It's a magnificent piece of science fiction that can remain focused on scientific reality while still bringing tears to the eyes of readers. Allen Steele's Arkwright is such a novel.
Divided into four sections, Arkwright details the journey--from inspiration to final result--of one fictional science fiction author's idea to send humanity far beyond our solar system to an uninhabited planet light-years away from Earth. Nathan Arkwright is lauded as one of the big names in science fiction, with a successful series of books and movies, who plows his considerable fortune into a generation-spanning plan to send a starship into deep space.
The first section tells of Arkwright and three co-conspirators who call themselves The Legion of Tomorrow. This small group recruits Nathan's estranged granddaughter, Kate, whose mother has kept their relationship a secret. After being shown Nathan's unfinished biography and hearing stories of his younger days, she agrees to the plan for extra-solar colonization with a newfound sense of family duty. Section two recounts the next generation's struggles to build and launch a ship into near-Earth orbit: Matt Skinner, Kate's ne'er-do-well grandson, learns the family trade and suffers a personal tragedy. The final two parts reach farther into space: the earthbound crew endures a long, frustrating wait for updates from the starship before unveiling a fascinating tale of life on the distant planet Eos.
Steele (V-S Day) never once forgets that human stories make for the most interesting science fiction novels, and his characters love, fight and fail often, their stories laid against an extrapolative plot of interstellar travel and astronomical realities. --Rob LeFebvre, freelance writer and editor