Best Generation Ship Stories

[weirdside]

I love this concept but am yet to read a decent example. Either the characters are shallow, it's way too hard sci fi, etc. Throw out your favorite generation ship stories please.

 

[Pyan]

Got to go with Orphans of the Sky, by Robert A. Heinlein...

 

[j d worthington]

And Non-Stop, by Brian Aldiss. I would also recommend The Book of the Long Sun, by Gene Wolfe... though Wolfe's style may be a bit dense if you're not used to it....

The Book of the Long Sun - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Pyar]

There's a really great short story called Birthday of the World by Ursula K. Le Guin. It was a wonderful take on this idea of generation ships.

 

[Ian Whates]

I'll second jd's nomination of Aldiss's Non-Stop. A classic.

 

[blacknorth]

Yes, I'd also recommend Non-Stop.

A Panshin's Rite of Passage is stuck in my head as a kind of gen-starship novel with a twist on it, but it's so long since I've read it I can't be sure.

 

[j d worthington]

Yes, I'd also recommend Non-Stop.

A Panshin's Rite of Passage is stuck in my head as a kind of gen-starship novel with a twist on it, but it's so long since I've read it I can't be sure.

My problem with Panshin's novel (and perhaps I might feel differently with a reread) is that it was largely a "by-the-numbers" book, touching on all the prototypical (or even stereotypical) things such a novel is supposed to have. The main difference is that it has a female rather than a male protagonist. At any rate, I felt it had some interesting points here and there, but found the novel quite simply boring....

 

[Lobolover]

J.D.- offtopic raly, but that did remind me , I don't know why, of what I read a while back on a site about writing and writers mistakes - about how the writer was using all the tricks in the book to hide the gender of his protagonist while also showing said protagonist.....ehem....."socialising" with another person . How that went I can only imagine .

And I am quite a newbie at this kind of stuff, so what exactly would a Generation Ship story generaly have as a story that that one has not ?

 

[j d worthington]

J.D.- offtopic raly, but that did remind me , I don't know why, of what I read a while back on a site about writing and writers mistakes - about how the writer was using all the tricks in the book to hide the gender of his protagonist while also showing said protagonist.....ehem....."socialising" with another person . How that went I can only imagine .

I've got to admit that that one rather boggles the mind. How on earth...? Well, yes, if you got into some really, really convoluted syntax.....

And I am quite a newbie at this kind of stuff, so what exactly would a Generation Ship story generaly have as a story that that one has not ?

Put simply, a generation ship is a starship sent to colonize other planets, where the crew and passengers are not kept in any kind of "cold sleep" but live out their lives. As it would, by the laws of physics, take several generations to get to the nearest habitable planet (most likely, anyway), several generations will live and die within the confines of said ship; which, because of the nature of the voyage and the necessity of supporting all those life forms (human, livestock, "wildlife" and the like for seeding the planet, plants, etc.) would need to be the size, approximately, of at least a fairly good-sized city. It could never make planetfall, but would instead be set to orbit the planet of its destination and would, in fact, have to built in orbit.

The tensions within such a story generally center around later generations' views of reality, considering that they have never seen anything other than the inside of the ship -- generally fashioned into an artificial environment containing plenty of plant life (for both food and oxygen, and possibly construction materials and the like) as well as various forms of other life necessary for those within it. Often, a completely distorted view of things has developed because of the artificial conditions: the alteration in gravity depending on which level of the ship one is on; the lack of any knowledge of stars or space itself; a complete erasing of any instinctive behaviors associated with a natural planetary environment; etc. This results in tribalism, clashing religious faiths, the recrudescence of mysticism and superstition, severe class struggles, often mutinies and a separation between the parties so that the mutineers (and sometimes mutants) are not human (nor do they view the "regular" crew and passengers as such), and so on.

Done well, it provides a very good microcosm for examining various sociological, anthropological, and philosophical issues, as well as allowing for some very good tense storytelling....

 

[Lobolover]

I think it was posted on the forum here , around last year ? I think you also posted in that thread it was presented in .

And yes, doesn't leave much for the "purple" style to describe , except maybe for the neutral stomach and siting areas .

Hold on, what does "It could never make planetfall" mean ?

And any particulary bad examples of this story type come to mind ?

 

[j d worthington]

And yes, doesn't leave much for the "purple" style to describe , except maybe for the neutral stomach and siting areas .

That all depends. Several writers approach it from the POV of the characters, which means their views -- which can be quite mystical, having confused advanced scientific learning for some sort of holy texts, thus such things as relativity, references to the stars, suns, planets, and the like, being seen as metaphor or divine mystery, and the like. So it can be as purple as the story demands -- though "purple" isn't necessarily a good thing to achieve, to be frank.

And I'm not at all sure what you mean by "neutral stomach and siting areas". Are you referring to "between decks", or the hold, or...? Passenger's quarters, and the like? With such a ship, these are anything but like what one is dealing with in a conventional sea-going (or even space-going) vehicle. We're talking something built to be a living environment, a small world in itself; something altogether different from what we've seen here on earth.

Hold on, what does "It could never make planetfall" mean ?

Simply that. It is far too big to land on a planet; the gravitational forces it would encounter in the landing process would cause the ship to break up as efficiently as any seagoing vessel smashing onto the rocks. All debarkation and embarkation would have to be via smaller vessels housed in the ship for that purpose.

And any particulary bad examples of this story type come to mind ?

Actually, not that I've read -- I've only read a handful of this type of story over the years (that I can recall), and most of those were at least entertaining, if not outright fascinating.

There is one that comes to mind -- though I've never seen it: The television series, The Starlost, which had quite a troubled history to begin with (for which, see Ellison's "Somehow, I Don't Think We're in Kansas, Toto"....

 

[Lobolover]

I meant the areas of the body which are "identical" for both genders .

And I will see that the very first moment someone publishes any Ellison in this country

 

[Dave]

I've not read any of the suggestions here, but I might now. Since I haven't read them I can't say, but wouldn't a true generation ship story have to be, by definition, something of really epic proportions, spanning hundreds of years, and not the kind of book popular at the moment.

There are more examples here: Generation ship - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I did unfortunately catch that TV series 'The Starlost' and I thought it was dreadful. I think Ellison was only involved in the concept rather than the whole thing, but could be wrong. It used to be on the UK SciFi Channel (when I was subscribed.) He certainly should try and remove it from his resume.

IMHO 'Silent Running' has the best depiction of that 'spacecraft earth' idea on film.

I'm thinking that 'Destiny's Road' by Larry Niven has that same kind of generational theme. It's isn't set on a ship, but 250 years after a ship brought settlers to a planet and deserted them. You have the same "looking for answers about where we came from" in it though.

It has also been a staple of 'Star Trek' and 'Doctor Who' episodes.

 

[blacknorth]

My problem with Panshin's novel (and perhaps I might feel differently with a reread) is that it was largely a "by-the-numbers" book, touching on all the prototypical (or even stereotypical) things such a novel is supposed to have. The main difference is that it has a female rather than a male protagonist. At any rate, I felt it had some interesting points here and there, but found the novel quite simply boring....

I agree that it's nothing very special, and, in fact, it often struck me as a children's book upon reading, which makes its acclaim a little bit mystifying. As a book which is often ship-bound, I found the reasons for getting off the ship - completing the children's education by giving them life experience planetside - fairly compelling. All in all a fair example of how to escape the cryogenic trap of a typical generational starship.

It's quite a right of centre book politically, flying in the face of the counter-culture at the time it was written. Perhaps that accounts for the critical reception.

 

[j d worthington]

I did unfortunately catch that TV series 'The Starlost' and I thought it was dreadful. I think Ellison was only involved in the concept rather than the whole thing, but could be wrong. It used to be on the UK SciFi Channel (when I was subscribed.) He certainly should try and remove it from his resume.

I think there are various reasons why he hasn't done so. For one thing, his connection with it is so well known, so much a part of both his and sf's history, that it really wouldn't make much difference. For another, he has recounted at some length the struggles to keep the concept on track and viable, while watching it be gutted time and again by those at the top (who had no idea what sf is in any way, shape, or form), until he saw there was simply no way to salvage what was, if not an original idea -- and he goes into that aspect of it, too, at least a reasonably respectable old warhorse. In the end, he walked away from the entire thing, leaving behind a paycheck of $93,000 and invoking a clause in his contract which forced them to use, not his name, but his pseudonym of "Cordwainer Bird", thus losing the name recognition for which he was hired in the first place.

As I said, you can find the story of the entire debacle (one which oddly prefigures the sorts of experiences Michael Moorcock had with the same industry as described in his Letters from Hollywood) in his essay, which is included in The Essential Ellison, as well as the novelized version of Ellison's original pilot screenplay, Phoenix Without Ashes (the novelization having been done by Ed Bryant). It makes for some very... interesting... reading..... Incidentally, the original screenplay (which apparently in no way resembles what finally hit the screen) won Ellison yet another Writer's Guild award, for "best dramatic-episodic script" for 1973....

 

[Rodders]

Some of Chasm City took place ona a generation ship. (The Sky Hausmann story.)

 

[Connavar]

Got to go with Orphans of the Sky, by Robert A. Heinlein...

Interesting i was just browsing through RAH deciding which book to read.

Generation ship is a concept that interest but that i havent read almost.

 

[Lobolover]

Cordwainer ? What in the holy mother of .....?

 

[blacknorth]

Funny, I rather liked The Starlost. Having seen only pirated 3rd generation (lol) VHS copies in NTSC (Never Twice the Same Colour) the series has an obscure charm which I find very attractive. I think it stands well above a lot of today's pretty generic TV fare.

 

[Ursa major]

Cordwainer ? What in the holy mother of .....?

From Wiki (Harlan Ellison - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia):

Cordwainer Bird

Ellison has on occasion used the pseudonym Cordwainer Bird to alert members of the public to situations in which he feels his creative contribution to a project has been mangled beyond repair by others, typically Hollywood producers or studios. (See also Alan Smithee.) The first such work to which he signed the name was "The Price of Doom," an episode of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (though it was misspelled as Cord Wainer Bird in the credits). And an episode of Burke's Law ("Who Killed Alex Debbs?") accredited as written by Ellison contains a character given this name.

The "Cordwainer Bird" moniker is a tribute to fellow SF writer Paul M. A. Linebarger, better known by his pen name, Cordwainer Smith. The origin of the word "cordwainer" is shoemaker (from working with cordovan leather for shoes). The term used by Linebarger was meant to imply the industriousness of the pulp author. Ellison has said, in interviews and in his writing, that his version of the pseudonym was meant to mean "a shoemaker for birds". Since he has used the pseudonym mainly for works he wants to distance himself from, it may be understood to mean that "this work is for the birds". Stephen King once said he thought that it meant that Ellison was giving people who mangled his work a literary version of "the bird" (given credence by Ellison himself in his own essay titled "Somehow, I Don't Think We're in Kansas, Toto", describing his experience with the Starlost television series).