GENERATION SHIP

The spaceship Voyager (no, not that one) faces threats from within and without as it finally nears its destination.

After 253 years, the titular ship is approaching the planet Promissa, but most of the probes seeking information about this potential home go offline before they can report back. Is something—or someone—interfering with the ship’s research? And the news that their goal is imminent catalyzes a growing unrest in the ship’s population, who chafe at the rigid strictures of the ship’s charter, which effectively locks an individual into the same work division until they submit to mandatory recycling at age 75. The autocratic governor; an overzealous cop; a farmer turned unwillingly into opposition leader; a scientist excited and worried by the limited data they’re receiving from Promissa; and a young hacker with an uncanny ability to infiltrate the ship’s systems all play roles in determining the future of Voyager’s inhabitants even as politics and competing ambitions threaten to bungle the colonization process. SF has produced many stories suggesting that the centuries-long mission of a ship traveling from Earth to a new home is unlikely to meet with success. Mammay primarily addresses the conflicts among the ship's inhabitants; while emphasizing that human frailty may overcome good intentions and careful research, this choice also means that some of the intriguing aspects of landing on the new planet don’t get all the attention they deserve. As a result, the pacing feels a bit distorted: a slow burn and then a rush to climax. That focus also highlights the implausibility of the societal organization on the ship. Determining a person’s job at an early age and not allowing them to switch, with all major decisions made primarily by the governor and the captain and then by division directors, is not a viable structure for a journey that takes generations. The absence of representative democracy means that corruption and stagnancy are bound to occur; it’s shocking that this kind of upheaval didn’t happen considerably earlier in the voyage. It might be interesting to contrast this work with Kim Stanley Robinson’s Aurora (2015), a more accomplished generation-ship novel in which the ship lacked a clear leader and ran into its own problems.

An entertaining read that doesn’t add anything fresh to the slow-ships-to-the-stars-are-doomed canon.