# 180. Aurora -- Kim Stanley Robinson Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/everyday-anarchism-4260069/180-aurora-kim-stanley-robinson Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/everyday-anarchism-4260069/180-aurora-kim-stanley-robinson.md Podcast: [Everyday Anarchism](https://stenobird.com/podcast/everyday-anarchism-4260069) Published: 2026-02-25T10:52:00+00:00 Episode link: https://www.everydayanarchism.com/ Audio file: https://episodes.captivate.fm/episode/dc370ffe-2048-482a-abc4-960b366103b9.mp3 Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/everyday-anarchism-4260069/episodes/180-aurora-kim-stanley-robinson Duration seconds: 3652 ## Resource Kim Stanley Robinson comes back to discuss Aurora , his novel of a generational starship, in which generations of humans are born, live, and die onboard without ever seeing a planet. We discuss the generational starship as a science fiction genre, whether humans will ever be able to travel to the stars, and what it would mean for science fiction if we can't. We also take a detour into the question of "hard," scientific science fiction vs. "soft," humanist science fiction. Here's a link to Stan's article for Boing Boing, arguing that we won't ever reach the stars: https://boingboing.net/2015/11/16/our-generation-ships-will-sink.html Thanks to Nick Gaskill for suggesting an episode on Aurora ! ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/everyday-anarchism-4260069/episodes/180-aurora-kim-stanley-robinson/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/everyday-anarchism-4260069/180-aurora-kim-stanley-robinson.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.