What are your favourite spaceships from literature?

[Mirannan]

In the vein of the similar thread on this subforum about TV ships; what are your favourite spaceships from literature?

I have two to start off the proceedings. From the Nivenverse and Ringworld - Lying *******. (Of course we don't have any weapons. We have a really good comm laser though!) And rather lower-tech; Michael from Footfall.

Possibly applicable video of the latter:

 

[Vince W]

Great topic. Where to being though?

Lying ******* - Ringworld (seconded)
Heighliner - Dune
Heart of Gold - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
GSUs/GSVs - Culture series (too many to name)
Nostalgia For Infinity - Revelation Space

...

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Tricky. None are really memorable to me apart from Anne McCaffery's Brain & Brawn "ships" and Lying *******. Not much impressed with Heart of Gold.

I'm struggling with my own WIP ships to make them interesting.
Earth Visitor to the Alien Star Ship.
"This isn't a Starship, it's a hotel, office block or an Apartment complex."
Other Astronaut:
"No artificial gravity, no holodeck, no replicators, no transporter, no warp drive, no antimatter"
First Astronaut:
"But they do have Jump drive and an insanely natural five acre park!"

 

[anno]

As a Banks and Gillan fan Clear Air Turbulence takes some beating...

 

[Vince W]

I seem to recall some of the ships from Peter Hamilton's Night's Dawn trilogy being fairly interesting.

 

[Rodders]

Nostalgia for Infinity from Revelation Space
The Dawn Treader from The Forge Of God
All the GSV's etc from Banks' Culture series.
The Heart of Gold from HHGTTG.

I almost put down the Discovery from 2001, but of course that falls in the movie category.

 

[Venusian Broon]

The Abominator class Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints with its avatar Demeisen from Banks' Surface Detail.

By far the best character in the book.

 

[BAYLOR]

Battle for the Abyss Ben Counter's Horus Heresy novel The giant chaos spaceship The Furious Abyss . What a truly monstrous and awesome ship .

 

[BAYLOR]

Honor Harrington's Mantioran Dreadnaught.

 

[steelyglint]

I.M. Banks's R.O.U.s (Rapid Offensive Units). He got their personalities spot on.

Or

Jack Ketch from Neal Asher's Ian Cormack novels. I like the idea of a warship that collects examples of the machinery that humans use to execute each other.

Asher's equivalent of Banks R.O.U. personalities tend to be embodied in drones, usually war drones from the Prador war. Delightfully bloodthirsty and always up for a fight.

.

 

[farntfar]

The Bistromath beats the Heart of Gold.
A spaceship powered by knowing who had the linguini.

 

[BAYLOR]

The Star Empire in Diane Carey's star trek novel Dreadnaught.

 

[Danny McG]

From the original Star Wars book - the Death Star ("not a moon")

 

[Theophania Elliott]

I quite liked the ships in John Hemry's JAG-in-Space series - it's early space travel, so the ships are a lot like submarines (only, like, up in space instead of under the sea) - small and slightly claustrophobic. And no artificial gravity.

 

[Khuratokh]

I'm quite fond of the ships in "leviathan wakes"
Artificial gravity of a sort only exists when the engines are on, so ships are built like highrise buildings with engines at their base.
The Canterbury
The MCRN Dollanger

(Now a pretty good syfy show called "The Expanse" which needs more love)

 

[SilentRoamer]

I really like this topic:

Arthur C. Clarkes titular Rama, I love the mystery of the Ramans, their triplicate redundancy and the general science behind the ship.

Peter F. Hamiltons Oenone in the Nights Dawn Trilogy (briefly mentioned up thread), these are bitek design, consisting of biology and tech, they are connected to their captains on an intimate level due to the Edenists Affinity gene.

The ships in Kevin J. Andersons Saga of the Seven Suns are interesting:
Wentals, Verdani, Hydros and Faeros are sort of elemental forces:
Wentals are essentially a water element, their technology is based around exploiting water and using this to great effect.
Verdani are essentially treeships in space, they also have an ability to combine with Wental ships for even more effect.
Faeros essentially use and manipulate heat, with their ships looking like huge fireballs, which fits in nicely with their home in star coronas.
Hydros are probably the most interesting of the elemental ships, they are essentially liquid metal ships that are able to hold pressure through some unknown mechanism, this reflect their nature as gas giant dwellers.
Ildirans have interesting ships, they essentially outright banned AI above a certain level so their ships are complete with Hydraulic controllers and gears/levers.
Klikkis have a sort of modular, hive ship design, where damage can be done to any modules and they just simply reform. They are able to reform into larger and more powerful ships.

Simmons Hyperion has the interesting TreeShips which are said to grow in space, captained by Templars who are a sort of Starship Captains guild. Loose on the science but this is Hyperion.

Justice of Toren, from Ann Leckies Ancillary Justice is a great concept, a sentient ship with human equivalent automatons making up large parts of the crew. Makes for a very interesting sense of consciousness.

I am sure there will be others just as interesting so I will scan my shelves when I get home.

 

[Danny McG]

As my second entry in this list - John Ringo's 'Vorpal Blade' from the Looking Glass book series.
This was basically a submarine with a hyperdrive grafted onto it.

 

[Foxbat]

I quite like Brian Stableford's Hooded Swan.

 

[Danny Creasy]

From the Earth to the Moon, Jules Verne

 

[Mirannan]

As my second entry in this list - John Ringo's 'Vorpal Blade' from the Looking Glass book series.
This was basically a submarine with a hyperdrive grafted onto it.

From the same series, I rather like the Tumtum Tree - although that was more of a station than a ship.