/lit/ - Literature

>>21868369
Huh, I remember I read one such sci-fi as a kid, it was called Non-Stop. A story about people living in SHIP, even though all the surroundings were a green semi-jungle that could be eaten for food.

I don't remember the exact details, but the story followed a few people that traversed the ship for whatever reason, seeing what it contained. One particular scene embedded itself in my memory: two men stand on a shore of an artificial lake that's actually a water repository for the ship, the body of water is so large you can't see the next end. Then, one of the men calls this view 'beautiful.' This shocks the other man, as 'beautiful' is something you use to call a woman sexualy attractive, yet after a second of thought he decides no other word can encompass what they are seeing. Old sci-fi Kino, truly.

The plot-twist at the end was that the stories they heard throughout traversing the ship didn't corespond to reality (supposed rumbling of the engines, humming of the warp, etc.) because the ship actually finished its journey few generations ago and had returned to Earth, but the virus encountered on the supposed colony planet mutated the passangers, turning them into fast-living species that normal humans considered downright non-human, thus they just left the ship to orbit the planet, conflicted what to do about it, in the meanwhile sending their agents to keep touch on what's what on the ship.

I don't remember what became of the characters at the end, but they weren't the point of the story, only a showcase what the remnants of the colonists turned to.