Empty skies

Finally finished Kim Stanley Robinson's newest book, Aurora. It's a great work. I could say more - I probably should say more. But part of its beauty (I really want to say, part of its majesty) is the way what starts out as one kind of story becomes another, and then another, each the unexpected but in context inevitable successor to the last. I'm not really surprised, having been delighted by the narrative imagination and skill of 2312 and Red Mars and The Years of Rice and Salt, but the way this one's story arcs has a special pathos. One of the book's blurbs praises Robinson as "one of our best, bravest, most moral and most hopeful storytellers." I think that's right. This isn't exactly a hopeful book, but it offers moral hope.