Last year I gave in to my baser instincts and started to pick up more generation ship books. It has always been a subgenre of interest, whether it’s a book or a TV show (yeah, I watched Ascension, judge all you want). The nature of the journey is a siren song paired with the rocks that are the follies of humanity. My appetite has only grown, so expect to see more reviews and deep dives into them in the future.
Nothing excites me more than well-designed worlds in which the characters have to meet the world on its own terms. Generation ships have such potential to capitalize on this, and when they do, their stories stick with me. The world people inhabit is a bottle surrounded by the vast dark. Their resources are limited, and they may have been born into a crumbling society and ship or been one of the first volunteers. Where the story takes place does not matter, but seeing the limitations of that situation force the characters to adapt to it or die trying, really lights up my brain.
So if you’re curious about diving in the subgenre that is the blatant microcosm of human society in a story, I’ve provided a list of three books that I feel are good starters. Consider these books to be the first generation on your voyage. As I rack up more on my belt, we’ll add successive generations. A temporal iceberg chart, if you will. So strap in; we’re going on an adventure.
And if you’re curious to learn more about each book, the reviews are linked to their titles!
So, you want a little taste of the magic that is the generation ship sub-genre, but you’re not quite ready to get into the weird stuff, then Braking Day is for you. Oyebanji’s new adult story follows Ravi MacLeod as he attempts to break his family’s curse of never entering the officer corps. The Archimedes is nearing its 100th year since leaving Earth behind and about to begin its braking maneuvers. This is complicated by the fact that Ravi sees a woman out in space not wearing a spacesuit.
Where the story truly shines, however, is Oyebanji’s attention to detailing the world within Archimedes. It is highly stratified with an economy based around access to water, whether it’s used to clean or hydrate. The geography of the ship feels historical as places have developed colloquial names that relate to their function, their position within the ship, or the types of people that gather there. It might spoil you if you decide to dive deeper into the genre from here, but it’s a great introduction with some excellent explorations without forcing answers to the moral quandaries it presents, something rare in books in general but even better for the age group it seems to target.
Aurora – Kim Stanley Robinson 
Aurora was my first KSR novel, and I think my first generation ship novel. It picks up in the last leg of the voyage as the ship nears the destination it has just spent nearly two centuries flying towards. Told from the perspective of the ship’s evolving AI, it mostly follows the chief engineer and her daughter as they prepare the ship to slow down and begin its research into a habitable planet. The ship is separated into several different biomes that each have their own cultures that are mixtures of various earth cultures tied to the lands they emulate and the space outside the ship. The opening portion of the book details the daughter’s coming-of-age journey as she ventures through the different biomes to understand what keeps the ship running and the various systems, both natural and artificial, that need to be balanced so it doesn’t fall apart.
Robinson is really good at setting up all the dominoes so that when they begin to fall, it’s a material reality that the characters have to deal with. Aurora touches on many different complex subjects such as the distinction between the artificial and the natural, genetic bottlenecks, the dangers of colonizing a planet not meant for human life, and the political tensions that rise from reality not meeting expectations. It’s all conveyed through an interesting lens as the AI starts out simply and grows more complex as it learns to understand and attempt to help the humans solve the problems they encounter. It’s the book that spawned my curiosity for the sub-genre and remains a personal touchpoint for science fiction as it encounters the natural world.
This is an older novel, but it still packs quite a wallop. The Astron has been swimming through the stars for over 100 generations. There are two things that remain unchanged since the Astron’s launch, its mission and its immortal captain, Michael Kusaka. His mission is to search the galaxy for any form of alien life, and after 100 generations, he has still found nothing. The people under his purview have come and gone. The culture has changed over the centuries, resembling nothing of the original inhabitants. A man named Sparrow wakes up from a coma after an accident exploring a planet. He has questions, and both the crew and the captain have different answers.
The Dark Beyond the Stars was a real treat when I picked it up. There is a sense of scale and time that a lot of generation ships fail to capture. The characters all feel like they belong in the ship and have made it their home. The mission is tantalizing in its search but bleak in its statistics. Robinson really pays attention to the fact that in order for such a mission to go on for as long as it has, resources need to be gathered from visited planets and preparations made for each leg of the mission. The stakes are also set pretty high as the captain of the ship wants to make a harrowing journey across a section of the vast black that could take over 100 years, and he might be the only one to survive it. The book is filled with mystery, political intrigue, and good old hard science, creating an experience you won’t forget.
Don’t worry, if you are craving more I plan to spend time cultivating similar lists to help you on your voyage. But if you want to jump ahead and get into some of the stuff that’s a little weirder, here are a few more books that could make the second generation.
The Freeze Frame Revolution by Peter Watts
Noumenon by Marina J. Lostetter
The World Gives Way by Marissa Levien