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Book Summary and Reviews of Aurora by David Koepp

Aurora by David Koepp

Aurora

A Novel

by David Koepp

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  • Published:
  • Jun 2022, 304 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

From the author of Cold Storage comes a riveting, eerily plausible thriller, told with the menace and flair of Under the Dome or Project Hail Mary, in which a worldwide cataclysm plays out in the lives of one complicated Midwestern family.

In Aurora, Illinois, Aubrey Wheeler is just trying to get by after her semi-criminal ex-husband split, leaving behind his unruly teenage son.

Then the lights go out—not just in Aurora but across the globe. A solar storm has knocked out power almost everywhere. Suddenly, all problems are local, very local, and Aubrey must assume the mantle of fierce protector of her suburban neighborhood.

Across the country lives Aubrey's estranged brother, Thom. A fantastically wealthy, neurotically over-prepared Silicon Valley CEO, he plans to ride out the crisis in a gilded desert bunker he built for maximum comfort and security.

But the complicated history between the siblings is far from over, and what feels like the end of the world is just the beginning of several long-overdue reckonings—which not everyone will survive...

Aurora is suspenseful storytelling—both large scale and small—at its finest.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"[A] chilling scientific thriller...Koepp's imaginative plotting will keep readers turning the pages to learn the fates of characters they readily become invested in. Michael Crichton fans will hope for more from Koepp." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Koepp, a successful screenwriter, brings those skills to this novel, crafting carefully placed revelations about the characters' relationships and the bursts of violence in their increasingly chaotic world into an exciting and satisfying tale. Engaging characters deal with disaster in this swiftly paced, well-written thriller." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Fantastic story, a real page-turner. Impossible to put down." - Stephen King

"Forget a good night's sleep. Aurora is epic, but personal and poignant, horrifying and darkly funny, and flat-out suspenseful." - Linwood Barclay, New York Times bestselling author of Find You First

"With Aurora, David Koepp has firmly staked his ground as one of the best thriller writers working today. Come for the mind-blowing concept of a massive geomagnetic storm that wipes out nearly every power grid on Earth, stay for why this book truly soars—characters you'll love, breakneck-pacing, and the question we're all wrestling with in these wild, modern times: what happens when life slips out of our control?" - Blake Crouch, New York Times bestselling author of Dark Matter and Recursion

"David Koepp's Aurora contains two great narratives on a collision course. When, where and how they collide will you keep you turning pages right up to The End." - Brian De Palma

This information about Aurora was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Reader Reviews

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Betty Taylor

Captivating Story
Have you ever wondered what would happen if we lost power for months? Think of all we are dependent on for electricity – our cellphones, televisions, cash registers, lights, electric cars, and so much more.

When I heard about this book, I knew I just had to read it. I was the Program Manager for the Department of Defense’s network of solar observatories. That made this book a quick read for me. I really enjoyed it, especially the scientific portions dealing with the Coronal Mass Eruptions (CME).

A series of three CMEs destroy the power grids all over Earth, sparing only the remotest of areas. The story focuses on one family and their neighborhood in Aurora, Illinois. People are terrified: they don’t know what is happening and how long it will last; they are cut off from their loved ones. They find themselves fighting for their lives.

I thought the main characters were well-developed and realistic. I loved their evolution throughout the book – some from helplessness to the strength to survive, others from petty crimes to felony crimes, from isolation to working together. I was eager to learn which would survive.

I recommend this scientific thriller which focuses on the very human experiences.

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Author Information

David Koepp

David Koepp is a celebrated American screenwriter who's written more than two dozen feature films in a wide variety of genres, including the first two Jurassic Park films, Death Becomes Her, Carlito's Way, The Paper, Mission: Impossible, Spider-Man, Panic Room, War of the Worlds, Angels and Demons, Inferno, and Kimi. Some of the films he's both written and directed are Stir of Echoes, Secret Window, Ghost Town, and Premium Rush, the latter two co-written with John Kamps. Koepp is also the author of the novel Cold Storage.

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