Interstellar

(Book Review)

Written by: Greg Keyes, Christopher Nolan and Jonathan Nolan

Year of publication: 2014
Publication: Online

Introduction
We once dreamed to travel through space when we are a kid. Movies and shows
visualized it as a fun and fast travel. However, Greg Keyes presented an opposite outcomes of
space travels through his novel, Interstellar which is all about a group of scientists led by Joe
Cooper. (Protagonist) deployed to the space for a mission of saving humanity to the dying Earth.
They need to find a habitable planet that could sustain life.
Greg Keyes and the Nolan Brothers, Christopher and Jonathan exhibit a wonderful
example of an innovative and legitimate combination of various genres of drama and science in
Interstellar. They really imposed a lot of science in the story like agriculture, ecology,
aeronautics, atmospheric science and of course, Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity
(Physics). To really give emphasis to the highlight of the story, which the Relativity and its
association with interstellar travel let me, explain the Theory of Relativity.
In 1905, Albert Einstein presents that time is not constant, but it is continually moving
forward, and we are moving with it. According to Einstein, time is the fourth dimension, and
alongside the three dimensional space, it fused into a 4 dimension called spacetime. It thought us
that the faster we move in space, the slower we move in time, but the only way we could travel
in time is if we could travel as same speed as light. As an illustration, let’s say that you were sent
out to a interstellar travel to find new exo-planet riding a spaceship that travels 40 light years
away from Earth. After your discovery, you came back to Earth. From your perspective, you had
only been gone for about two years, but in the perspective of people on Earth, you had been gone
for 80 years. This event is called Time Dilation.
Another major scientific basis of this novel is the Wormhole. Einstein predicted that
these theoretical tunnels are passage through different space-time that could create shortcuts
across the universe. These theories will make sense throughout the story.
I. Summary
It is in the 2060’s. Earth is in the brinks of collapse, humanity is facing a possible
massive extinction due to blight of corns and other agricultural foods, and overpopulation
resulted to worldwide famine. In Eastern Colorado, former NASA test pilot and engineer named
Joe Cooper gave up his occupation to farm to help of feeding the his fellows is living with his
two children, his 15 year old son, Tom and 10 year old daughter, Murph with his father-in-law,
Donald. Tom is the one who ruled out to be a farmer while Murph is the highly intelligent girl,
and their only way of living is farming.
One day, while Murph is studying inside her room, books and the lunar ship model just
randomly fell out from the shelf. It did not stop there and it happened repeatedly making her
believe that ghosts haunt her room.
Their family lives a simple life enjoying their time together watching local baseball
league in their village. One afternoon while they are watching a baseball game across the town,
the game was interrupted by a dust storm. They quickly go back to their home. Knowing that
Murph’s window in her room was not closed; Joe rushed into the room and closed the window.
After that, her daughter noticed the perfectly lined pattern of sands on the floor of her room.
Cooper spent his all night studying the pattern thinking that the lines are binary codes or a
coordinates for a place. He suddenly solved the code discovering a place near their house. He
jumps into his truck in eagerness to know where this coordinates could lead him. Without his
knowledge, Murph sneaks into his truck to come with him.
When he reached his destination, a strange looking robot called TARS shows up and
tasered him into unconsciousness. He suddenly discovered that he is in a very secret
headquarters of NASA for a interstellar travel where he met Dr. John Brand who is a old boss of
him and his daughter, Amelia Brand. All of the people in the bunker believe that Cooper
stumbled into the place for a reason. The space mission that Dr. Brand is proposing is a travel
through a wormhole near the orbit of Saturn to find another planet that could be a new habitat for
human being. Two of them is orbiting in a massive balckhole called Gargantua. According to Dr.
Brand, 12 astronauts were sent through the wormhole in 12 individual space ships.
Unfortunately, only three was able to transmit a message to them, they are Mann, Miller and
Edmond who are in a three different planets. The others are believed to be dead.
The two main missions of Dr. Brand is to place a space station into a orbit to save many
people. In other to accomplish this, Dr. Brand needs to solve the equation that will overcome the
gravity of the orbit. Second plan is to colonize the three possible exo-planets that the past
astronauts were able to discover.
After a day, Cooper and Murph returned to their home. Murph was upset because of
Cooper’s decision of accepting the mission. The morning comes that Cooper is set to live.
Donald and Tom says their final goodbye to Cooper, but Murph is still in her room. Cooper goes
into her room hoping that he can talk to his daughter before he leaves. At that moment, Murph
found a morse code in her bookshelf saying “stay”. When she heard her father is in the hallway,
she quickly laid down to her bed pretending to be asleep. Cooper knocked to her door and
entered asking Murpgh to talk, but Murph refuses to talk to him. Cooper tried everything but
Murph is not doing anything he expects as a reply. Cooper promised to come back to see his
daughter, and when that time comes, they might be at the same age as he is. In his way out of the
room, a book from a shelf falls down. Cooper noticed it but still moves towards the door. In his
way to the edge of the door, more books fell down but he still continues his way out.
Cooper, Dr. Brand’s daughter, Amelia, Dr. Doyle, Dr. Nikolai and two robots named
TARS and CASE manage to launch into the space with a high speed. They were expecting a 2
years travel to come near the Gargantua. They placed themselves into a cryosleep.
After two years, they found themselves in the orbit of Saturn. Cooper, Amelia and Dr,
Doyle were set to a travel in Miller’s planet through wormhole, while Dr. Nikolai will wait to
them in their shuttle in the orbit of Saturn. Inside the wormhole, Amelia suddenly raised her
hands looking like she is reaching someone’s hand, but Cooper didn’t mind it. When they
reached the Miller’s planet, they are aware that they need to gather information as fast as
possible because in every hour they spend in that planet, it will cost seven years in time because
the planet they are in is 10 billion light years away from Earth.
When Amelia stepped out of the ship, she only found a vast amount of water(sea) and
possibly Miller’s shipwreck. After a few minutes, Amelia and Dr. Doyle needs to go back to the
ship, but a massive tsunami is about to hit them, Dr. Doyle is in the other ship while Amelia was
stuck in the shipwreck causing another time delay. CASE quickly help her to get up and carried
her to the ship while Dr. Doyle had a trouble in going inside their ship, that is why Cooper is
forced to start the ship and escapes the tsunami. That incident caused them 23 years in time.
When they came back to their shuttle in Saturn’s orbit, they found a old and sick Dr. Nikolai.
After several years, Cooper was unable to view all of the video messages from Dr. Brand and his
children in Earth. Tom sends him a video when he is 17 years old. He also sends another video
of him with his wife and they introduced to Cooper his grandson. Tom also revealed to Cooper
that Donald died. After the heartbreaking messages from Earth, another live video were
transmitted to him, but this time, it is from Murph after 25 years of no contact. In the video,
Murph expresses her disappointment and hatred to her father for not fulfilling his promise of
returning to her with them being at the same age as Murph is now 35 years old, same age to
Cooper when he leaves. Cooper breakdown into tears after watching his daughters’ messages
having the feeling that he betrayed her.
In Earth, ,Murph is now working for Dr. Brand and living in the NASA bunker who is
now 90 year-old sick man confined in a wheelchair. She is still trying to solve the equation for
the balance of gravity that will make the first plan successful. Now that the crew have recovered
emotionally from Murph's video, they debate whether to visit Mann's planet or Edmond's planet,
because they only have enough fuel to visit one of them before they head back to Earth. Brand
wants to visit Edmond's Planet because his planet appears to be the better prospect, but Cooper
wants to visit Mann's because he is still transmitting his beacon.
On Earth, Murph suddenly found Dr. Brand in his room dying. The final moments of him
really shocked Murph as he confessed that his equation is impossible to solve and the only way
to solve it is if someone go inside of a blackhole to find the data, which is impossible without of
being killed.
 However, Murph knows that the equation is possible and she has a feeling that the codes
from the dusts that her father finds when she was a kid, and also the wristwatch that Cooper
leaves in her shelf has something to do with the solving of the equation.
Simultaneously, Cooper, Amelia and Dr. Nikolai reached the Mann’s Planet and there
they discovered Mann placed inside the cryosleep. Cooper awakes Dr. Mann to give them
information about the planet. While Mann is showing Cooper the planet, Dr. Mann pulls off
Cooper's voice beacon and pushes Cooper off the cliff. Mann reveals to Cooper that the planet is
uninhabitable and that he sent the signal so he could take Cooper's spaceship to return to Earth.
Mann is trying to kill Cooper by breaking his helmet's visor, allowing the ammonia-rich air to
suffocate Cooper.
Cooper manages to reach his voice beacon that was taken off his helmet by Mann to call
out for Amelia to rescue him. After Amelia rescued him, Mann’s headquarters exploded while
Dr. Nikolai is inside because he was trying to recover the data of the robot of Mann named KIPP.
Cooper and Amelia managed to leave the planet, but because of the lack of fuel to visit
the Edmond’s planet and go back to Earth afterwards, they both decided to go to Edmond’s
planet and transmit the information of the planet. Because of lack of life support, the shuttle
cannot support the mass of both of them. By knowing that, Cooper immediately decided to
detach himself to the shuttle for Amelia to reach the planet as fast as possible, and also for
Cooper to get the data needed for the equation, he and TARS sacrificed themselves by being
sucked into a black hole.
On Earth, after realizing that her room might contain the codes that could solve the
equation, Murph rushed into her room to decipher the codes. In the space, Cooper realizes that in
orbiting to the black hole, it will cause a 51 Earth years time dilation. Cooper descends in the
black hole towards a grid full of cubbyholes thinking he is dead and finds himself in some sort of
afterlife and unaware of what sort of surroundings he's in which resembles a tesseract, a eight
dimensional space that connects past, present and future all of it happening in once. He hits an
object along with a bunch of others that look like books stacked and knocks one down, revealing
ten-year-old Murph reacting at an object falling from her bookshelf back at the farmhouse. He
knocked down the lunar ship model shown at the beginning of the story. He is screaming out for
Murph, but she walks away with it and does not hear him. He also saw the 10-year-old Murph
pleading to his father about the mission. Cooper uses the books from the shelf to make himself
stay. He also used the morse code that says “stay”. On Earth, adult Murph realizes that the
“ghost” she thinks that is haunting her when she was a kid was her father all the time. TARS
explain to Cooper where he is and what to do in order to send Murph the data needed to finish
the equation. Cooper uses the wristwatch that he left in the shelf of Murph as the coordinates and
data. Murph suddenly realized it and immedietly head back to the head quarters to finish the
equation, and she did.
After the relief that he fulfilled his mission, Cooper and TARS had a conversation about
the eight dimensional space might be created by the future civilation of humans. After their
conversation, the tesseract closes and opens a strong source of light pulling Cooper towards it.
Along the way of a beamed tunnel, Cooper saw the past of Amelia while they are in there way to
the wormhole and reaches her hand revealing that it was he that Amelia randomly reaches the
hand. Luckily, Murph was able to solve the equations and able to overcome the gravitational
force of the possible space station in Saturn’s orbit. After a rough unconsciousness, Cooper wake
up and found himself laying down in a hospital bed in the Cooper Station orbiting in Saturn and
named after his daughter. The nurse told him that he is currently 124 years old. The nurse tells
him that he is lucky because the space martials found him with just a minutes of oxygen supply
in his suit. A colonel takes him to a walk to the space station where he found a donut shaped
surface of the ground and an artificial sunlight. He also found the replica of his house. After
minutes of tour to the station, he quickly asked where Murph is, and the colonel that she is in her
hospital room with her family. Without hesitation, he quickly entered the room with Murph’s
great-grandchildren, grandchildren and children. After seeing the glimpse of her father again for
the first time since her childhood, she breaks into tears. After the overwhelming reunion, Murph
told Cooper to search for Amelia, and Cooper did. At the last part of the novel, Greg Keyes
revealed that Amelia successfully landed in the Edmond’s planet and started to colonize the
planet.

II. Character Analysis

Joe Cooper – He is a loving father with bigger responsibilities. He is a determined individual
that is willing to sacrifice his own happiness for a much bigger cost.
Murph Cooper – She is the daughter of Joe who is wise and faithful to her commitment.
Amelia Brand – She is the daughter of the Dr. John Brand who is selfless.
Dr. John Brand – He is the father of Amelia and the originator of the mission that saved the
world.
Tom Cooper – The tough and determined son of Joe Cooper who was left with the responsibility
of the farming of the Cooper family.
Donald – The father-in-law of Joe Cooper who is a intelligent man and also former NASA
engineer.
Dr. Mann – he is the lost astronaut of the first interstellar mission who found the Mann’s planet.
He is a selfish man with the only goal is to save himself.
TARS & CASE – They are the space robots of the crew that played the major role in saving the
universe.

III. Three Lessons

There are many strong parts of the novel really blows my mind and also gives a fruit in life that I
will remember for a long period of time.

 The Theory of Relativity. Throughout my process of reading the novel, I deeply

understood the theory that Einstein proposed. It really boosts my interest in the laws of
physics.
 Another lesson that I got from this novel is to take care of our planet. With our
technology and knowledge now a days, we might find another planets that could be
our new habitat, but it might cost everything to find and colonize. It is better if we take
care of what we have right now for the future.
  Last lesson that I learned from this novel is the significance of love and bond in a
family. There might be some situations where we will feel that we are lonely or broke.
Let’s always remember that family is always there for us, and no matter how trillion
light years we are away with them, love will always bond us and nothing will stands in
the way.

IV. Vocabulary Development

As I read the novel, I stumbled upon some new words that are new to me and unfamiliar, and
here are they.
Lest (conjunction) - with the intention of preventing (something undesirable); to avoid the risk
of.

Centrifuge (noun) - to separate fluids of different densities (e.g. cream from milk) or liquids
from solids. a machine with a rapidly rotating container that applies centrifugal force to its
contents, typically

Interstellar (adjective) - occurring or situated between stars.

Futility (noun) - pointlessness or uselessness.

Claustrophobic (adjective) - (of a person) having an extreme or irrational fear of confined

places.

Beacon (noun) - a fire or light set up in a high or prominent position as a warning, signal, or
celebration.

Glaciers (noun) - a slowly moving mass or river of ice formed by the accumulation and
compaction of snow on mountains or near the poles.

Grief-stricken (adjective) – overcome off deep sorrow.

Befuddled (verb) - make (someone) unable to think clearly.

Spouses (noun) - a husband or wife, considered in relation to their partner.