Non-Stop
by Brian W. Aldiss · first published 1958
71% recommend29% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Sci-fi novel about a generational starship whose inhabitants have forgotten they are aboard. Readers praise its slow-building twist and late reveal of the setting, and recommend it to fans of classic science fiction.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
Roy Complain lives in a culturally-primitive tribe in which curiosity is discouraged and life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short. With a small group, he leaves his home and ventures into uncharted territory. The consequent discoveries will change his perception of the entire universe. Complain's small tribe roam nomadically through corridors overrun by vegetation. After his wife is kidnapped, a tribal priest named Marapper encourages Complain to join a furtive expedition into the unexplored corridors. It is Marapper's belief that they are all living on board a moving spacecraft and
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Roma Æterna - Robert Silverberg The Happiness Hypothesis - Jonathan Haidt Alamut - Vladimir Bartol Non Stop - Brian Aldiss A fortune teller told me - Tiziano Terzani
on “Ask HN: What are the best books you've read that few others have?” ↗Also check out the book (not the movie) "Non-stop" by Brian Aldiss. The first 2/3 of the book is meh - uninteresting characters, motivations, a bit above average setting. Then it really takes off and you see the writer hasn't been wasting your time.…
on “Jonathan Blow – Preventing the Collapse of Civilization” ↗Don't know that book, but do read Non-Stop by Brian Aldiss. The Wikipedia article contains spoilers.
on “Man wakes up after night on sleeper train to find it never left Glasgow” ↗If you haven't read Non-Stop by Brian Aldiss, I strongly recommend it.
on “Seedship – Text-Based Game” ↗> guess it would depend on the ship After 72 generations on a ship, it’s possible the occupants won’t even know they are on a ship (fictionalized by Brian Aldiss in the excellent book “Non-Stop”). And if they know they’re on a ship, why would they leave? After all, it is home and will have been for ages.
on “An approximation to determine the source of the WOW! Signal” ↗…point. The near future must look far more vivid to the current crop of SF writers than it did to Aldiss's generation, and no wonder since VR, social media, and robotics are so much more advanced. Even Non-Stop, which took place in one relatively short narrative timeframe, I'd put further into the future than, say The Martian or any Stephenson novel... would be intensely curious to know of modern SF that ponders…
on “Brian Aldiss has died” ↗Generation ship is a trope with countless examples, no single one. It's practically a vocabulary word like 'space ship'. I would have said Brian W. Aldiss 'Non-Stop' or Ben Bova 'The Exiles' or Harlan Ellison 'The Starlost', but only because they just happen to be some of the examples I happen to have encountered and found particularly memorable. I've probably read…
on “The Generation Ship Model of Software Development (2014)” ↗