Aurora

I just finished another book by Kim Stanley Robinson. You may have heard of some of his other works, the most famous likely being the Mars trilogy (Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars). This time I read Aurora. The thing that I love about his sci-fi stories is that he takes as much effort to reveal the political and social elements of the characters as the technical details of the story's technology. Aurora is no different.

This book tells the story of a mission to Tau Ceti, where there are some promising planetary bodies, possibly suitable for establishing a new human colony. Their ship is like an ark, complete with all they'll need to establish a new civilization on another world. But they have no idea of the travails they will endure. The ship's computer is like the anti-Hal (a nod to 2001 fans), a quantum computer that is quite capable, but still having a lot to learn about human nature. It's a wonderful story that I believe would be well adapted to a movie too.