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3.62 AVERAGE
3.62 AVERAGE
I would have given this two stars for predictability, except Elder's moral wavering makes me too interested in him. Leaders on a ship full of people trapped in space with no legitimate destination have to make tough moral choices -- Commander Adama taught us that.
Full review:
From what I heard about this book (without reading GR reviews beforehand), I expected it to be a light science fiction/romance with a murder mystery as a secondary plot. And it is all of those things, except that neither the romance nor the murder mystery is a strong enough element of the story to carry my expectations. What I ended up liking about this story was the examinations of the ethical responsibilities of leading a generation ship with finite resources, and the character of Elder, who grows more complex near the end of the novel when he starts to confront these realities.
After the harrowing opening, when Amy watches her parents go through the freezing process and then goes through with it herself (one of those things that I could never in a million years do) in order to travel to the new planet, I was hooked. Man, that was scary. Her chapters until she’s awakened are kind of boring, however, though I was disturbed by the thought that she was half-conscious the entire time, locked in an endless dream state and unable to wake all the way up. I wonder if she would have gone through with it if she’d known. I expected her to be even more traumatized when awakened, but she morphed into being a bratty sanctimonious teenager too soon. (I do understand her point of view, actually, given that she’s being forced to adapt to an entirely different lifestyle and the realization that she gave up a lot to be with her parents, whom she will never seen again, but she still came off as aggressively bratty sometimes, as in the scene where she stupidly goes running without thinking of how dangerous it could be just because she should be able to do what she wants.) Amy’s entire purpose in this novel is to cause Elder to question the things he’s always accepted as “the way things are and should be”, but sometimes her opinions, coming as they are from a completely different time and place, seem ill-formed and reactionary. She’s imposing the morality of her distant past onto this generation ship, regardless of how appropriate or possible it is.
I found a lot of this story predictable – I called most of the “twists” with Orion and Eldest and the truth about the generation ship right away. Revis mentions several times early on that Orion has a scar under his ear, and then he always seems to be sneaking around off the radar, and Doc recognizes his voice, and son on – I don’t really understand how Elder did not figure out who Orion is earlier. It was SO OBVIOUS. The only twist I didn’t see coming was that Elder is the one who unplugged Amy, and I did like the surprise. Yes, it’s cheating a little bit, since we get chapters from Elder’s first-person POV, making it is essentially an contrived authorial device to withhold crucial information from the reader, but I like how it makes me re-evaluate all of his prior chapters and, indeed, speculate about his future as a leader. I don’t think he’s going to be the incorruptible leader Amy expects, and that tension is what’s going to make me read the second book.
Otherwise, the murder mystery felt rushed; it ended up sidelined next to Elder and Amy discovering all the secrets of the generation ship, which were standard science fiction fare, and Eldest’s rule. It played out in just a few pages, and I feel like not enough justice was done to the complexity of Eldest’s and Orion’s viewpoints, which seem tyrannical, morally suspect, and power-crazed to Amy (and they are all of those things), but they do actually make sense in context with what we learn about the ship’s past.
Oh, Orion. I really liked his character and was unhappy with how it played out for him. Was he really crazy? How do Elder and Amy know if he is wrong about the ship’s true mission? Or at the very least, prophetic about how things will go once the ship lands? Think about this: these frozen people in cryostatis are there to take charge of the colonized planet upon arriving. But while they sleep in their ice beds, generations of people on the ship live and die, developing newer and better technology, different languages, and, most importantly, dreaming of the day when they or their descendants will set foot on a new land. They have a greater sense of ownership of the new planet than the frozen people do, and don’t you think they’ll be pissed when the frozen people wake up and take over? Not to mention, these formerly frozen leaders will be way, WAY behind in scientific and technological developments? I think Orion’s worries about how the ship’s “natives” will become second-class citizens, cannon fodder, and the like are justified. Sure, his ultimate actions – unplugging all the essential frozen leaders – makes him a sociopath, but that doesn’t mean his paranoia isn’t justified.
Same with Eldest. He lost his perspective, as well, in his attempt to control every aspect of the ship’s population, but his justifications for how and why it started should not be ignored. This is why I think Elder is going to face some harsh realities in later books, and he’s already starting to show signs of how he is going to deal with them. Despite Amy’s insistence on telling the truth, they’re still keeping the reality of the generation ship from the populace, and Elder is already hiding things from her, too. I see problems for their romance on the horizon (which is fine, since their romance so far seems to be based on Elder thinking Amy is pretty, and Amy not having many other options).
Finally, I wrote this goofy "How to Run Your Generation Ship" guide for fun and decided to post it for a lark. It's long and unnecessary to the review, so feel free to skip, but I wanted to parse out what kind of advice Eldest might have left for Elder:
How to Run Your Generation Ship: A Despotic Troubleshooting Primer
So, you recently took control of your Generation Ship, and you learned that it is running behind schedule. Hundreds of years behind schedule, in fact. Don’t panic. The first, most basic thing you need to do is control your population. There isn’t much you can do about your ship, but you can make sure the people live out their lives in relative peace until the ship itself goes dark. The people need a leader, someone who can make the right choices when things get tough. Are you such a person?
Population Control – Option One
Birth Control – You have a limited amount of resources on your ship. Technology means you can grow your own food, recycle air and water, reuse human waste, and otherwise provide for your people, but you still only have so much space. (For the moment, let’s leave out the fact that the technologies you use to do all that stuff may break, run out of fuel/energy, or otherwise fail, just like your ship’s engines.) Obviously, if you let people have babies whenever they want, eventually you will have a population boom, and your ship will become overcrowded. So unless you want to manufacture a massive purge, such as a plague or war (see Option Two), you need to control when people have babies.
Mind Control – The only way your population will submit to a fixed mating schedule is if you take away their free will. There are a lot of ways to do this, including drugging their water to make them complacent, manipulating their DNA to make them simple, and schooling the young ones into believing whatever it is you need them to believe. Eventually, you will have a population that is fairly stable.
Genetic Control – Do the babies your people are having suck? Are they not smart or creative enough? Maybe you manipulated too many people’s DNA to make them be simple, and now you don’t have what you need. Make it, with your DNA stores! Your technology is like magic, so you can totally genetically engineer your whole population, and because of the absoluteness of your mind control, they won’t even notice.
Secrecy -- Tommy Lee Jones in Men in Black said it well enough, when he said “A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it.” Under no circumstances can you tell people about your fixed birth plans and your mental and genetic experiments, because they will want to know why, and when you tell them the ship will probably never reach the planet it’s intended to colonize, they will freak the fuck out (see Option Two).
Population Control – Option Two
Free Will – You decided you wanted to let people have free will, so they can have babies whenever they want, and they can choose their role in society. But your technology is so good that people live a long time, and now you’re stuck with tons of old people and babies. Living spaces are crowded and growing smaller all the time. It’s not like you can expand – you’re in space! The areas you use for growing food are precious, because you need to have enough for everyone, but people want to build houses there anyway. They think you should be able to find a better way to feed everyone with less resources, because of your awesome technology. For a while, you busy yourself by genetically engineering more nutrient-rich super foods (your scientists do, I mean!), but the more people are fed and the healthier they are, the longer they live, and the more babies they have. Not only that, but they want to pick their own professions, and you're running short in essential areas. Man, are you stuck! Time to manufacture that plague or war we were talking about!
Plague/War – The easiest way to manufacture a lot of deaths in a short amount of time is just to tell everyone the truth. You can try to make it sound positive – you can say things like “the ship has always been our one, true home, and why would we want to leave it? “– but when you tell people that they, and their children, and children’s children, will probably never leave the ship, and that eventually the ship will be stranded in space with failed engines and dwindling resources, they will probably not take it well, and there you go! Population control! Maybe you and the survivors should check out Option One this time around. It may make you look bad to outsiders, but it'll save trouble in the long run.
Full review:
From what I heard about this book (without reading GR reviews beforehand), I expected it to be a light science fiction/romance with a murder mystery as a secondary plot. And it is all of those things, except that neither the romance nor the murder mystery is a strong enough element of the story to carry my expectations. What I ended up liking about this story was the examinations of the ethical responsibilities of leading a generation ship with finite resources, and the character of Elder, who grows more complex near the end of the novel when he starts to confront these realities.
After the harrowing opening, when Amy watches her parents go through the freezing process and then goes through with it herself (one of those things that I could never in a million years do) in order to travel to the new planet, I was hooked. Man, that was scary. Her chapters until she’s awakened are kind of boring, however, though I was disturbed by the thought that she was half-conscious the entire time, locked in an endless dream state and unable to wake all the way up. I wonder if she would have gone through with it if she’d known. I expected her to be even more traumatized when awakened, but she morphed into being a bratty sanctimonious teenager too soon. (I do understand her point of view, actually, given that she’s being forced to adapt to an entirely different lifestyle and the realization that she gave up a lot to be with her parents, whom she will never seen again, but she still came off as aggressively bratty sometimes, as in the scene where she stupidly goes running without thinking of how dangerous it could be just because she should be able to do what she wants.) Amy’s entire purpose in this novel is to cause Elder to question the things he’s always accepted as “the way things are and should be”, but sometimes her opinions, coming as they are from a completely different time and place, seem ill-formed and reactionary. She’s imposing the morality of her distant past onto this generation ship, regardless of how appropriate or possible it is.
I found a lot of this story predictable – I called most of the “twists” with Orion and Eldest and the truth about the generation ship right away. Revis mentions several times early on that Orion has a scar under his ear, and then he always seems to be sneaking around off the radar, and Doc recognizes his voice, and son on – I don’t really understand how Elder did not figure out who Orion is earlier. It was SO OBVIOUS. The only twist I didn’t see coming was that Elder is the one who unplugged Amy, and I did like the surprise. Yes, it’s cheating a little bit, since we get chapters from Elder’s first-person POV, making it is essentially an contrived authorial device to withhold crucial information from the reader, but I like how it makes me re-evaluate all of his prior chapters and, indeed, speculate about his future as a leader. I don’t think he’s going to be the incorruptible leader Amy expects, and that tension is what’s going to make me read the second book.
Otherwise, the murder mystery felt rushed; it ended up sidelined next to Elder and Amy discovering all the secrets of the generation ship, which were standard science fiction fare, and Eldest’s rule. It played out in just a few pages, and I feel like not enough justice was done to the complexity of Eldest’s and Orion’s viewpoints, which seem tyrannical, morally suspect, and power-crazed to Amy (and they are all of those things), but they do actually make sense in context with what we learn about the ship’s past.
Oh, Orion. I really liked his character and was unhappy with how it played out for him. Was he really crazy? How do Elder and Amy know if he is wrong about the ship’s true mission? Or at the very least, prophetic about how things will go once the ship lands? Think about this: these frozen people in cryostatis are there to take charge of the colonized planet upon arriving. But while they sleep in their ice beds, generations of people on the ship live and die, developing newer and better technology, different languages, and, most importantly, dreaming of the day when they or their descendants will set foot on a new land. They have a greater sense of ownership of the new planet than the frozen people do, and don’t you think they’ll be pissed when the frozen people wake up and take over? Not to mention, these formerly frozen leaders will be way, WAY behind in scientific and technological developments? I think Orion’s worries about how the ship’s “natives” will become second-class citizens, cannon fodder, and the like are justified. Sure, his ultimate actions – unplugging all the essential frozen leaders – makes him a sociopath, but that doesn’t mean his paranoia isn’t justified.
Same with Eldest. He lost his perspective, as well, in his attempt to control every aspect of the ship’s population, but his justifications for how and why it started should not be ignored. This is why I think Elder is going to face some harsh realities in later books, and he’s already starting to show signs of how he is going to deal with them. Despite Amy’s insistence on telling the truth, they’re still keeping the reality of the generation ship from the populace, and Elder is already hiding things from her, too. I see problems for their romance on the horizon (which is fine, since their romance so far seems to be based on Elder thinking Amy is pretty, and Amy not having many other options).
Finally, I wrote this goofy "How to Run Your Generation Ship" guide for fun and decided to post it for a lark. It's long and unnecessary to the review, so feel free to skip, but I wanted to parse out what kind of advice Eldest might have left for Elder:
How to Run Your Generation Ship: A Despotic Troubleshooting Primer
So, you recently took control of your Generation Ship, and you learned that it is running behind schedule. Hundreds of years behind schedule, in fact. Don’t panic. The first, most basic thing you need to do is control your population. There isn’t much you can do about your ship, but you can make sure the people live out their lives in relative peace until the ship itself goes dark. The people need a leader, someone who can make the right choices when things get tough. Are you such a person?
Population Control – Option One
Birth Control – You have a limited amount of resources on your ship. Technology means you can grow your own food, recycle air and water, reuse human waste, and otherwise provide for your people, but you still only have so much space. (For the moment, let’s leave out the fact that the technologies you use to do all that stuff may break, run out of fuel/energy, or otherwise fail, just like your ship’s engines.) Obviously, if you let people have babies whenever they want, eventually you will have a population boom, and your ship will become overcrowded. So unless you want to manufacture a massive purge, such as a plague or war (see Option Two), you need to control when people have babies.
Mind Control – The only way your population will submit to a fixed mating schedule is if you take away their free will. There are a lot of ways to do this, including drugging their water to make them complacent, manipulating their DNA to make them simple, and schooling the young ones into believing whatever it is you need them to believe. Eventually, you will have a population that is fairly stable.
Genetic Control – Do the babies your people are having suck? Are they not smart or creative enough? Maybe you manipulated too many people’s DNA to make them be simple, and now you don’t have what you need. Make it, with your DNA stores! Your technology is like magic, so you can totally genetically engineer your whole population, and because of the absoluteness of your mind control, they won’t even notice.
Secrecy -- Tommy Lee Jones in Men in Black said it well enough, when he said “A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it.” Under no circumstances can you tell people about your fixed birth plans and your mental and genetic experiments, because they will want to know why, and when you tell them the ship will probably never reach the planet it’s intended to colonize, they will freak the fuck out (see Option Two).
Population Control – Option Two
Free Will – You decided you wanted to let people have free will, so they can have babies whenever they want, and they can choose their role in society. But your technology is so good that people live a long time, and now you’re stuck with tons of old people and babies. Living spaces are crowded and growing smaller all the time. It’s not like you can expand – you’re in space! The areas you use for growing food are precious, because you need to have enough for everyone, but people want to build houses there anyway. They think you should be able to find a better way to feed everyone with less resources, because of your awesome technology. For a while, you busy yourself by genetically engineering more nutrient-rich super foods (your scientists do, I mean!), but the more people are fed and the healthier they are, the longer they live, and the more babies they have. Not only that, but they want to pick their own professions, and you're running short in essential areas. Man, are you stuck! Time to manufacture that plague or war we were talking about!
Plague/War – The easiest way to manufacture a lot of deaths in a short amount of time is just to tell everyone the truth. You can try to make it sound positive – you can say things like “the ship has always been our one, true home, and why would we want to leave it? “– but when you tell people that they, and their children, and children’s children, will probably never leave the ship, and that eventually the ship will be stranded in space with failed engines and dwindling resources, they will probably not take it well, and there you go! Population control! Maybe you and the survivors should check out Option One this time around. It may make you look bad to outsiders, but it'll save trouble in the long run.
I really liked the plot but it was really hard to get into. I didn't start to get into it until the last few chapters...i don't love it but it isn't a terrible book either.
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I picked up Across the Universe, Beth Revis’ debut novel, partly because I had gleaned bits and pieces of positive reviews here and there and partly because I had to fill 5 hours at the bookstore waiting for my boyfriend. Oh, and the cover. And the possibility of a young adult sci-fi novel excited me. Young adult literature really needs more sci-fi, now that it has fully picked up on the paranormal and the dystopian genre. In the end, Across the Universe ended up being a science fiction novel and a dystopian novel, with a bit of mystery thrown in for good measure. I must say that Revis juggled those three genres beautifully, building a world that was believable, claustrophobic and, at times, horrific.
Amy and her parents, as well as 97 other passengers, have been cryogenically frozen in preparation for a 300 year trip to a new planet, Centuri-Earth. But 50 years before the scheduled date of arrival of their ship, Godspeed, Amy is awakened. Knowing nothing of how or why, she can think of only one thing: someone tried to kill her. Her doubts are suddenly confirmed as more frozen people are awakened and, not as lucky as her, found dead in their thawed chambers. Elder is part of the crew that has been running Godspeed since the beginning of its journey. Generations upon generations of his people have worked and lived within the confines of the ships metal walls, each generation lead by one leader, Eldest, and Elder is the next leader in training. Once Amy awakens, Elder is fascinated by her, by her pale skin, red hair and green eyes, but most of all by all her ideas, her knowledge, her way of seeing things coming from a world that he has never known.
Together, and with the help of Elder’s friend Harley, they try to unravel the mystery of the people dying, while at the same time Amy tries to: understand a society that makes no sense to her, that feels wrong and controlling and full of lies; find a murderer; and cope with the fact that the next time she will see her parents she’ll be about 70 years old. And Elder starts to realize that everything he knows might be a lie, not knowing what is true, what is fabricated, what is wrong and what is right.
Across the Universe felt both slow-paced and fast-paced to me. I would come up for air, realize that I was half-way done with the book, but at the same time, wondering why not much had happened. It is because Revis trickles her clues and mysteries slowly through her story, little by little, not holding anything back, but not given away too much too fast until the very end of the book. Most of all though, it is the ship that retained my attention, the ship and the world that lives within it, this somewhat wrong and definitely dystopian world, completely cut off from anything else. The characters themselves were alright. I was not as attached to them as I would have liked, although I suspect that is just a personal taste, not a fault of the novel. I cared about them, but I cared more about seeing their world put right. The villain itself was a bit more one-dimensional, and slightly less believable, but nevertheless it did not distract me too much from the plot. Revis alternates between Amy’s and Elder’s first point-of-view and I thought it was done well, and it did not confuse me at all.
Overall I really enjoyed it, I am looking forward to the sequel (although, do not worry, it does not end on a cliffhanger) and, most of all, I hope that its success will bring more science fiction to the world of young adult literature.
EDIT: I feel that I must add a trigger warning. In the book there is a sexual assault/attempted rape scene. It is not a long scene and the effects of it are dealt with and are not ignored. I felt I had to mention it, as it could be triggering to victims of sexual assault and rape and the people who love them.
Amy and her parents, as well as 97 other passengers, have been cryogenically frozen in preparation for a 300 year trip to a new planet, Centuri-Earth. But 50 years before the scheduled date of arrival of their ship, Godspeed, Amy is awakened. Knowing nothing of how or why, she can think of only one thing: someone tried to kill her. Her doubts are suddenly confirmed as more frozen people are awakened and, not as lucky as her, found dead in their thawed chambers. Elder is part of the crew that has been running Godspeed since the beginning of its journey. Generations upon generations of his people have worked and lived within the confines of the ships metal walls, each generation lead by one leader, Eldest, and Elder is the next leader in training. Once Amy awakens, Elder is fascinated by her, by her pale skin, red hair and green eyes, but most of all by all her ideas, her knowledge, her way of seeing things coming from a world that he has never known.
Together, and with the help of Elder’s friend Harley, they try to unravel the mystery of the people dying, while at the same time Amy tries to: understand a society that makes no sense to her, that feels wrong and controlling and full of lies; find a murderer; and cope with the fact that the next time she will see her parents she’ll be about 70 years old. And Elder starts to realize that everything he knows might be a lie, not knowing what is true, what is fabricated, what is wrong and what is right.
Across the Universe felt both slow-paced and fast-paced to me. I would come up for air, realize that I was half-way done with the book, but at the same time, wondering why not much had happened. It is because Revis trickles her clues and mysteries slowly through her story, little by little, not holding anything back, but not given away too much too fast until the very end of the book. Most of all though, it is the ship that retained my attention, the ship and the world that lives within it, this somewhat wrong and definitely dystopian world, completely cut off from anything else. The characters themselves were alright. I was not as attached to them as I would have liked, although I suspect that is just a personal taste, not a fault of the novel. I cared about them, but I cared more about seeing their world put right. The villain itself was a bit more one-dimensional, and slightly less believable, but nevertheless it did not distract me too much from the plot. Revis alternates between Amy’s and Elder’s first point-of-view and I thought it was done well, and it did not confuse me at all.
Overall I really enjoyed it, I am looking forward to the sequel (although, do not worry, it does not end on a cliffhanger) and, most of all, I hope that its success will bring more science fiction to the world of young adult literature.
EDIT: I feel that I must add a trigger warning. In the book there is a sexual assault/attempted rape scene. It is not a long scene and the effects of it are dealt with and are not ignored. I felt I had to mention it, as it could be triggering to victims of sexual assault and rape and the people who love them.
I've read two trapped-on-a-ship-that's-not-what-it-seems novels in a row. (The other was [a:Richard Harland|65171|Richard Harland|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1309983848p2/65171.jpg]'s [b:Worldshaker|6696340|Worldshaker|Richard Harland|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1258489230s/6696340.jpg|6891961].) It's not that I didn't like this book, but it was a little over-simple; the plot was fairly easily devised and the ending wrapped up a little too nicely, especially now that I find out there are sequels!
Some of the plot devices are simple, some don't seem to lead anywhere - but in the end, it's an enjoyable story. I just wish it would have ended 10 or 20 pages sooner.
Some of the plot devices are simple, some don't seem to lead anywhere - but in the end, it's an enjoyable story. I just wish it would have ended 10 or 20 pages sooner.
I did not love this book. But! I did not hate this book. It's basic sci-fi dystopian romance, and while I thought the beginning was so slow, it did get more interesting towards the end. However, I totally guessed several things about a few characters in the beginning, so it was predictable as well.
Too much foreshadowing, I could guess the end down to the bad guy, but the characters where good because no one was good. The characters were each bad in their own way but also good and meaning well.
elder is so sweet hes so cute hes like the cutest and yeah. i liked it
I know many people loved this story. Below are my reasons why I gave it two stars.
1. The main characters spent most of the book wangsty or narmy. If you don't know what those words mean... Look them up on tvtropes.org
2. I knew who the antagonist was 300 pages before the characters clued in.
3. Most of the characters felt underdeveloped to me.
4. Things were described in disgustingly in-depth detail, seemingly for the sole purpose of shock value.
5. Made up words that the reader is required to sort out on their own... and never really felt sincere to me.
6. Twist at the end created a problem at the beginning of the book.
I'm sure I had more reasons... but those are the important ones. If you want to read a wonderful Sci-Fi about a teenage girl going to a new world and the drama that ensues... I'd recommend reading Zoe's Tale by John Scalzi rather than this. It's YA even though you'll find it in the Sci-Fi/Fantasy section of your bookstore. And it has everything this book has, and more. Just sayin'.
1. The main characters spent most of the book wangsty or narmy. If you don't know what those words mean... Look them up on tvtropes.org
2. I knew who the antagonist was 300 pages before the characters clued in.
3. Most of the characters felt underdeveloped to me.
4. Things were described in disgustingly in-depth detail, seemingly for the sole purpose of shock value.
5. Made up words that the reader is required to sort out on their own... and never really felt sincere to me.
6. Twist at the end created a problem at the beginning of the book.
I'm sure I had more reasons... but those are the important ones. If you want to read a wonderful Sci-Fi about a teenage girl going to a new world and the drama that ensues... I'd recommend reading Zoe's Tale by John Scalzi rather than this. It's YA even though you'll find it in the Sci-Fi/Fantasy section of your bookstore. And it has everything this book has, and more. Just sayin'.
WOW! Maybe I begin too many book reviews with that preface, but at least it shows my appreciate for a novel.
This book was a surprise to me. I expected an engaging read with the typical YA problems and maybe a sappy romance but I am glad to have been proved wrong.
Amy is a strong female protagonist and Elder grows from a grumpy boy into manhood during this read. He has conviction. He has curiosity. He like to explore the forbidden.
A space opera filled with a twisted Earth history (love that bit about Lincoln's Gettysburg Address!), treachery, suspense, and tragedy (the loss of some characters that Amy and Elder got close to) but the ending was everything I hoped for.
I definitely recommend this read. Don't let the cover fool you either. Amy and Elder are attracted to each other but are not "together" so no sappy romance over here!
The only thing that disappointed me about this book was I wished the author could have given us a diagram of the ship "Godspeed" at the beginning of the book. It was difficult at times imagining who and what was on each of the huge 4 stories of the ship.
This book was a surprise to me. I expected an engaging read with the typical YA problems and maybe a sappy romance but I am glad to have been proved wrong.
Amy is a strong female protagonist and Elder grows from a grumpy boy into manhood during this read. He has conviction. He has curiosity. He like to explore the forbidden.
A space opera filled with a twisted Earth history (love that bit about Lincoln's Gettysburg Address!), treachery, suspense, and tragedy (the loss of some characters that Amy and Elder got close to) but the ending was everything I hoped for.
I definitely recommend this read. Don't let the cover fool you either. Amy and Elder are attracted to each other but are not "together" so no sappy romance over here!
The only thing that disappointed me about this book was I wished the author could have given us a diagram of the ship "Godspeed" at the beginning of the book. It was difficult at times imagining who and what was on each of the huge 4 stories of the ship.