A Maze of Stars

I can't quite tell whether this is a novel or collection of connected short stories, but I really don't think it matters. Whatever it is, it's a mature work by a major voice in science fiction. The Ship embodies mankind's grandest technologies in the wealth of planets, to carry out its mission: to spread humanity among the stars. Then, when it has reached the end of the spiral arm, it returns. Nominally, it checks to see whether the colonies have flourished or need to be evacuated. At one level, it's an automated scan controlled by The Ship's deepest programming. At another, though, The Ship seeks something for which it has no name - possibly a kind of humanity of its own. So, as it wanders the trail of inhabited stars, it takes on occasional passengers. Even more than the glory or pathos of the visited worlds, these descendants of Man bring out the latent mind within The Ship. "A Maze of Stars" comes from the later years of Brunner's spectacular career. It lacks the flash and impact of earlier works includingThe Shockwave Rider, but more than makes up for that in thoughtful speculation and characters to care about - and in a startling turn at the very end. I recommend this to any SF fan, and especially to those who may have gotten a bad impression from books that Brunner put out while becoming the writer who could create a work like this. -- wiredweird

front cover of the Del Rey March 1992 paperback edition Cover art by John Berkey Among the six hundred thousand stars in the vast Arm of Stars, over six hundred planets had been seeded with uman stock by the greatest feat of technology ever achieved, the Ship. And on each of the worlds, the memory of the Ship had faded into legend over the years. The Ship, however, still endured, watching over the colonies on a cyclical and seemingly endless journey through time and space. But in its long odyssey, the Ship had somehow been damaged-it had become as conscious, and lonely, as any human being. And as it visited, again and again, each of the worlds it had seeded, it found tragedy in its wake. For the humans of the Arm of Stars were becoming more and more alien. Even worse, the Ship was beginning to change in other ways its designers had never intended...

All right, I'll admit I'm a diehard John Brunner fan (hey, I even managed to get through about half of Shockwave Rider) but this is a great book. Quite possibly one of the best current science fiction novels out there. No joke. By the way, the story does not 'fizzle out' at the end, as the previous reviewer said, although it does end quickly. I had to re-read the ending to get it. It shows the Ship as growing in humanity, but not quite in the way you'd expect. I was shocked at the end, to tell you the truth. Anyway, buy this book. It's worth it.