more about STL

Alastair Reynolds03 May 1999, 08:15original

mantis:

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Or, back onto the original topic: how many novels or series of novels are entirely stl, with only generation starships, no ftl communication of any kind, no NAFAL, and no sleeper ships?

Linda Nagata's recent novel Vast, (which I thought was terrific) has ships limited to 0.4 c (so only marginal relativistic effects) and no ftl communications. As the immortal crew can be copied in and out of computer storage at whim (and can grow new bodies for themselves equally easily) it doesn't fall into either "sleeper" or "generation starship" category. Robert Reed has been doing some interesting stories recently, set aboard a gigantic, slow-moving ship larger than Jupiter (eg "Marrow"). Al *This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun.

Michael Straight03 May 1999, 08:43original

↳ follows, by subject match Alastair Reynolds

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On Fri, 30 Apr 1999, Michael Andre-Driussi wrote: True, the Niven slowships probably weren't even generational--they were at least partly sleeper ships. (But part of what I'm looking at goes like this: if ships are limited to stl, then colonized worlds are isolated enough that they can deviate from plan and NASA HQ can't do much about it for decades or longer.

Vernor Vinge's new book "A Deepness in the Sky" is partly about the issue of whether you can have a cohesive interstellar empire with stl sleeper ramships. And it's a great book. -Rostrum *This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun.

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