Book Review — Generation Ship by Adam Carpenter

‘Generation Ship’ is a full length novel from Adam Carpenter, that continues the stories of the crew about the Tulyar, whom we last met in Murder Planet.

Sunita Kumar and the crew of Tulyar are tasked with making contact with a ‘Generation Ship’, a long lost colony vessel that set out from Earth about 500 years prior. But, it looks like this ship is not listed in the official list on Earth. So who or what could be on-board? The rest of the story is devoted to the repercussions of making contact with the survivors on board.

In my review of ‘Murder Planet’, I praised its writing, pacing and memorable characters — of whom Sunita Kumar stand outs. These qualities can also be found in ‘Generation Ship’. But where ‘Murder Planet’ had a frenetic pacing and a quick glimpse of the world and characters, this time we get to experience the story at a slightly more sedate pace while also spending more time with the characters. There is also enough time to discover some of the history and back-story of the human space-farers. In fact, this history provides a lot of context for the progression of the story.

The story takes a lot of cues from current events like the resurgence of supremacism in this century, and modifies it for the science fiction setting in Generation Ship. The contrast between “old-school” racism and enlightened thought is stark. But the author doesn’t stop with a utopia-like future society but rather, he shows that humans continue to be human i.e. there are still quite a few closet xenophobic and racist believers.

But while this social commentary is presented well, this brings up one of the two minor issues I have with the story. Well, not really issues but more like unusual choices the author has made. The first is this focus on the supremacist movement since it is far less action heavy than Murder Planet, and makes for an ‘easy to hate’ villain. It is a change of pace and I hope future books in the series will have a bit more action as well. The second is how the story changes its focus in the middle of the story. While this is certainly an interesting twist, the story changes tone towards the middle.

Generation Ship is not an extended Murder Planet. The story feels more like the first story to set-up a universe like The Expanse, with a lot of compelling characters, complex world-building and a lived-in kind of universe.

I look forward to the next book to see where Sunita & the crew of The Tulyar go in their adventures.