To The Last Page

Following the science-fiction exploration into the distant past of the Earth during the Earth's Ice Age in Shaman , Kim Stanley Robinson returns again to the far future and some of the themes of the Mars Trilogy books that made him famous; the issues around off-Earth colonisation, terraforming and the human questions associated with it. Moving on from there and from 2312, Robinson starts in the year 2545 and extends upon themes in the previous books in Aurora , taking a ship on a journey out of our solar system towards the sun of Tau Ceti, 11.9 light-years from Earth. Like many science-fiction stories dealing with multi-generational interstellar travel, there's obviously no-one around to remember exactly why the ship set out in the first place, and even their ultimate destination is uncertain until they more fully explore the planets and moons of Tau Ceti to establish which has the best Earth-like environment to establish a community. What we do know at the start of Aurora is

Norse mythology and medieval sword and sorcery tends to dominate the look and feel of the typical fantasy epic, but there are growing sub-genres that are now providing serious competition for the traditional format. In many ways the exotic Arabian Nights Asian and Oriental setting of Bradley Beaulieu's Twelve Kings even feels like a far more natural world for all the adventure and magic of a fantasy epic, but perhaps that's just down to how inventively Beaulieu makes use of the riches that the setting provides. Twelve Kings is set in the desert city of Sharakhai, where ships and schooners sail on seas of sand. The desert is still no place for a city, and indeed we soon find that the origins of the creation of Sharakhai and the Twelve Kings that rule it are shrouded in mystery and deals with dark forces such as the wraith-like asirim. The person who is going to delve into the heart of this dark mystery is an interesting figure herself. Nineteen year old Çeda is an orphan (natu