Starship

Brian W. Aldiss

Language: English

Published: Feb 1, 1985

Description:

A generation ship!  Science run amok!  A brilliant work from the late 50s which must be read!  Brian Aldiss’ Non-Stop (published in the U.S. as Starship) is a relentlessly dark science fiction novel written in response to Robert Heinlein’s revolutionary yet ultimately unsatisfying Orphans of the Sky. 
Although I’ll read anything with a generation ship, I was completely blown away by Aldiss’ first novel.  Seldom have I come across anything written in the 50s so dark — a ship filled with strangely disfigured men, oppressive hallways choked by layers of hydroponic plants, slowly moving primitive tribes who kill their mutated children, regimented rats with their caged partially telepathic animals, disturbing religions spawned from the tenants of various psychiatrists (Freud and the like), giants scurrying undetected along various hallways and passages stealing children… A nightmare.