by AxisCorp and are somewhat adopted by Nathan Lammockson because they know how to endure a crisis. Lammockson is an extraordinarily wealthy man, one who intends to make money in any circumstance. He is always looking to the future and preparing for the possibility the rise of the sea level will not cease. Given that this is a novel titled Flood and the jacket copy suggests that land will become scarce, it is not difficult to realize that Nathan is preparing for a flooded future that is already arriving.

What this does is to put the protagonists of Flood into a position where they can observe and participate in the human exodus from low ground to high, but to do so in such a way that they are as protected as possible. Where the “average” civilian would either be a refugee or dead at various stages of this novel, the protagonists have this special status that may not entirely be realistic but allows for the reader to follow particular characters over the course of decades. There is a sense that these characters (Lily, most notably) are swept along by circumstances, rather than being players in their own destiny, but the viewpoints presented gives scope to the novel.

Flood is a conceptually thrilling novel. Stephen Baxter does very well in writing about human characters and the physical and emotional displacement they undergo. A blurb for on the front cover of the hardcover from Niall Harrison calls the novel “bold, compassionate”, and that didn’t make much sense. How can a novel about such an extreme catastrophe be “compassionate”? By its very nature, the flood is anything but compassionate. The novel is, though. It treats the human characters with respect and shows a variety of viewpoints and circumstances across the globe. Baxter shows various means of coping and survival and the knowledge of what is occurring is nothing short of horrific.

Though the central premise of the novel is horrific, the relentless rise of the water and reader’s imagination of what that might look like takes a novel focused on people and provides a sense of the thrill of the disaster movie. Yes, Flood frequently consists of people standing around talking, and much of the “action” takes place off the page and between chapters and years, but the tension-laden thrill is still there.

The flood is also a character. This is not to say that the water has personality, but rather that just as much as any of the human characters and the human viewpoints, the flood is so large and so important that the setting comes across as character. Of course it is central to the novel, but the water is more than setting.

Flood is a fantastic novel. There are no blockbuster set-pieces of water rushing into New York City and knocking down the Statue of Liberty, but Flood is stronger for taking the long-view of the global catastrophe. While Stephen Baxter may have made have given his characters some convenient opportunities to be connected to the powerful and thus have access to the science, the novel as a whole is well reasoned, horrifying, and exciting all at the same time. Various collapses and thrusts for power are given appropriate attention and Baxter doesn’t flinch from the human cost, even if the characters look from a distance of privilege. Flood is moving, exciting, and compels the reader to keep on through just one more chapter – until the book is done and the reader is hungry for the sequel, Ark.

Starfall, by Stephen Baxter

Starfall
Stephen Baxter
PS Publishing: 2009


Beginning with an interstellar war as distant colonial star systems intend to wage war back on the home Sol System for their independence, Starfall is a tense and exciting novella. It is a story which spans decades, from the first wave sent out to attack Earth to the battle itself, and the aftershocks of the war. The details about the background of this future galaxy is fascinating and begs further exploration. For all that this is a novella of fewer than 100 pages and not a 800 page gargantuan Hamilton-esque novel, Starfall is a story rich with detail and history. Starfall is as fully realized as any longer novel, it’s just all compressed into a smaller package. There’s technology, wormholes, sentient computer viruses, interstellar war, scientific future history, time travel, and it’s all told in a smooth, but fast paced manner.

I want more of it.

Thoughts on Hugo Nominees 2008: Short Stories

"Last Contact" by Stephen Baxter (The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, ed. by George Mann)
"Tideline" by Elizabeth Bear (Asimov's June 2007)
"Who's Afraid of Wolf 359?" by Ken MacLeod (The New Space Opera, ed. by Gardner Dozois and Jonathan Strahan)
"Distant Replay" by Mike Resnick (Asimov's May-June 2007)
"A Small Room in Koboldtown" by Michael Swanwick (Asimov's April/May 2007; The Dog Said Bow-Wow)


I’ll start with one of my favorite authors, Elizabeth Bear. Her story “Tideline” is set in what has to be some sort of a post apocalyptic setting because there is a former military robot scavenging on a beach. The robot, named Chalcedony, helps rescue a boy of indeterminate age and she (Chalcedony) feeds the boy and teaches the boy. “Tideline” is, I think, about memory and loss, hope and responsibility. Despite my quite obvious delight in the novels of Elizabeth Bear, “Tideline” is not a story I would have put on this of Nominees. Don’t get me wrong, I am more than happy that eBear is nominated for major awards and I don’t understand at all why her novel Whiskey and Water hasn’t been nominated for either a Hugo or a Nebula (because it was the best damn thing published in 2007), but “Tideline” is not (I don’t think) a story that worked for me as much as I had hoped it would. Perhaps my expectations were too high, and I hate saying anything negative about Bear’s writing since I want her to have more recognition and not less, but I just can’t get excited about “Tideline”.

I first read “Who’s Afraid of Wolf 359” back in late September 2007 along with the rest of the stories in The New Space Opera. By the time the Hugo nomination came about I couldn’t remember a single thing about the story. So, re-reading the story it is easy to see why it was so difficult to remember. A man (almost a post-human) breaks some arcane law and his punishment is to be sent out to investigate a failed business colony on the planet Wolf 359. Half the story is the man getting to a quarter of the story is the man’s arrest, half the story is his travel to the world, and the final quarter is man on planet and the result. Ken MacLeod packs a whole lot into a little package, and while the story is conceptually interesting, I felt that there was too little actual story for the grander tale that MacLeod sort of told. “Who’s Afraid of Wolf 359” could easily have been expanded to twice its size, but instead we are given an almost deus ex machine conclusion and the story wrapped up rather abruptly. This isn’t a story I would have nominated, but then I don’t have a Worldcon membership so I couldn’t nominate.

Seldom will there be a Mike Resnick story which fails to entertain and delight. “Distant Replay” is no exception. Resnick spins a short story about an elderly man who for several weeks sees a woman who looks exactly like his wife did as a younger woman, down to her taste in clothes and the scent of her perfume. Except this man’s wife has been dead for seven years. When Walter (that’s his name) sees the woman at his favorite restaurant, he finally asks if he could speak with her, and the story unfolds from there. The story does not go the way I expected it to, but at the same time “Distant Replay” felt so familiar, as if Resnick was telling a story we’ve all heard but barely remember. Perhaps he is. I don’t know. What I do know is that “Distant Replay” was a pleasant story and a delight to read. Some will likely argue that “Distant Replay” is too “lightweight” to be award worthy, but I don’t know about that. I just know that it was a story I was glad to have read and one that is likely to age well.

“Last Contact” has to be one of the most mournful stories I have read, and a beautiful one at the same time. The story opens on the ides of March with a strained conversation between a mother and her grown daughter. There is talk about multiple “last contacts” early on, but no explanation of what that means. But then we get a hint. A moment later we realize what it means. Another conversation on June 5, and finally on October 14. Overhanging the entire story is what happens on October 14. Stephen Baxter absolutely nailed this story. It is a quiet story between a mother and a daughter, about the ultimate fate of the universe, and about letting go. By the end I was stunned by how simple and perfect it was.

The story I was least excited about was Michael Swanwick’s “A Small Room in Koboldtown”, another story based off one of his novels and from reading "Lord Weary’s Empire" last year, I wasn’t too thrilled by the idea of another Swanwick. This one was better, though I think if I knew more about the setting I’d have more of a feel for the story. There’s a murder investigation. The murder was possibly committed by a haint (think ghost, but able to interact actively with “solids”) and a haint politician Salem Toussaint has his man, Will le Fey, involved in the investigation. It is the setting which is so fascinating here. I want to know more about the haints, how this city works, what are the underlying issues, and just get in deeper into Koboldtown and the surrounding environs. But Swanwick keeps the story in pretty tight to the investigation, nothing more. Details are revealed in the course of the investigation, but everything came together so quickly, and was resolved so fast that I couldn’t help but feel that “A Small Room in Koboldtown” was simply a small chapter in something larger. So, while the story was decent, I felt empty by the conclusion, like I ate the icing but was never served the cupcake. I want my cupcake!!


My Choice: “Last Contact”, by Stephen Baxter. It’s a small localized story set in the middle of something extraordinarily large and I loved every page of it.

Previous Thoughts:
Novellas
John W. Campbell Award


This leads me to Abigail Nussbaum’s article on these same Hugo nominees. I disagree with pretty much everything she says, even though she does a better job giving her opinions on the fiction. Actually, I only half disagree with her portrait of Mike Resnick’s fiction. I see her point about the simplicity and sameness from his stories, but I’ll be damned if they aren’t a good read. What Abigail seems to be looking for, hoping for, is something (L)iterature, showing intellectual rigor as well as craftsmanship in the prose. Yeah, that’s great, but tell me a good story, a story I care about and want to read again. If the writer can achieve the intellectual rigor while delivering a story that flows, is readable, and is interesting as more than just an intellectual game, that’s a bonus. If not, I want a story that makes me think about what I just read and that “entertains” on some level. The definition of entertainment is up in the air. Some can find intellectual entertainment, others want it on a more visceral level. I think I’m somewhere in between. It is clear to me, though, that what I want from a story is quite different than what Abigail Nussbaum wants. That’s cool. We’re both readers, both want to read a good story. I agree with what she said at the end, that she hopes Elizabeth Bear wins. I just want Bear to win for more personal reasons (i.e. Bear's novels kick ass), and Nussbaum would like to see “Tideline” win on its own merits. Forgetting about the authors, I think “Last Contact” is the one.