56
votes
Accepted
Colonists kill local creature, only to discover they were killing off immature monsters
If the monsters live in water and use a short-term metabolism boot to power their rampages, then it would be the 1987 Niven, Pournelle, Barnes collaboration The Legacy of Heorot.
There is a sequel ...
47
votes
Accepted
Young man discovers his home "world" is a spaceship
It's not an uncommon concept, and there are many stories that may fit it, but the simplest possibility that leaps to mind (being one of the earliest depictions of a generation ship) is Heinlein's ...
- 58.6k
30
votes
Looking for a 70s movie with a generation ship that had farming modules
I think this might be Silent Running. It's not quite the same (i.e. no Simon and Garfunkel)
In the future, all plant life on Earth has become extinct. A few specimens have been preserved in ...
- 50.8k
28
votes
Accepted
Old sci fi short story about weird acting rulers in a decrepit outpost and a lone bounty hunter that uncovers the truth, they are controlled by fungi
This sounds very like "Planet of the Damned" by Harry Harrison. This was published in Analog in 1961/62, as well as in book form. Read for free at Gutenberg.org.
In this story, Brion Brandd ...
- 4,422
27
votes
Accepted
Story where humans use aliens as machinery
This is "The Last Castle" by Jack Vance.
It features the engineered species utilized by the humans, which are fed on syrup in sacs.
Some features you have mis-remembered, not all of the ...
- 49.6k
25
votes
Colonization ship arrives to the planet to find it already colonized by a faster ship built after they departed
There are several such stories. The two I could trace (I vaguely remember two others, I think from the '70-'80s - one I'm almost sure was in a Gardner Dozois anthology):
Far Centaurus by A. E. Van ...
- 9,200
24
votes
Accepted
Ship's captain wakes colonist, turns out to be a convict working his sentence as a brain in a jar
This would be The Fiend by Frederik Pohl.
The plot is more or less exactly as you describe it. Dandish, the captain and sole crewmember of a nameless starship carrying 700 frozen colonists, has spent ...
- 356
23
votes
Accepted
Military commander tries to sabotage nascent asteroid belt colony
This is "Industrial Revolution" by Winston P. Sanders (a pseudonym of Poul Anderson.) It appeared in thee September 1963 Analog (one of the large-size issues). It seems to be a good match ...
- 39.6k
21
votes
Colonists kill local creature, only to discover they were killing off immature monsters
I think this is the first book in the Herot series by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Steven Barnes, as mentioned in the comments by Seeds.
Here is a link to the plot The Legacy of Herot
- 5,764
21
votes
Accepted
Short story about alien creatures fleeing their home planet to terraform another
This sounds very much like "The Keys to December", a short story by Roger Zelazny.
The alien race are genetically engineered humans that resemble ocelots. The protagonist, Jarry (so, close ...
- 60.3k
21
votes
Accepted
Brain ship decides to restart the human race
"Mr. Spaceship" by Philip K. Dick
The story is set in the distant future, where humanity is at war with "Yuks", an alien life form which does not use mechanical spaceships nor ...
- 213k
20
votes
Short story about a generation ship designed to seed a planet with bacteria and kill the humans on board
"The Dirt On Our Shoes"
"The Dirt On Our Shoes" by Neal Shusterman was first published in Guys Read: Other Worlds, an anthology of science fiction stories published with the aim of getting boys ...
- 114k
20
votes
Accepted
Story on a planet with very long seasons from the 80s or earlier
George RR Martin "Bitterblooms"
It's part of his Thousand Worlds series. You have described it very well (after a re-read, noted that protagonist was female).
I remember reading it in the ...
- 49.6k
19
votes
Accepted
Story with a colonization ship that awakens embryos too early
I remembered wrong about the author and how old the story was. Sorry about that.
I found it and it's "Half Way Home" by Hugh Howey.
A summary here :
The expense of sending generations of ...
- 571
17
votes
Young man discovers his home "world" is a spaceship
It could also be Phoenix Without Ashes by Harlan Ellison and Edward Bryant, the basis for the ill-fated TV show The Starlost. It was published in 1975.
They had banished Devon from the world of ...
- 61.5k
17
votes
Accepted
A novel where contract breach is worse than femicide, from the 70’s or earlier
Of course this is The Space Merchants by Pohl and Kornbluth:
"Please, later ... I'm wanted for femicide and CB on Earth. Here I'm a suspicious character without clearance. Also I resisted arrest,...
- 6,637
16
votes
Accepted
Looking for title about a ship that seeds planets and then monitors them
This reminded me immediately of a book my son told me about, John Brunner's "A Maze of Stars". I haven't read it myself but online reviews do sound like it might be it:
A slow but ...
- 49.6k
16
votes
Accepted
Science Fiction Book - lost colony from Earth where education and intelligence are a form of currency
You may be thinking of Voyage from Yesteryear, by James P. Hogan. Plot summary, per Wikipedia:
The story opens early in the 21st century, as an automated space probe is being prepared for a mission ...
- 7,620
16
votes
Accepted
Book: Crash landed Colony ship, when night falls something makes colonists feral
From the sparse details it sounds vaguely like Darkover Landfall by Marion Zimmer Bradley.
A colony ship goes off course and crashes on an unknown planet. There is some sort of hallucinogenic pollen ...
- 14.4k
16
votes
Accepted
Book series with a double planet system and poisonous bubbles that float around
The Ragged Astronauts (1986) - part one of the Land and Overland trilogy by Bob Shaw.
From Google Books:
The first in a three-book series, The Ragged Astronauts introduces the twin worlds of Land ...
- 2,944
16
votes
Science fiction book about a generation ship sent to seed or colonize a planet
From your short description, it could be "Voyage from Yesteryear" by James P. Hogan.
World War III is about to break out, so a planned automated probe to be sent to Alpha Centauri is modified to ...
- 16.6k
16
votes
Accepted
Looking for a coffee table book with speculative essay by Isaac Asimov about asteroid settlements dispersing slowly through the universe
This sounds very much like Asimov's essay There's No Place Like Spome, where "spome" is a portmanteau word between "space and "home".
The essay dealt with how a race can ...
- 60.3k
15
votes
Accepted
Seeking a pair of stories about an idealist who discovers that winning a revolution doesn't change the stark economic facts
Sounds like "The Right to Revolt" and "The Right to Resist", short stories by Keith Laumer; first published (together) in If, May-June 1971, which is available at the Internet ...
- 157k
15
votes
Accepted
Linked novellas where humans are engineered to adapt to a variety of environments
I'm pretty sure that the "core" story was Surface Tension by James Blish.
I don't have the "expanded version" to refer to, but the core story was published in 1952. The story "Surface Tension" ...
- 9,189
15
votes
Trilogy in the 80’s about space travel to another world
This is presumably the Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson, published over the years from 1992 to 1996. It fits the general description, with thick novels, mostly read in ...
- 94.8k
15
votes
Accepted
Novel with a modified space shuttle seeding a colony on another planet
Could be Titan by Stephen Baxter
Plot summary
The dream begins with a disaster. Given the task of dismantling NASA's
aging shuttle program after a horrifying re-entry crash, Paula
Benecerraf comes ...
- 11.5k
14
votes
Accepted
Short story as a letter to original colonisers of earth
It's "Reunion", by Arthur C. Clarke.
It's a message from the descendants of the original colonisers of planet Earth.
People of Earth, do not be afraid. We come in peace — and why not? For ...
- 38.1k
14
votes
Young man discovers his home "world" is a spaceship
While you've already accepted an answer, Damon Knight's The World and Thorinn also fits (and is an obscure favorite of mine).
It follows a young boy named Thorinn, raised by what are essentially ...
- 213k
14
votes
Accepted
Young adult science fiction book about unique children born on a new colony
This sounds like Sunwaifs, a novel by Sydney J. Van Scyoc from 1981, which deals with the colonization of a planet called "Destiny".
From a summary on Goodreads:
Nadd is our first narrator ...
- 60.3k
13
votes
Accepted
Short sci-fi story about Earth blockaded by other human colonies
"Mother Earth" by Isaac Asimov, first published in Astounding Science Fiction, May 1949, available at the Internet Archive. Here is a plot summary from Wikipedia (emphasis added):
Earth ...
- 157k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible