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Arkwright

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Arkwright

By: Allen Steele
Narrated by: Stephen Bel Davies
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About this listen

Written by a highly regarded expert on space travel and exploration, Allen Steele's Arkwright features the precision of hard science fiction 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 20th century. At the end of his life he becomes reclusive and cantankerous, refusing to appear before or interact with his legion of fans. Little does anyone know, Nathan is 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 earthlike 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 that will appeal to devotees of the genre as well as fans of current major motion pictures such as Gravity and Interstellar.

©2016 Allen Steele (P)2016 Audible, Inc. Fantasy Hard Science Fiction Science Fiction

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All stars
Most relevant  
This book took me away.
A fantastic tale, that kept me listening for hours in a row.
Helped by a spot-on performance.

You will not regret getting a copy of Awkright.

This book took me away.

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Starting with the death of the Arkwright we then learn that this is how we start. One mans vision of a possible future , which ends some 500+ years later on a star far far away.

A story about the Arkwright dynasty

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Every bit up to Steele's usual high standards. Reminiscent of an updated early Heinlein. Great!

Outstanding!

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I found the wide-eyed golden era of sci-fi/alternate universe beginning quite weak and with poor dialogue; bit of a missed opportunity given all the classic author name drops. Central premise I think is overly optimistic and implausible though I wanted to like it and rooted for the protagonists.
The book hit it's stride a little more in the latter half, with more plausible character interactions and more drive to the plot. thoroughly enjoyed the ending.

weak start, optimistically implausible premise

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the story is bouncing between cringeworthy scifi-history namedropping and boring. the narration is great though.

solid narration, forgettable story

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The story starts off in a fairly pleasant prologue then the real story begins to take shape as a generational family story and this is where it starts to fall down. Keeping this brief each generation is introduced during overly simplistic mediocre romantic storylines I really could have done without, the religious zealots of the story are zealots just because the author needed some conflict rather than them going by any sort of interpretation of the Bible. The heavy handed way weed is used throughout the story makes me think the author could have been smoking too much of it while writing and any complexity about actually colonising another planet were all side stepped in one paragraph.

It could have been so much more, but in the end this is an unambitious novel on an interesting topic.

Some Realistic Science In An Unrealistic World

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