Christopher Coates (1)

In The Ark, Christopher Coates tells us how to prepare for an apocalyptic event that makes the whole atmosphere radioactive for several decades. His solution is simple—build large underground shelters to store thousands of people in artificial hibernation.
One could criticize the novel for depending too much on chance. We have just invented a good hibernation drug when a deadly comet comes along. Is it unlikely? You bet. But that is not the problem. Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary has an show more equally unlikely premise and a solution. Still, his novel is more successful because we care about his characters and share his joy in the engineering puzzles they face.
Coates waves away the puzzles and misses a bet by not focusing his character drama more tightly. show less

I enjoyed this book because it was a hopeful and optimistic look at mankind's attempt to rebuild civilization after a planet-killing comet leveled all life - save for those in deeply buried bunkers or in cryogenic states.
There are a LOT of characters to keep straight in this novel. Fortunately, most of them are very likable and believable, making the job of sorting them in your mind worth the effort. The other character takeaway from this book was the importance of family (because almost show more all of the main characters are related to one another) and how it exceeds the value of everything else.
I would've liked to have seen a little more action but the lack of said action didn't take away from a good story. The Anvil is a satisfying conclusion to the two-book series. show less

The Ark is a pretty good end-of-the-world type story with a huge cast of less-than-fleshed-out characters. When a new comet is discovered heading toward Earth, scientists determine that deadly radiation from the celestial body will wipe out all living creatures within 3 years. The race is then on to build an underground shelter large enough to save 100,000 thousand or so essential people to rebuild the country once the radiation levels off.
The story is really hampered by a large number of show more punctuation, capitalization, and other grammatical errors. To this reader, it was a struggle to get through the first half of the book because of those gaffs.
With that said though, the story does have its merits and moves right along to a satisfying ending that will be finalized in the second book of the series. show less

Needs proofreading badly - punctuation is especially awful. Otherwise a quick and fun disaster flick of a book.