Ark by Veronica Roth is book one of six in the Forward collection. This collection of short stories from six well known authors revolves around the theme of Earth’s future expansion and what it means to each. If you believe you will be reading all six stories like myself, then you’d be doing a yourself a great favor by not reading any of the stories description prior to starting on each. Being that these stories are very short, it can be hard for the authors to build complicated characters with too many winding paths in the plot. It’s best in my opinion to go in each story without knowing anything about it beforehand.

Ark serves as a mediocre start to the collection. Being first in any collection or series is definitely a lot of pressure as it sets the tone for many readers on what is to come. Many readers will either continue or stop based on the first or second. While some readers believed that Ark ended without any sort of satisfying conclusion or that it lead to nowhere, I strongly disagree. What happened to Samantha at the end can clearly be seen and the decision for her doing so has been laid out. The author uses flowers and orchids to relate with Samantha and her childhood. While I myself don’t really care about flowers in general, I do understand their importance. If anything, Ark at least got me listening to Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here”.

At the end of each of these six short stories, I’ll be asking myself whether I’ll be interested in reading a longer and expanded version of the story if the author decided to write one. With Ark, I would have to say most likely not.