Rendezvous with Rama is a 1973 science fiction novel by British writer Arthur C. Clarke. Set in the 2130s, the story involves a 50-by-20-kilometre (31-by-12-mile) cylindrical alien starship that enters the Solar System. The story is told from the point of view of a group of human explorers who intercept the ship in an attempt to unlock its mysteries. The novel won both the Hugo and Nebula awards upon its release, and is regarded as one of the cornerstones in Clarke's bibliography. The concept was later extended with several sequels, written by Clarke and Gentry Lee.
Stephen Baxter is an English hard science fiction author. He has degrees in mathematics and engineering.
A generation ship, generation starship or world ship, is a hypothetical type of interstellar ark starship that travels at sub-light speed. Since such a ship might require hundreds to thousands of years to reach nearby stars, the original occupants of a generation ship would grow old and die, leaving their descendants to continue traveling.
The Heechee Saga, also known as the Gateway series, is a series of science fiction novels and short stories by Frederik Pohl. The Heechee are an advanced alien race that visited the Solar System hundreds of millennia ago and then mysteriously disappeared. They left behind bases containing artifacts, including working starships, which are discovered and exploited by humanity.
A sleeper ship is a hypothetical type of crewed spacecraft, or starship in which most or all of the crew spend the journey in some form of hibernation or suspended animation. The only known technology that allows long-term suspended animation of humans is the freezing of early-stage human embryos through embryo cryopreservation, which is behind the concept of embryo space colonization.
The concept of self-replicating spacecraft, as envisioned by mathematician John von Neumann, has been described by futurists and has been discussed across a wide breadth of hard science fiction novels and stories. Self-replicating probes are sometimes referred to as von Neumann probes. Self-replicating spacecraft would in some ways either mimic or echo the features of living organisms or viruses.
The Songs of Distant Earth is a 1986 science fiction novel by British writer Arthur C. Clarke, based upon his 1958 short story of the same title. Of all of his novels, Clarke stated that this was his favourite. Prior to the publishing of the novel, Clarke also wrote a short step outline with the same title, published in Omni magazine and anthologised in The Sentinel in 1983.
Lords of the Starship is a 1967 science fiction novel by American author Mark S. Geston. His debut work, it was written while he was a sophomore at Kenyon College. It was originally published in paperback by Ace Books, then reprinted for the British market in hardcover by Michael Joseph in 1971 and in paperback by Sphere Books a year later. Gregg Press published an archival edition in 1978 ; and Baen Books included it in its 2009 omnibus of Geston's early novels, The Books of the Wars.
"Unnatural Selection" is the seventh episode of the second season of the American science fiction television series Star Trek: The Next Generation, the 33rd episode overall. It was first broadcast on January 30, 1989. It was written by John Mason and Mike Gray, and directed by Paul Lynch.
Shadows in Flight is a science fiction novella by American writer Orson Scott Card. When released in 2012, it became the twelfth book published in the Ender's Game series. The story follows on from where the original four "Shadow series" books left off. It is about Bean and his children discovering an ancient Formic "ark" during their journey in space. It was released in January of 2012. It was nominated for the Goodreads Choice Award for science fiction.
The Alliance–Union universe is a fictional universe created by American writer C. J. Cherryh. It is the setting for a future history series extending from the 21st century into the far future.
Lovelock is a 1994 science fiction novel by American writers Orson Scott Card and Kathryn H. Kidd. The novel's eponymous narrator, a sentient monkey, takes his name from James Lovelock, the scientist-inventor who formulated the Gaia hypothesis, which figures heavily in the book.
The Giants series is a quintet of science fiction novels by James P. Hogan, published between 1977 and 2005.
Adrian Czajkowski is a British fantasy and science fiction author. He is best known for his series Shadows of the Apt, and for his Hugo Award-winning Children of Time series.
Seveneves is a science fiction novel by Neal Stephenson published in 2015. The story tells of the desperate efforts to preserve Homo sapiens in the wake of apocalyptic events on Earth after the unexplained disintegration of the Moon and the remaking of human society as a space-based civilization after a severe genetic bottleneck.
Clarke Griffin is a fictional character from the post-apocalyptic young adult science fiction novel series The 100 by Kass Morgan, and the television series of the same name on The CW. She is the lead character in both the novels and the television series, where she is portrayed by Eliza Taylor. She first appears in Morgan's first novel, The 100, and in the pilot episode of the television series, as a prisoner on a space colony charged with treason. Clarke was one of the original hundred delinquents sent down to Earth to test if it was habitable after a nuclear apocalypse destroyed it almost a century prior. She becomes a leader of her people, who come into conflict with other surviving groups.
Children of Ruin is a 2019 science fiction novel by British author Adrian Tchaikovsky, the second in his Children of Time series. The novel was well received, winning the 2019 BSFA Award for Best Novel.
