''Starfarers'' is a

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...

novel by

Poul Anderson Poul William Anderson (November 25, 1926 – July 31, 2001) was an American fantasy and science fiction author who was active from the 1940s until the 21st century. Anderson wrote also historical novels. His awards include seven Hugo Awards and ...

. It was first published in hardcover by

Tor Books Tor Books is the primary imprint of Tor Publishing Group (previously Tom Doherty Associates), a publishing company based in New York City. It primarily publishes science fiction and fantasy titles, and is the largest publisher of Chinese scien ...

in November 1998; a book club edition was issued by Tor in conjunction with the Science Fiction Book Club in April 1999, followed by a paperback edition from Tor. An ebook version was published by Gateway/Orion in September 2011.

Plot

Earth sends out a spaceship to investigate starfaring in far distance space of which traces have been found. The ship ''Envoy'', bearing a crew of six men and four women, travels at speed close to the speed of light. At the end of the journey the crew meets a Centaur-like species on a planet they call Tahir that has left spacefaring behind. Sentient life is also detected in connection with a nearby black hole, a reading confirmed by the Tahirans. Their interest aroused, the Earthlings can send a combined crew to investigate. Communications with this "Holont" is established and much knowledge acquired. Differences aboard the ship, however, lead to the death of three men (Brent, Russek and Cleland), and female pilot Kilbirnie crashes into the black hole. The six Earthlings left drop the Tahirans off at their homeworld and head towards Earth. In between the story jumps regularly back to the development of human society over the gaps of many thousand years and to that of the Kith, the closed group doing the starfaring, who are often shunned by the rest of Earth. The Kith have their own settlements on different planets, where some retire to from time to time. Earth has changed over the long period of time taken up by the voyage of the ''Envoy'', and no one is much interested in spacefaring anymore. On Harbor, a colony of Earth, the ''Envoy'' crew finds remainders of the Kith society, which still are connected to spacefaring. But the last ship to plot trade-routes in space, the ''Fleetwing'', disappears from tracking. The cause is a Zero-Zero-failure ripping off the rear part of the ship. The ''Envoy'' sets out on a rescue mission as soon as possible but twenty years of outside time have passed by the time they reach the ''Fleetwing''. They save the remaining crew, thus building a foundation of experienced spacefarers to start spacefaring anew with the knowledge acquired from the Holont.

Characters

* The crew of ''Envoy'' ** Captain Ricardo I. Nansen Aguilar (Paraguay) ** Pilot Lajos Russek (Hungary) ** Pilot Jean Kilbernie (Scotland) ** Engineer Yu Wenji (China) ** Engineer Alvin Brent (America) ** Physicist Hanny Dayan (Israel) ** Planetologist Timothy Cleland ** Physician Mamphela Mokoena (South Africa) ** Biochemist Selim Ibn Ali Zeyd (Turkey) ** Linguist Ajit Nathu Sundaram * Kith-folk

Notes

{{Poul Anderson 1998 American novels American science fiction novels Novels by Poul Anderson 1998 science fiction novels Tor Books books