Review: Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson

Genre: Science Fiction 
Series: No 
Pages: 466 
Copyright: 2015 
Publisher: Orbit 
Buy: Amazon

Summary: from Good Reads
A major new novel from one of science fiction's most powerful voices, AURORA tells the incredible story of our first voyage beyond the solar system.
Brilliantly imagined and beautifully told, it is the work of a writer at the height of his powers.
Our voyage from Earth began generations ago.

Now, we approach our new home.

AURORA.

Feelings:
The story starts as an interstellar spaceship nears it's destination. Freya has growing up on the ship, and she has never seen a planet or stood on land. Her whole life has been spent on the ship much like those of the past six generations. However, soon they will reach their destination. Aurora is a moon that is much like earth, and the first generation on the ship hoped that their descendants would be able to build a new human settlement on the moon.

As the ship is traveling the last leg of the journey to Aurora we get to know Freya. Devi, Freya's mother, has instructed the ship's AI system to make a narrative account of the journey, and after struggling to do so the ship follows one individual on the ship. Through Freya we see current events on the ship that started it's trip 170 years ago.

I wanted to like this book much more than I ended up liking it. Parts of it were really good, but I found parts a bit slow, and I would get bogged down. I didn't like that aspect of the book. I did like the story. I liked the arc of the story and the growth of characters. However, I did not find the ending to be satisfying in the way I wanted. I don't want to discourage someone from reading the book because overall it was good. I just had some questions about the end and the logistics of it. Not all that big, I came up with a few explanations; however, I would have preferred that one of them be given in the story. I almost felt like it would have been more satisfying to me if the last chapter/section had not been included. I'm not sure but I think I would have been happier.

I think this book is worth a look if you like science fiction. Know that it can be slow at times, and while the ending is satisfying there is one problem that I think should have been addressed but wasn't. That is why I'm not highly recommending this book.