Spaaaaace
A Book Set In The Future - Hull Zero Three by Greg Bear.
A starship hurtles through the emptiness of space. Its destination - unknown. Its purpose? A mystery. Its history? Lost.
Now, one man wakes up. Ripped from a dream of a new home, a new planet and the woman he was meant to love in his arms, he finds himself wet, naked, and freezing to death. The dark halls are full of monsters but trusting other survivors he meets might be the greater danger. All he has are questions: Who is he? Where are they going? What happened to the dream of a new life? What happened to the woman he loved? What happened to Hull 03?
All will be answered, if he can survive. Uncover the mystery. Fix the ship. Find a way home.
I was in the mood for something science-fiction flavoured and I knew that Greg Bear's Hull Zero Three was on my list of stuff to read as a 'generation/sleeper ship gone wrong' book. The general feel of it is a little like the movie Pandorum, if you've seen that (if you haven't - think waking on a spaceship that's in a worrying state of collapse and decay, with no idea what's happening and the nagging sense that things have gone wrong in a way that may involve monsters.) The book has more of an emphasis on zero gravity and a way of suggesting that the monsters may not be the most obvious. I enjoyed reading it, finding out what had happened, how long they'd been travelling, why everything had gone so horribly wrong. It's not a huge book by sci-fi standards, only 310 pages, and it has a good pace. I'm a sucker for space mysteries and sometimes if the journey has good characters, or is compelling enough, or has enough interesting or unsettling twists/shocks, I can forgive a shaky ending (though not a stupid ending.) The book was satisfying enough that I came away with no real complaints. Good science fiction.