Questions tagged [generation-ship]

A generation ship is a hypothetical starship that travels across great distances between stars at a speed much slower than the speed of light, usually with the purpose of transporting humans for colonising new planets. Since such a ship might take thousands of years to reach even nearby stars, the original occupants of a generation ship would grow old and die, leaving their descendants to continue travelling.

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1 answer
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Short story with suspended animation dude woken every year for a day, seeing previous crew live, die [duplicate]

Short story. I think in a magazine (Analog or IASFM or the like). Circa late 70s or early 80s. There's a teenaged boy who is woken every year for one day, I guess his birthday. He interacts with ...
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9 votes
0 answers
120 views

People using genetic engineering to transform their offspring to live on a gaseous planet

I was hoping for some help. I remember parts of a science fiction plot point and I’m trying to locate the story. I’m not sure if it is a short story, a novel, or even an extremely short lived science ...
rg-sci-fi's user avatar
7 votes
1 answer
425 views

Space colonization generation ship book

Someone asked a question like this recently, but didn’t have as many details about the book, and none of the answers seemed right to me. In the 1970s I read a book that was probably at least 10 years ...
Jeff's user avatar
  • 79
18 votes
1 answer
2k views

Novel about people on a generational ship who experience no external senses, except language-based communication

I once read the start of a novel in the SciFi section of a book store, but silly me didn't buy it & I haven't been able to find it again. If someone could identify it, that would bring me joy, ...
AtomicSource's user avatar
5 votes
1 answer
192 views

The name of a novel about a generation ship [duplicate]

I am trying to remember the name of a novel I read when I was in high school about a generation ship. This was very late 70's early 80's so it had to be written before 83 when I graduated. I ...
Mysteria_Sdrassa's user avatar
21 votes
0 answers
342 views

Short story about a giant ship that thoughtlessly destroys planets as it travels, is visited by a victim

I think I came across this ten or fifteen years ago, I cannot remember much clearly so some of these details may be mistaken. The story is told from the perspective of a crew member, on the bridge I ...
S_S_S_S's user avatar
  • 211
11 votes
1 answer
277 views

Story where (deceased? frozen?) people are used as means of propulsion

I recall a story (or perhaps the memory is from a book?) where a spaceship accelerated by jettisoning human bodies at high speeds. I suppose they did not have any other reaction mass left. I think it ...
Peter - Reinstate Monica's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
103 views

80's-90's book with an inter-generational ship, society in despair, mythical creatures appear and kidnap kids for a quest [duplicate]

Read this book in the 80’s or 90’s. Sci-fi fantasy set aboard a generational ship, people despair because life has no meaning. Suddenly mythical creatures start appearing and some children are ...
Colleen O'Brien's user avatar
11 votes
1 answer
325 views

Sci-fi book with a generational spaceship traveling the interstellar void

Spaceship is gigantic. Most of the passengers don’t even realize that it’s a spaceship and the Author describes the world in great - captivating - detail. The ship has forests, lakes and generally ...
Vyas Bharghava's user avatar
8 votes
1 answer
238 views

70’s or older novel about people who do not know the are in a generation ship [duplicate]

I read this novel in french translation at least 40 years ago, but I am positive it was a translation from english. The main character lives in a jungle of “poniques” (which are revealed at the end ...
Alfred's user avatar
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11 votes
1 answer
421 views

Generational Spaceship Designed to Explode at Destination

I'm looking for what I think was a short story, the style reminded me of Kim Stanley Robinson, but I couldn't find a match under his works. I think this was a fairly short story, that I read sometime ...
Jontia's user avatar
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13 votes
4 answers
2k views

Sci-Fi book where spider-like alien lives on the hull of a ship and configures his web to forecast space weather or the future?

I read a book about 11 years ago that was part of a larger series and I can't remember the name or author. I randomly picked it out of the Sci-Fi section in the library because I liked the cover and ...
Cesar4987's user avatar
  • 131
11 votes
1 answer
188 views

Looking for a Space Trilogy [duplicate]

I read this in the mid-1980's and so my memory is a bit sketchy. In the first book, there is some environmental disaster that's coming up, but the government doesn't want anyone know, so they put the ...
David Elm's user avatar
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-1 votes
1 answer
379 views

Are there any stories, movies or shows that depict a space journey that takes decades but not centuries? [closed]

I know there are sci fi books about generation ships but I'm curious if anyone has ever done a book, movie, or show about what might be considered an intermediate generation ship say for 30 to 50 ...
Brooks Nelson's user avatar
9 votes
0 answers
409 views

Story where a (child?) protagonist gradually explores lower decks of generation ship?

I can't remember the name or author of this generation ship short story, where the (child?) protagonist descends to progressively lower decks and encounters the various unfathomable technologies that ...
cemerick's user avatar
  • 191
31 votes
7 answers
8k views

Young man discovers his home "world" is a spaceship

I hoping for some help here, as Google isn't being useful... In my early teens I read a novel about a young man who is quite adventurous in his society and in climbing and adventuring into the off-...
acejavelin's user avatar
11 votes
1 answer
1k views

What is the title of a story with a little girl alone on a generation ship with a robot?

The story starts in a nursery of sorts, with a little girl. She lives in this room, with a window where she can see out into the stars. She has one friend, a robot, that takes care of her. She ...
Crystal Hill's user avatar
8 votes
1 answer
292 views

Please help identify sci fi novel for kids about a new earth colony ship that's disintegrating [duplicate]

I can remember these details: The ship is disintegrating because years ago it passed through a cloud containing organisms that are now eating through its hull Nobody is able to figure out how to get ...
sez11a's user avatar
  • 83
16 votes
1 answer
519 views

Children on a generation ship come to believe it's all a simulation

I've had a story dancing just out of reach of memory for some time now. I keep thinking Vernor Vinge "A Fire Upon the Deep", but the Tine's world had breathable atmosphere so I don't think it's it. ...
Scott ResistTHIS Hamilton's user avatar
9 votes
1 answer
181 views

SFF Short story anthology: girl named Willow restores planets, and unicorns create balance in the environment

Looking for the title of a short story and the anthology it appeared in. The one story it contained had a girl named Willow(?) on a generation ship and she was training to be a restorer (someone who ...
user3362964's user avatar
5 votes
1 answer
442 views

Living world ship short story

I read a short story years ago and would like to find it again. It was about a world ship of mysterious origin traveling for millions of years. There was a group of (presumably) humans living near the ...
posfan12's user avatar
  • 243
13 votes
1 answer
1k views

Short story about a generation ship designed to seed a planet with bacteria and kill the humans on board

The story goes that a ship of humans is designed and sent off into space as a last-ditch effort, heading towards a perfectly hospitable planet without any life on it, right before all life on Earth ...
user70495's user avatar
  • 141
13 votes
1 answer
449 views

First Story which Featured a Generational Ship where the Crew Have Forgotten

Is Heinlein's 1941 story Orphan's of the Sky the first instance of a generation ship where the current inhabitants have almost completely forgotten how to run the ship, and are mostly unaware of ...
Jonathon's user avatar
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33 votes
2 answers
3k views

Short story where humans on a colony ship from Earth are overtaken by advanced Earthlings?

I read this story some time around 2001-2005 or so. I believe I read it online, however it was certainly of the variety that could be found in an anthology. I don’t remember many details other than ...
user251563's user avatar
13 votes
1 answer
774 views

short story, generation ship, outside workers vs inside rich people

This is a short story or novella, not a whole novel. So there is this woman on a generation ship, in her luxurious quarters. Her boyfriend has just travelled somewhere -- the ship is huge, so ...
Daphne B's user avatar
  • 1,763
5 votes
1 answer
638 views

Novel about a long-haul generation ship

I am searching for the name of a novel I read as a teenager, back in the 1970;s or 1980's. It was about a generation ship which had two captains, one for the voyage out and one for the return, but ...
Judy G.'s user avatar
  • 87
12 votes
1 answer
953 views

Space Adventure / War Short Story Identification

I read a short story in an anthology a couple of years ago. I can’t remember the name of either but remember the details below: It was set on a gigantic colony / warship The reader is slowly ...
amp's user avatar
  • 281
8 votes
2 answers
450 views

Sci-Fi novel with generation ship, terrorists try to stop it

I am trying in vain to locate a book I read in 2001, I think it was older than that though. I can't remember a lot about it other than I enjoyed it. It dealt with a generation / ARC ship preparing to ...
Jaksmack's user avatar
7 votes
1 answer
257 views

Identify book - conflict between humans on sublight ship

I read the book in the last 5 years. My recollection is that it was written by one of the 2-tier masters of the Science Fiction genre. The book starts as the person title "Teacher" is decanted. The ...
Jim2B's user avatar
  • 5,596
4 votes
1 answer
316 views

1970s-1980s sci fi novel - Starts on a generation ship and proceeds to planet

The story starts on a generational ship about a boy looking for his father. He comes across a hint to a safety deposit box(?) and finds a laser gun/slide blaster(?) and proceeds to forest planet. I ...
Joshua Hess's user avatar
8 votes
1 answer
1k views

Story about suicidal breeding of aggressive next generation on generation ship

I am looking for a short story and anthology / anthologies containing it: A multi generation ship has landed on a planet with very hostile inhabitants on it. The aliens are chipping away at the hull ...
juvva's user avatar
  • 577
28 votes
2 answers
2k views

Novel set on a generational ship with a unique "chess"-like game

I read this novel in the mid- or late-90s; I think it may have been published in the 80s, but I can't be sure, I only know it was in paperback by the time I found it in a local used-books store. The ...
Kromey's user avatar
  • 5,676
10 votes
2 answers
2k views

Sublight Starship "passed" by FTL

I'm a huge fan of SF from the golden age of SF, so this could be a fairly old book. It was a story about a "generation" starship or sublight starship. I believe most of the story was about their ...
Just4Fun's user avatar
  • 417
4 votes
1 answer
602 views

Trying to track YA novel - virtual reality simulation aboard an interstellar generation ship

I'm trying to track down the title/author of a novel I read some time back. I read the novel sometime between 1998 and 2004; not sure when it was printed. The novel itself I originally found in the ...
user2051521's user avatar
18 votes
1 answer
2k views

Short story about generation ship leaving from Pluto

I read this story in an anthology and really liked it, but can't remember the name or author. What (I think) I remember: The story centers around a young man who lives in a mining colony on Pluto ...
Scott's user avatar
  • 189
10 votes
1 answer
493 views

Book (Possible Young Adult) Generation Ship Traveling to Heaven

I'm trying to track down my husband's favorite book as a teen/kid. It's about a Generation Ship with very utopian society. This colonial ship is traveling to try to reach 'heaven'; then there is a ...
Kim's user avatar
  • 101
19 votes
6 answers
1k views

Generational ship loses power/gravity in space, and inhabitants forget purpose of mission

I read this story maybe 15-20 years ago. It was about a massive spaceship on a voyage that would take many generations to reach their destination. Somehow the ship breaks down, losing power and ...
Rita Hartje's user avatar
10 votes
1 answer
700 views

Trying to find a novel about a multigenerational ship crossing space

Looking for a story I read years ago about a multigenerational ship traveling across space and about to cross a huge expanse of emptiness, in a nutshell part of the crew takes over the ship and forces ...
Papi's user avatar
  • 101
19 votes
1 answer
3k views

Has anyone read short story about a boy on a generation ship with an AI that is raising children?

In the early 90’s I read a short story about a boy (protagonist). I cannot remember his name (so let’s call him Adam) or his age, but I think he was about twelve years old. Adam was awoken by the ...
Mark Wilson's user avatar
13 votes
3 answers
2k views

Generation starship with kids raised by robots

There's a book I remember reading sometime around 1981 or 1982 about a colony/generation starship where kids were raised by robots who gave them something in their food that kept the kids from ...
Robert Uncapher's user avatar
11 votes
1 answer
522 views

generation spaceship with kids and rats

I am looking for a book for my son to read that I read when I was about his age. I cannot remember the name of it but I think it was a trilogy (or at least a book in three acts). I read it in the late ...
tai's user avatar
  • 111
19 votes
2 answers
2k views

What 70s (60s?) TV show / TV movie had a generation ship whose inhabitants did not know they were on a spaceship?

I have the vaguest memory of a TV show (maybe a BBC import?) in which the protagonists were moving through the sections of a massive generation ship whose inhabitants had forgotten that they were on a ...
Larry OBrien's user avatar
31 votes
2 answers
4k views

Name the book where the setting is a giant ship with a planet inside

Here's what I remember: Takes place in the future on a giant, bigger-than-a-planet spaceship found and now run by humans Humans are genetically altered and/or are enhanced with nanotechnology and ...
splattered bits's user avatar
6 votes
7 answers
3k views

Is there a novelization of Pandorum? [closed]

Is there a novelization of Pandorum? If not, did anyone else write about the inhabitants of a generation ship going feral?
MatthewMartin's user avatar