Starborne

Robert Silverberg

A few centuries from now humans have overcome war, violence, less than century life spans, diseases, and other ills we have currently. While peaceful, mankind is slowly dying. People are not replenishing themselves, nor are they challenging themselves. They recognize that they need to spread out once again, but not at the loss of their current peaceful existance. A way is discovered to travel through nospace, to go faster than light to discover and populate new planets.

This book opens on board the Wotan when it is 16 light years away from Earth and getting further away continuously. There are twenty-five men and twenty-five women, plus frozen embryos on board. These intrepid explorers are looking for a new home for humankind. Yet they are able to keep their connection to Earth through the telepathic communication of twin sisters, one on the Wotan and one back on Earth. This is the story of what they discover in the vast universe.

This book pulled me in immediately in the first chapter. Unfortunately, it then fell off, and I lost interest as they kept travelling and it discussed relationships in the future. We have a few chapters of philosophy of how men and women interactions will change that does not build the characters much. This book spends part of its time looking at the relationships and part of the time being a novel of space exploration. It does not want to decide which way to go. When they explored their first planet I was drawn in again and the book held my attention better after that. I liked the conclusion - intriguing possibilities are offered.

Robert Silverberg is an author not to be missed. While this book is not outstanding, but is not a waste of time, either. You can find probably find this book at your library. It currently is out of print.

Nightfall by Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg