An interstellar ark is a conceptual space vehicle that some have speculated could be used for interstellar travel. These are sometimes referred to as "generation ships", with the intent of crossing interstellar space with the goal of colonization.
1

by
4.12 avg rating — 183,595 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
2

by
4.30 avg rating — 172,535 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
3

by
3.78 avg rating — 27,717 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
4

by
3.40 avg rating — 6,671 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
5

by
3.77 avg rating — 119,341 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
6

by
3.94 avg rating — 128,680 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
7

by
3.89 avg rating — 7,601 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
8

by
4.13 avg rating — 27,555 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
9

by
3.74 avg rating — 5,319 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
10

by
3.79 avg rating — 11,827 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
11

by
4.03 avg rating — 1,044 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
12

by
4.27 avg rating — 122,579 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
13

by
3.92 avg rating — 17,573 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
14

by
3.92 avg rating — 6,681 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
14

by
3.82 avg rating — 25,087 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
16

by
really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 124,760 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
17

by
3.91 avg rating — 17,045 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
18

by
3.83 avg rating — 16,949 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
19

by
4.01 avg rating — 21,206 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
20

by
3.66 avg rating — 2,384 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
21

by
3.64 avg rating — 343 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
22

by
3.82 avg rating — 14,115 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
23

by
4.01 avg rating — 55,106 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
24

by
3.93 avg rating — 2,394 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
25

by
4.26 avg rating — 2,729 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
26

by
3.59 avg rating — 1,053 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
27

by
3.91 avg rating — 442 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
27

by
3.72 avg rating — 592 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
29

by
3.66 avg rating — 201 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
30

by
3.65 avg rating — 1,210 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
31

by
3.69 avg rating — 173 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
32

by
3.33 avg rating — 120 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
33

by
3.96 avg rating — 21,615 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
34

by
3.59 avg rating — 592 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
35

by
4.12 avg rating — 108 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
36

by
3.53 avg rating — 13,684 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
36

by
4.37 avg rating — 21,926 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
38

by
3.71 avg rating — 2,002 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
38

by
3.17 avg rating — 6 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
40

by
3.64 avg rating — 10,935 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
41

by
3.98 avg rating — 118 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
42

by
3.63 avg rating — 1,703 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
42

by
3.60 avg rating — 2,408 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
44

by
3.45 avg rating — 295 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
45

by
really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 7 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
46

by
4.40 avg rating — 3,817 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
47

by
3.41 avg rating — 162 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
48

by
3.50 avg rating — 541 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
49

by
3.56 avg rating — 306 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
50

by
3.41 avg rating — 1,898 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
50

by
3.81 avg rating — 3,278 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
50

by
3.67 avg rating — 70 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
50

by
4.29 avg rating — 14 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
50

by
3.88 avg rating — 64 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
50

by
3.88 avg rating — 4,048 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
50

by
3.50 avg rating — 16 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
50

by
3.91 avg rating — 121 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
50

by
3.66 avg rating — 2,544 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
50

by
4.35 avg rating — 20 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
50

by
4.39 avg rating — 2,867,409 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
61

by
3.82 avg rating — 581 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
61

by
3.90 avg rating — 1,299 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
61

by
3.89 avg rating — 3,710 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
64

by
4.19 avg rating — 776 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
64

by
4.07 avg rating — 788 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
64

by
4.17 avg rating — 75,487 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
67

by
3.72 avg rating — 987 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
68

by
liked it 3.00 avg rating — 8 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
68

by
3.71 avg rating — 14,959 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
68

by
3.97 avg rating — 379 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
71

by
3.91 avg rating — 4,265 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
71

by
4.04 avg rating — 6,991 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
71

by
4.01 avg rating — 17,818 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
71

by
really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 302 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
75

by
4.10 avg rating — 229 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
76

by
4.03 avg rating — 192 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
77

by
3.79 avg rating — 1,638 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
77

by
4.01 avg rating — 183 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
79

by
3.78 avg rating — 247 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
80

by
3.77 avg rating — 3,937 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
81

by
3.59 avg rating — 190 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
82

by
3.60 avg rating — 63 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
83

by
4.07 avg rating — 68 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
84

by
4.12 avg rating — 161 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
85

by
3.01 avg rating — 160 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
86

by
4.28 avg rating — 3,191 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
87

by
4.39 avg rating — 343 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
88

by
3.46 avg rating — 28 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
88 books · 82 voters · list created December 5th, 2011 by Jamie (votes) .
61 likes · 
Lists are re-scored approximately every 5 minutes.


Jamie 749 books
53 friends
Alex 1278 books
32 friends
Tamora 2811 books
4837 friends
Mirek 527 books
4 friends
George 570 books
7 friends
Bookworm 904 books
142 friends
Brian 184 books
14 friends
Daniel 66 books
19 friends

More voters…


Comments Showing 1-13 of 13 (13 new)

dateUp arrow    newest »

message 1: by Jamie (new)

Jamie Please feel free to post your favorites (and additional books I've left out), as this list is (so far) only compiled of books I learned about via Wikipedia.

Thanks!


message 2: by Jamie (new)

Jamie Thank you to all who have voted on this list so far. I started this a little over a year ago and then forgot about it until just recently (when someone "liked" the list).
I'll have to review all these new entries to see which ones should go on my "to-read" list.
Thanks again, and have a happy new year.


message 3: by Jamie (new)

Jamie Please do not spam this list with unrelated books.


message 4: by Empress (new)

Empress Jamie wrote: "Please do not spam this list with unrelated books."

As a creator you can set up rules and request librarians to remove unrelated books.


message 5: by Jamie (new)

Jamie Ellie [The Empress] wrote: "Jamie wrote: "Please do not spam this list with unrelated books."

As a creator you can set up rules and request librarians to remove unrelated books."


I have requested that librarians remove particular books.
I wasn't aware I could set up rules in the list, though. How would I go about doing that?


message 6: by Vikarti (new)

Vikarti If topic is 'generational ships' it's...why following books are here:
- Empire from Ashes - setting DOES has sublight ships but nobody ever thinks about using them as generational ships even in extreme situations (IF they are used for interstellar travel in situations when FTL ship is suddenly becomes unavailable for use, it's 'let's go sleep and wait several years until we come to nearest plane't). All regular interstellar travel is FTL. Several kinds of FTL in fact.
- Methuselah's Children - generation ships? Strictly speaking, New Horizons was DESIGNED as generation ship but it wasn't used this way, it was used as first FTL ship. Thanks to Andrew Libby.
- We are legion... original interstellar ships were not piloted by flesh-and-blood humans. Later ships have humans (not in command capacity) on board. None of them were generational. Distances were not THAT great.


message 7: by Vikarti (last edited Nov 03, 2018 08:52AM) (new)

Vikarti I also have a question - is it ok to add David Weber's Honeverse books? In this setting: first worlds (future Core Worlds of Solarian League) were colonized by sleeper (not generational) sublight ships. Next wave of worlds (like Manticore) were found by ships with hyperdrive but colonized by sublight ships again (hyper travel was TOO risky at this time).
At 1900 A.D. (Ante Diaspora, 0 A.D. = start of first interstellar ship) everybody use hyperdrive and related technologies but many worlds WERE colonized in STL (but sleeper ships and not generational) so answer should be 'NO!' but...what Ringworld does here in this case? in time of Ringworld's main events everybody can use FTL (Everybody EXCEPT Puppeteers and Outsiders use it if they can). Yes, technically speaking Puppeteers's Fleet of Worlds is giant generation ship but does it fit original definition?


message 8: by A (new)

A Added Seveneves because it is very much a generation ship. It doesn't quite fit the "interstellar" part of "interstellar ark", but it definitely fits the "ark" part and there is no separate list for generation ships; it seems like having lists for "generation ship" and "interstellar ark" would be redundant


message 9: by Dmitry (new)

Dmitry Many of the books in this list are not interstellar ark stories. In fact it would seem people just add stuff theyve not even read the blurb for. I wish users could vote on removal - it would certainly be easier than moderation.


message 10: by Dmitry (last edited Jan 31, 2020 05:14AM) (new)

Dmitry As a creator you can set up rules and request librarians to remove unrelated books."

Where is the button that will let me remove items? I am a librarian and i dont see it...


message 11: by Steve (new)

Steve Rendezvous with Rama is not an "Interstellar Ark" or generation ship. The list description could be clearer to indicate that these ships generally travel slower-than-light, taking multiple generations to reach their destination, with the occupants being awake for the duration.


message 12: by Francis (last edited Apr 15, 2021 12:06AM) (new)

Francis X James P. Hogan's Voyage from Yesteryear is also a generational ship as is Harlan Ellison and Edward Bryant's Phoenix without Ashes (seen as The Starlost TV series). Paul Chafe's Genesis is an interstellar ark too.


message 13: by Bargle (new)

Bargle Dmitry wrote: "As a creator you can set up rules and request librarians to remove unrelated books."

Where is the button that will let me remove items? I am a librarian and i dont see it..."


Up at the description, click on 'edit'. That will take you to the editing page for this list. The 'remove particular books' link is at the bottom.


back to top



Related News

Dedicated readers of science fiction and fantasy already know this cosmic truism: It’s the genre that keeps on giving. Just when you think...

Anyone can add books to this list.