Recommend a book about other world colonisation?

[tears_in_rain]

Hello, I'm new to the forum .

I'm looking for any sci-fi books (or other fictional works) about the Earth becoming uninhabitable and people being sent into space to colonise other worlds. Sort of like 'space arks'.

Can you recommend any?

[Hobbit]

Hi tears.

The obvious one to me is Stephen Baxter's Flood and Ark

Might just fit the bill.

Mark

[tears_in_rain]

Thanks Mark, I will check those out.

Any more recommendations very welcome - it's a theme I'm most interested in.

Rain x

[psikeyhackr]

Rite of Passage by Alexei Panshin

Somewhat post colonization.
http://www.sffworld.com/book/1748.html

psik

[tears_in_rain]

Rite of Passage by Alexei Panshin

Somewhat post colonization.

psik

Sounds an interesting read.

[Werthead]

For the colonisation angle, Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy is well worth a look, though it doesn't have the ark stuff. Earth becoming uninhabitable, or at least severely damaged by environmental disasters, is a major subplot as it sparks mass-migrations to Mars.

Peter F. Hamilton's Night's Dawn Trilogy has this element as the backdrop to the setting, though the trilogy itself is set long after, when Earth is inhabitable again thanks to massive arcology cities that are shielded against the hostile elements.

Brian Aldiss' Non-Stop is a classic SF novel, about the inhabitants of a space ark who've forgotten they live on an ark and discover the truth of their world and what happened to Earth originally.

Gene Wolfe has also written two interlinked series on this theme: The Book of the Long Sun is set on an ark as it takes generations to reach its destination, whilst The Book of the Short Sun is about what happens when the ark arrives at its destination.

[Pennarin]

Arthur C. Clarke's The Songs of Distant Earth, 1987, found in any public library.

Prior to the destruction of the Earth in a nova 1,500 years from now, seedships were sent to the stars so humanity could live on. An early seedship birthed a small, Eden-like civilization on a planet called Thalassa.
Now, hundreds of years after this society achieved near perfection, another seedship has arrived. And it is carrying people who have come directly from the now destroyed Earth.

[krisbslick]

I feel like this is a common concept in some movies I've seen, but I haven't read many books like that. I'd be interested in trying some of these out as well.

[psikeyhackr]

Voyage from Yesteryear by James P. Hogan
http://www.webscription.net/chapters...0671577980.htm

It is more about the second ship coming to the colony world and only a little of the colonization is told in flashback.

psik

[tears_in_rain]

Thanks everyone, looking forward to reading these. Keep 'em coming!

[Loerwyn]

Not sure it's exactly what you're looking for, but Elizabeth Moon's Remnant Population might be worth a look. It's set at a time when a colony is about to disband, but it is quite interesting.

[Rob B]

You may find this thread helpful, most recently discussed about a month ago:

Books about colonizing our solar system?

Though not specifically about colonization, the following thread does mention books that entail colonization:

Hard Science Fiction About Space Exploration

A recent novel that handled the subject very well was John Scalzi's The Last Colony.

Some other good recommendations in this thread already: Clarke's Songs of a Distant Earth and Gene Wolfe's Long Sun and Short Sun books.

[offog]

I've enjoyed Allen Steele's Coyote series. Near future setting on a gas giant satellite called Coyote that took a couple hundred years to reach. One of the best parts in the whole series is in the first book on the journey to the planet with a single character. To tell you any more than that would be giving away too much. Most of the focus of the series is on establishing a new society and less so about the alien planet and its flora and fauna (although they aren't neglected, just secondary). It's mostly a pretty low-tech civilization once they begin to settle on the planet.

I would second Flood and Ark by Stepen Baxter as well, although only the second book deals with colonizing new planets. Again, the journey in Ark is as interesting as anything in the series. Really good couple of books though.

[tears_in_rain]

Awesome! I'm really fascinated by this idea and looking forward to really getting into some reading on it.

[Omphalos]

When I was younger I loved The Legacy of Heorot, by Niven and Pournelle.

Not sure I would categorize any post-colonial book in the colonization column. The motivating ideas behind those two themes are very different, as are the contexts of the stories (usually). I think of Rite of Passage more as a coming of age/generational starship book, though there are post colonial attitudes in it. Its more like Macrolife by Zebrowski than Legacy.

Here are some colonization books from my website, listed by date:

http://www.omphalosbookreviews.com/i...+of+these+tags