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story identification - Young man discovers his home "world" is a spaceship


I hoping for some help here, as Google isn't being useful... In my early teens I read a novel about a young man who is quite adventurous in his society and in climbing and adventuring into the off-limit areas of his world, discovers his "world" is actually a giant spaceship (possibly an asteroid ship) transporting a colony to a new world and it is very near it's destination after hundred or thousands of years. Problem is that it has been so many generations now that no one even knows this is a ship any more, so he has to finish the journey himself, possibly with the help of an AI in the ship (sorry, memory is really foggy).


Biggest problem is that is about all the details I can remember... This would have been about the mid-1980's and in paperback.


This image by Roy Scarfo is what brought back my memory of the book, I am guessing the cover art of the novel was similar in some way.



Answer



It's not an uncommon concept, and there are many stories that may fit it, but the simplest possibility that leaps to mind (being one of the earliest depictions of a generation ship) is Heinlein's Orphans of the Sky.



  • Main Character (Hugh) does go exploring the ship and finds many things, including the control deck.


  • They have been traveling so long that they have forgotten their origins, and their myths involve past occurrences on the ship, such as a long past mutiny.

  • No AI to help him, but a two-headed mutant does.

  • He eventually manages to land a small group (basically his family) on a planet, by only by virtue of incredible luck and the fact that the ship was designed to be incredibly fail-safe.


It was written in 1964, but it was a fairly common paperback in the 80s; that's when I first read it.


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