People are people and they will do what people will do — but would a change in circumstance and environment change that, for better… or worse? This is the question Michael Mammay confronts in the Big Idea for his novel Generation Ship.
MICHAEL MAMMAY:
I’ve had the idea for Generation Ship since 2018 when I was at Launch Pad (sponsored by SFWA) studying space with some college professors. Most notable of those was the class we had on telescopes, which led me to the realization that in a hundred years, telescope technology might be such that we could know a lot more about planets around distant stars.
But I wasn’t ready to write the book at the time. I didn’t have the skill set to bring it together the way I wanted. And while the premise of the book—a generation ship that left earth 250 years ago reaching its destination planet—didn’t change, the big idea for it did.
There’s this myth that most of us probably used to believe that if we as a society ever faced something truly life-altering, that we’d come together and form a united front to deal with it. You see it in a lot of SF movies. Take Independence Day, for example. We all get together and fight the evil aliens.
I think it’s safe to say that the last decade has put the lie to that myth…
Generation Ship: Amazon|Barnes & Noble|Bookshop|E Shaver Books
Read more at: The Big Idea: Michael Mammay
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