Bonus Content
Ark
August 2041
Gordo Alonzo and Thandie Jones had rustled up a helicopter to take the Ark Three party back to the ragged Colorado shore. All of them but Grace Gray, who wasn’t going anywhere.
Grace, her arm held firmly by Gordo Alonzo, watched the bird come down over Cripple Creek, scattering some of the flimsier shanties that crowded the narrow streets. The town had once been a mining settlement, and then a tourist trap. Now, in the age of the flood, with the sea that had swept over the United States lapping at the Rockies, homeless were camped in the streets and parking lots and the forecourts of disused gas stations, and a shanty town of tents and shacks spread far beyond the core of the old settlement. The population didn’t seem scared by the descent of the bird. They just cleared out of the way, dragging their blankets and sheets of cardboard.
Thandie led the Ark Three people aboard the chopper: Lily Brooke, Nathan Lammockson, and Grace’s own husband, Hammond, Nathan’s son, thirty-five years old, flabby and resentful. But Grace was staying behind with Gordo Alonzo to be taken away into Project Nimrod, into Ark One, whatever that meant. Hammond didn’t even look back at her.
Gordo, though, spoke to her steadily. “You know, some parts of this drowning planet have gone back to the Stone Age. But this is the neighborhood of NORAD. One of the few places in the world where helicopters are still commonplace. That’s why the people aren’t spooked by them. And believe me we do a lot more exotic stuff than flying choppers. You’ll see . . .” Maybe in his way he was trying to reassure her.
Gordon James Alonzo was a former astronaut. He was in his seventies now, and all his hair was gone, but he was just as upright and -fit-looking and intimidating, his blue eyes still as bright, as ten years ago when he had shown up with Thandie Jones at a Walker City campsite, when Grace was just sixteen. Well, Gordo had been in a US army uniform then and now he was in the blue of the air force, but none of that was important to Grace. He was a relic of an age she had never known, as alien as the rich folk on Nathan’s -Ark-ship had always been to her.
Copyright ¨ Stephen Baxter, 2009
Ark
As the waters rose in Flood—inundating entire continents and displacing two-thirds of the world’s population—high in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains the U.S. government, funded by a coalition of the super-rich, was building an ark. Not an ark to ride the waves of the soon-to-be-submerged Earth, but an ark that would take a select few people out into space to start a new future for humankind.
Holle Groundwater is one of those chosen for the years-long mission, having been trained for this purpose since childhood. But as she prepares to endure life aboard the ark, she realizes that, far from escaping the troubles on Earth, danger has only followed close on her heels...and that madness and murder have not been left behind.
Ark is Stephen Baxter’s epic sequel to the acclaimed Flood—a stirring tale of what mankind will do to survive and the ideal introduction for new readers to one of SF’s greatest tropes: the generation ship. Written by one of the most significant SF writers of the last 30 years—a man considered to be the heir of Arthur C. Clarke, with a unique ability to popularize science and science fiction for the largest possible audience—Flood and Ark together form a landmark in modern SF.
Hardcover : 544 pages
Publisher: Roc/Imp of Nal Signet ( May 04, 2010 )
Item #: 13-103635
ISBN: 9780475146331
Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 8.25 inches
Product Weight: 18.0 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Copyright © Bookspan. Science Fiction Book Club® is a registered trademark used under license. Unauthorized use prohibited. All rights reserved.
51007201205ADFL
Card Security Code
The card security code is an added safeguard for your credit/debit card purchases. Depending on the type of card you use, it is either a three- or four-digit number printed on the back or front of your credit/debit card, separate from your credit/debit card number. To make shopping at Science Fiction Book Club® even more secure, we require that you enter this number each time you make a credit/debit card purchase. Please note that your security code will not be stored with us even if you have saved your credit/debit card information.
