Generation Ships: 8 Sci-Fi Sagas of Interstellar Voyages

Generation ships represent humanity’s boldest dream: interstellar travel spanning multiple lifetimes. These 8 science fiction novels explore the challenges, triumphs, and complex social dynamics of these massive vessels
Facebook
Twitter
WhatsApp
Email

Children of Time 

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Children of Time 
(Book 1)

A race for survival among the stars… Humanity’s last survivors escaped earth’s ruins to find a new home. But when they find it, can their desperation overcome its dangers?

WHO WILL INHERIT THIS NEW EARTH?

The last remnants of the human race left a dying Earth, desperate to find a new home among the stars. Following in the footsteps of their ancestors, they discover the greatest treasure of the past age—a world terraformed and prepared for human life.

But all is not right in this new Eden. In the long years since the planet was abandoned, the work of its architects has borne disastrous fruit. The planet is not waiting for them, pristine and unoccupied. New masters have turned it from a refuge into mankind’s worst nightmare.

Now two civilizations are on a collision course, both testing the boundaries of what they will do to survive. As the fate of humanity hangs in the balance, who are the true heirs of this new Earth?

Goodreads: 4.3
4.3/5

Aurora 

by kim

A major new novel from one of science fiction’s most powerful voices, AURORA tells the incredible story of our first voyage beyond the solar system.
Brilliantly imagined and beautifully told, it is the work of a writer at the height of his powers.

Our voyage from Earth began generations ago.
Now, we approach our new home.
AURORA.

Goodreads: 3.78
3.78/5

Dust 

by Elizabeth Bear

Jacob’s Ladder 
(Book 1)

On a broken ship orbiting a doomed sun, dwellers have grown complacent with their aging metal world. But when a serving girl frees a captive noblewoman, the old order is about to change….

Ariane, Princess of the House of Rule, was known to be fiercely cold-blooded. But severing an angel’s wings on the battlefield—even after she had surrendered—proved her completely without honor. Captive, the angel Perceval waits for Ariane not only to finish her off—but to devour her very memories and mind. Surely her gruesome death will cause war between the houses—exactly as Ariane desires. But Ariane’s plan may yet be opposed, for Perceval at once recognizes the young servant charged with her care.

Rien is the lost her sister. Soon they will escape, hoping to stop the impending war and save both their houses. But it is a perilous journey through the crumbling hulk of a dying ship, and they do not pass unnoticed. Because at the hub of their turning world waits Jacob Dust, all that remains of God, following the vapor wisp of the angel. And he knows they will meet very soon.

Goodreads: 3.66
3.66/5

Nightside the Long Sun 

by Gene Wolfe

The Book of the Long Sun 
(Book 1)

Nightside the Long Sun is the beginning of the science fiction masterpiece from Gene Wolfe, Book of the Long Sun

Life on the Whorl, and the struggles and triumphs of Patera Silk to satisfy the demands of the gods, will captivate readers yearning for something new and different in science fiction, for the magic of the future.

Enormous in breadth and scope, Wolfe’s ambitious new work opens out into a world of wonders, of gods and humans, aliens and machines, and mysterious adventures far out in space and deep inside the human spirit. It is set on a ship-world whose origins are shrouded in legend, ruled by strange gods who appear infrequently to their worshippers on large screens, and peopled by a human race changed by eons of time, yet familiar.

Goodreads: 4.08
4.08/5

Orphans of the Sky 

by Robert A. Heinlein

Heinlein Timeline 
(Book 23)

An umbrella title for the novelette Universe and its sequel novella Common Sense, published originally in 1941 in two different issues of Astounding Science Fiction. First published under this title in 1963.

Heinlein gives us one of the earliest uses in science fiction of the “generation ship” idea, a huge spaceship transporting an entire community of humans to a destination so distant that generations will pass during its journey. And as Heinlein demonstrates, the origins of the community can become forgotten, misinterpreted, and otherwise distorted with the long passage.

Goodreads: 3.78
3.78/5

Non-Stop 

by Brian W. Aldiss

Curiosity was discouraged in the Greene tribe. Its members lived out their lives in cramped Quarters, hacking away at the encroaching ponics. As to where they were – that was forgotten.

Roy Complain decides to find out. With the renegade priest Marapper, he moves into unmapped territory, where they make a series of discoveries which turn their universe upside-down…

Non-Stop is the classic SF novel of discovery and exploration; a brilliant evocation of a familiar setting seen through the eyes of a primitive.

Goodreads: 3.88
3.88/5

Hull Zero Three 

by Greg Bear

A starship hurtles through the emptiness of space. Its destination-unknown. Its purpose-a mystery.

Now, one man wakes up. Ripped from a dream of a new home-a new planet and the woman he was meant to love in his arms-he finds himself wet, naked, and freezing to death. The dark halls are full of monsters but trusting other survivors he meets might be the greater danger.

All he has are questions– Who is he? Where are they going? What happened to the dream of a new life? What happened to Hull 03?

All will be answered, if he can survive the ship.

Goodreads: 3.4
3.4/5

An Unkindness of Ghosts 

by Rivers Solomon

Aster has little to offer folks in the way of rebuttal when they call her ogre and freak. She’s used to the names; she only wishes there was more truth to them. If she were truly a monster, she’d be powerful enough to tear down the walls around her until nothing remains of her world.

Goodreads: 3.96
3.96/5

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *