Ark

The Publisher Says: On the eve of Earth’s destruction, a young scientist discovers something too precious to lose, in a story of cataclysm and hope by the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Divergent trilogy.

It’s only two weeks before an asteroid turns home to dust. Though most of Earth has already been evacuated, it’s Samantha’s job to catalog plant samples for the survivors’ unknowable journey beyond.

Preparing to stay behind and watch the world end, she makes a final human connection.

As certain doom hurtles nearer, the unexpected and beautiful potential for the future begins to flower.

Veronica Roth’s Ark is part of Forward, a collection of six stories of the near and far future from out-of-this-world authors. Each show more piece can be read or listened to in a single thought-provoking sitting.

THESE SIX STORIES ARE FREE TO READ FOR ALL PRIME MEMBERS. NO KINDLE UNLIMITED NEEDED. AS LONG AS YOUR MEMBERSHIP REMAINS IN GOOD STANDING THEY WILL REMAIN IN YOUR COLLECTION.

My Review: The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is a very real thing, one that I am a bit surprised exists...it's so logical, so self-evidently necessary a thing that I'm amazed some religious nut or another hasn't blown it up...and has existed in differing forms since 1984. If there is to be any smallest hope of survival for humanity, this type of gene bank/seed collection/research project must exist and be replicated many, many times over. Blessedly, the Nordic countries and Kew Gardens in the UK are making this global movement happen. I personally thank them for this difficult, contentious, and urgent task being done to benefit all of humankind.

Author Roth, whose Divergent series was not to my personal taste, is a skilled phrasemaker and a keen observer of Life. I was utterly transported to Svalbard, brought *right*there* by this stellar phrase:

The land had glowed blue—beautiful in the way that a Rothko painting was beautiful, because it was empty enough to shrink a person and then swallow them.

Two things I adore—Arctic landscapes and Rothko paintings—brought together in a way I'd never so much as dreamed was possible. I treasure moments of discovery like this, they make mental furniture fresh and interesting again by unexpected interrelationships.

Samantha, whose world was always going to be destroyed in her lifetime by the irresistible force of a five-mile-wide asteroid Author Roth (or series creator Blake Crouch, I don't know for sure which) named "Finis" (Latin for "end" and the title of a much-anthologized story from a 1906 issue of The Argosy magazine) meeting the Earth's crust, is an ultimate orphan...her family all dead...as well as a detail-oriented and thorough person. Perfect type to have working on this program, like she was designed for it:

So maybe {her father} had been apologizing for giving her life in the first place, when he knew it would be full of dread. She wished she could have told him that life was already full of dread, no matter who you were. That there was nothing you could have that you couldn’t one day lose.

She volunteers to remain in Svalbard cataloging germ plasm samples for inclusion in the Ark Flora's hold. This is it, you see, these last few items from the seed bank represent the final species on Old Earth to make the deep-space voyage to Terra, our new home. Samantha, however, is holding a secret: She has decided she ain't a-goin' since, if she stays, she will have the one and only chance anyone will ever have to experience first-hand the end of the world. The *actual* end of the world. Someone without close ties can make that decision for themself, no one really can argue...and since she hasn't shared the plan, no one will.

Snort.

Doctor Nils Hagen, an eminent widowed scientist, is like Samantha. He's not interested in a space voyage he won't live to see the end of; he'll die here in his greenhouse full of the orchids he so passionately loves. In Svalbard. Not far from the North Pole. Privileged much, Nils? He's lost his will to live with his wife's death, and Samantha relates to his desire to see the end of something we all thought should be eternal: Home. After all, what use is a future without your love in it? His wife gone, his orchids dying in Svalbard as the sun goes out for a generation or two; nothing on an Ark for the likes of his old-man ass.

Samantha isn't old enough to know that the question, "what's your favorite...", isn't one old people care to answer. How the hell can you, brash young pup, even begin to scrape the frost from the corner of the windowpane that we've allowed to frost over so long ago that glass was a novelty item? If we tell you something, anything at all, you still won't know what you're asking: "Look at everything you've ever done and thought and felt about this thing, sort through the Alp of memories, and spit some pat, facile phrase into the whippersnapper's ear. Maybe she'll quieten down then." Nils tries an old stand-by: "I don't have a favorite. I love them all equally."

“You just can’t—and if you did, then it’s the same as loving nothing at all. So you have to hold just a few things dear, because that’s what love is. Particular. Specific.”

Smart, this one. Saw through that "hush now, little one" response in a heartbeat!

So a friendship begins. And so Nils, with so many ideas and so much information, begins to let Samantha see what truly happens when The End has a date on it, how life lived becomes A Life, how meaningless nothings are, in fact, everything as well, and how utterly impossible it is to see The End without also seeing In The Beginning clear as sunlight on water in, on, over, above, around it.

When the student is ready, the teacher will come. show less

Winter 2021 (January);

My second favorite of The Forward Collection, this book wormed its way so quickly and quietly into my heart. It's set in a possible-future where an asteroid is hurtling toward Earth, but Earth has years of time to prep, save species plants and etc, and prepare for everyone to be getting off the planet. The story is about both a young and an old botanist who both decide for very different reasons they won't be leaving earth, and I'm going to have a soft, small, hurting spot in my heart for this lovely piece for a while.

A touching story as Earth's destruction by an approaching asteroid draws near. Roth includes lots of quiet drama in this short story. The young scientist at the heart of the story plans to give up her spot on the Ark leaving Earth, but her growing friendship with an older botanist makes her question her choice.

The thing I liked most about this short story was the thoughts it sparks. It's an interesting concept: we know the world is ending, we know approximately when, and we can escape into space. What do we save? What plant and animal samples do we take with us? How do people react to being the last ones left on Earth?

But there was so much else that I thought could have been explored. My favorite scene as far as the "what do we save?" question had to do with music, rather than the plants that are the focus of the story. My favorite character was the man who was planning to stay behind instead of evacuating with the remaining few. I didn't connect with the main character, Samantha. She felt bland, even with the flashbacks and backstory we got show more about her. I didn't get the impression that she had strong feelings about anything, and few of her choices made any sense to me. show less

This end of the world story is a bit affecting, but I found that the parts just don't hold together. Apparently, there is a way to evacuate billions of people to a new Earth--but there aren't computers powerful enough to identify plant species, so a bunch of humans have to hang out in Svalbard until a couple of days before the a big asteroid hits Earth and begins the process of ending life on the planet. And people still listen to LPs...and Radiohead. As I said, it just doesn't hold together, but the portrait of the scientist in the remote hut is moving, and the idea of what it will look like as the world comes to an end makes it seem worth sticking around for.

A large asteroid hurtles towards earth bringing certain destruction and the end of life on the planet. Impact is expected in just two weeks. Most of the planet has been evacuated. Only a few scientists remain. Samantha is one that remains behind, cataloging and preparing plant samples for humanity's forced trek to the stars. She finds a spark of hope and strength in the final days.

I was drawn to start listening to the six stories in this Amazon Originals collection because I recognized most of the authors names. Veronica Roth. Andy Weir. Blake Crouch. Paul Tremblay. Two of the writers are new to me -- N. K. Jimisin and Amor Towles. I wanted to see what pictures of the future this very talented group of writers would conjure up. Ark is show more the first story in the collection. A bit bleak, but tinged with human resilience and strength, the story is about the end of the world as we all know it....and the start of a new future.

I enjoyed this story. The only book I have read by Roth is Divergent. I never finished that series. I'm not sure why. I think maybe the storyline required too much suspension of my sense of reality. I liked it....but didn't love it. Reading this short by Roth has reignited my interest in that series and also Carve the Mark, all of which sit on my TBR shelves. I think I feel a sci-fi/fantasy kick coming on.

Great start to the collection! I listened to the audio version of this story. Narrated by Evan Rachel Wood, the audio is 1 hour 22 minutes long. Perfect length for a single listening session. Wood gives a great performance. Very enjoyable listening experience.

I look forward to the rest of this collection! show less

I was worried I wouldn't like this one since I hard disliked Roth's "Divergent." This book though hit me in a way I wasn't expecting. Roth talks about the last days on Earth before an asteroid hits and wipes out life on the planet as people know it. What I found interesting is that many people realized this was going to happen and that they still went on, had children, etc. That part of the book was interesting to me. I wish that Roth had focused more on the before part, which is the only reason why I gave this 4 stars. There was a lot that I wanted explained, that was not by the time I got to the end of this book.

"Ark" follows a young horticulturalist, Samantha. Samantha and the last few scientists on Earth are classifying flora and show more fauna that will be put aboard an "ark" that will eventually travel to a new Earth called Terra. Samantha though has different plans for heself which eventually change after she starts taking with one of the scientist at the camp she is at named Hagen.

So Samantha's history was a bit scattered I thought. We find out about her mother and father in parts, but then we hear about what happened towards them in the end. I was able to piece together that somehow when Samantha's father and mother were young (maybe) they were told about an asteroid that was going to be the so-called "planet killer." To live in a time where you are told that the world you know is one day going to be over was a bit chilling. I wanted more about that, but it's a short story, so you can't ask for everything.

The character of Hagen was interesting and I loved the little bit of scenes that we get between him and Samantha.

The writing I thought was good and the flow too. We start off with two weeks left before the final two arks leave Earth. So it's a slow count-off. We have Samantha remembering her parents, and things that happened to her (her first school dance, slow dance, going to Warren Field with her father).

The setting of this book is unknown. It's a dystopia novel, so let's guess Earth's future plus or minus a thousand years or so. I was interested in how people found a new Earth, and how they got everyone off, etc. It seemed so interesting to me that this happened with barely any skirmishes. Based on watching disaster movies I thought it be an ugly lottery system and most of the planet destroyed or something.

The ending was moving and loving. Life goes on, no matter what. show less