Generation Ship
Ratings12
Average rating3.5
15
Ratings12
Average rating3.5
In this riveting, stand-alone novel from Michael Mammay, author of Planetside, the beginning of a new human colony must face tyrannical leaders, revolution, crippling instability, and an unknown alien planet that could easily destroy them all. In 2108, Colony Ship Voyager departed Earth for the planet of Promissa with 18,000 of the world’s best and brightest on board. 250 years and 27 light years later, an arrival is imminent. But all is not well. The probes that they’ve sent ahead to gather the data needed to establish any kind of settlement aren’t responding, and the information they have received has presented more questions than answers. It’s a time when the entire crew should be coming together to solve the problem, but science officer Sheila Jackson can’t get people to listen. With the finish line in sight, a group of crewmembers want an end to the draconian rules that their forebearers put in place generations before. However, security force officer Mark Rector and his department have different plans. As alliances form and fall, Governor Jared Pantel sees only one way to bring Voyager’s citizens together and secure his own power: a full-scale colonization effort. Yet, he may have underestimated the passion of those working for the other side... Meanwhile, a harsh alien planet awaits that might have its own ideas about being colonized. A battle for control brews, and victory for one group could mean death for them all.
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Contains spoilers
not for me. By the end of a long read, everyone was pretty much where they started and had little to no growth as people.
There was zero payoff.
Book Review - An engaging variant of a classic trope.
Generation Ship by Michael Mammay
This is a well-done reworking of a classic science fiction trope. The nice thing about the book is that it doesn't settle for the usual approach but offers something different than what I've seen in other books of this sub-genre.
The generation ship has been traveling to the planet Promissa for 300 years. It is about three months from arriving in the Promissa system. The preliminary indications are looking good. The atmosphere of the planet is perfect for human life. However, there is a pesky problem that none of the orbits can land on the planet.
However, this mystery is put on the back burner as people realize that it is no longer necessary to cap the population at 18,000 by liquidating people on their 75th birthday. The political pressure of near success is causing the human social system to become disordered.
The story is novel because of these two factors. Most generation ship stories occur mid-flight, when the passengers of the ship have lost all sense of what they are doing. Often, they don't even know that they are on a ship. Robert Heinlein's Orphans of the Sky is the classic and model of the genre. In orphans, the population is divided into crew and “muties” - short for mutineers. No one remembers that they are on a generation ship. The discovery that they are about to collide with the sun they have been aiming for moves the story.
In this book, the political issues about demanding relief from a necessarily oppressive social system and the need to keep things together until the mission is truly complete move the story. The book follows a half dozen characters on the various sides of the controversy. By and large, all of the characters are empathetic, even though they are opposed to each other, and even though some, like the governor, are extremely manipulative.
The author, Michael Mammay, asks what it would be like if people reached their goals after so long.
The actual completion of the mission is an anti-climax. It turns out that there is a reason for the problem with the probes, and it changes everything about the possibility of colonization of the planet. I found the author's resolution to be unsatisfying, although under the circumstances, it may have been the only course open. I find it hard to believe that people would give up the dream of their fathers quite so easily.
Nonetheless, apart from that, the idea of showing us the end of a generations-long mission from the perspective of people living through the last months of the project is a great idea. Mammay's writing is solid, and, as I've said, the characters were well drawn.
Look, I wasn't NOT going to read a book called GENERATION SHIP when I spend half my life telling people that's one of my favorite tropes/settings/etc. I was always going to like this. Was it perfect? No. Did I enjoy my time and keep wanting to read because I'm just a simple woman? Yes. I'd say this was maybe a little long and occasionally suffered a TINY bit from the “set on a spaceship but you forget they're in space” issue that a lot of generation ship stories run into. It never lasted too long though, and the political intrigue abounded. I'm so happy this wasn't one of those generation ship books where they never reach the planet and instead turn around to go back to Earth while still in our solar system. Authors are doing that too much lately. I want to see the planet you spend the whole book telling us about!!! Thank you Michael Mammay for delivering on that promise.
Michael Mammay gives a nice take on the generation ship concept. Unlike in many generation ship stories, the crew have not degenerated to savagery and forgotten their origins. They have kept their skills and technological knowhow. They know who they are, what they are doing, and why they are doing it. However, over the generations ship society has ossified, and the upcoming arrival in the target system is shaking things up. And well ... people will be people, you know.
Good SF. Solid 4 stars.
