History Creator / RobertReed

Robert Reed is a HugoAward winning (and frequently Hugo Award nominated) ScienceFiction author. He has written over 140 (mostly unconnected) short stories, though he does write stories in his ''Literature/GreatShip'' universe. Many of his works feature forms of {{Immortality}} and TheSingularity, and often deal with how it affects culture, and are often relatively "[[MohsScaleOfSciFiHardness hard]]".

Robert Reed is a HugoAward winning (and frequently Hugo Award nominated) science fiction author. He has written over 140 (mostly unconnected) short stories, though he does write stories in his ''Literature/GreatShip'' universe. Reed typically writes relatively hard science fiction. Many of his works feature forms of {{Immortality}} and TheSingularity, and often deal with how it affects culture.

* AllTheMyriadWays: In ''Down the Bright Way'', the universes extend in two directions out from each other - "left" and "right". Each universe is slightly different from the next, or radically different due to divergence.

Robert Reed is a HugoAward winning (and frequently Hugo Award nominated) science fiction author. He has written over 140 (mostly unconnected) short stories, though he does write stories in his ''Literature/GreatShip'' universe. Reed typically writes relatively hard science fiction. Many of his works feature forms of {{Immortality}} and often deal with how it affects culture.

** ''Marrow'' (2000) [[hottip:*: The novel is an expanded version of the novella ''Marrow'']]

The ''Literature/GreatShip'' universe takes place in the far future, where a human probe discovers an abandoned ship, larger than Jupiter, streaking in towards the Milky Way. The ship is claimed by humanity, and boosted into orbit moving through the Milky Way, where it functions like a large, mobile pleasure world. The Ship has millions of chambers kilometers across, capable of being modified to suit almost any form of life. The wealthiest nearly immortal [[hottip:*:Humanity and most of the passengers have been made effectively immortal due to "emergency genes"; artificial constructs that their genetically engineered bodies make, which repairs damage (age, disease, blunt trauma, decapitation) by burning excess mass or simply putting the brain into a ''very'' deep hibernation]] beings in the galaxy boost towards the ship on thin torchships, and buy berths using bits of technology and information.

Many of the short stories set in the ''Literature/GreatShip'' verse have a mix of action, mystery, with the occasional bit of SliceOfLife for the immortal passengers.

''Marrow'' and ''The Well Of Stars'' deals with the discovery of [[DeathWorld Marrow]], a hidden world in the previously unknown core of the Ship, from the point of view of Washen, a high ranking Captain, Pamir, a JerkAss disgraced captain, and [[IceQueen Miocene]], the First Chair (second in command) of the ship. ''Well of Stars'' takes place several hundred years after ''Marrow'''s conclusion.

* Novels:
** ''Marrow'' (2000)

* (Notable) Short stories and novellas:
** ''Aeon's Child''
** ''Alone''
** ''Marrow'' [[hottip:*: The novel ''Marrow'' is effectively an expanded and more detailed novel version of the short story]]
** ''Mere'' (Chapbook, 2004)
** ''The Remoras''

* StarfishAlien: The Remarkables in ''The Remarkables''. As larva, they're like squids. As a juvenile, they resemble dumpster-sized sea urchins, covered in poisonous barbs and griping tentacles. As adults, they are rooted into place like a willow tree.

Robert Reed is a HugoAward winning (and frequently Hugo Award nominated) science fiction author. He has written over 140 (mostly unconnected) short stories, though he does write stories in his ''Literature/GreatShip'' universe. Reed typically writes relatively hard science fiction. Many of his works feature {{Immortality}}.

* ResurrectedForAJob: The soldiers in ''The Hoplite'' were all long-dead, but their bones were dug up, used to clone a new body, and their memories retrieved using a device called the quantum-dilutor. All of the soldiers come from places known for either their brutality or their cunning - Nazis, Mongolian warriors, Aztecs, and Romans are prime candidates for resurrection. The soldiers are used to subjugate rebellious regions.

* InterstellarWeapon: ''Five Thrillers'' ends with [[spoilers: aliens firing a bus-sized object at the sun to cause an enormous stellar event to wipe out all life in the solar system]]

* AIIsACrapshoot: One of the advanced Earths in ''Down the Bright Way'' was attacked by corrupted Von Neumann mining ships.
* AllPlanetsAreEarthLike: In ''The Remarkables'', all the planets shown are Earthlike, because humanity terraforms everything they colonize
* AllTheMyriadWays: ''Down the Bright Way'' - the universes extend in two directions out from each other, and each universe is slightly different from the next, or exactly the same.

* BodySurf: Moliak in ''Down the Bright Way'' would kidnap Wanderers, and overwrite their hard-memories with his own.

* CasualInterstellarTravel: Jy in ''Down the Bright Way'' mentions how it would be easier to colonize the galaxy with Founder technology than it would be to colonize the different Earths of the Bright.

* DeathWorld: Some Earths in ''Down the Bright Way'' have gone through intense nuclear wars, which killed off humanity on that Earth - leaving only their machines alive, to keep fighting and producing more weapons.

* TheFogOfAges: The original Traveller in ''Down The Bright Way'' is over a million years old, and must make constant decisions on what memories to keep or discard.

* HumansAreTheRealMonsters: The [=UnFound=] in ''Down the Bright Way'', a tribal society that knows nothing besides total war - ''everything'' not part of the tribe is an enemy and must be killed.

* HyperactiveMetabolism: The residents of the "Termite Mound" earth in ''Down the Bright Way'' have a caste system, and each caste has genetic tailored metabolisms. Those born in the upper caste lives at extreme speed, constantly eating, and die of old age in their 20s.

* StarfishAlien: The Remarkables in ''The Remarkables''. As larva, they're like squids. As a juvenile, they resemble room-sized sea urchins, covered in poisonous barbs and griping tentacles. As adults, they are rooted into place like a willow tree.
* StarKilling: Used by Moliak to wipe out the [=UnFound=] earths in ''Down The Bright Way''

* AliensAreBastards: ''Five Thrillers''. Aliens [[spoiler: try to destroy the Earth with a solar flare]] because ''they can''.
* AllPlanetsAreEarthLike: ''A Billion Eves'' has the Ripper device, which transports a large area into an adjacent universe. The story takes place in one of potentially thousands of settled Earths.
* ApocalypseHow: Earth in ''Waging Good'' was bombed into a dead husk from its rebelling colonies. The ground is described as being lifeless as the lunar regolith.

** In ''Winemaster'', a large percentage of the educated population downloads their personalities into tiny - and extremely fast - bodies. They live an hour like a person lives a year, and their brains are so compact that heavy atoms can erase memories.
* CloningBlues: ''The Cuckoo's Boys'' revolves around the aftermath of a genius biologist creating a virus which will impregnate ovulating women with his genetic code, effectively creating millions of copies of himself - the clones are born like normal people and are no different from a regular person aside from a higher average IQ, but since they share the same general appearance (that of their creator), they are targeted by fanatics.

* GenerationShip: Appears in ''The Children's Crusade'', which is crewed by robots, with [[spoiler: the colonists being essentially cargo]]

* InYourNatureToDestroyYourselves: Stated by the immortal robotic crew of the GenerationShip in ''Chrysalis'' - they were programmed to believe that all sentient races eventually destroy themselves in devastating interstellar wars.
* MercyKill: In the short story, ''Decency'', a malfunctioning alien ship crash lands on Earth, leaving the pilot barely alive. A security guard at the compound where the alien is guarded/studied does a MercyKill on the suffering alien.

* ImAHumanitarian: [[spoiler: Cotton]] in ''Down the Bright Way''

Robert Reed is a HugoAward winning (and frequently Hugo Award nominated) science fiction author. He has written over 140 (mostly unconnected) short stories, though he does write stories in his "Great Ship" universe. Reed typically writes relatively hard science fiction. Many of his works feature {{Immortality}}.

The "''Great Ship''" universe takes place in the far future, where a human probe discovers an abandoned ship, larger than Jupiter, streaking in towards the Milky Way. The ship is claimed by humanity, and boosted into orbit moving through the Milky Way, where it functions like a large, mobile pleasure world. The Ship has millions of chambers kilometers across, capable of being modified to suit almost any form of life. The wealthiest nearly immortal [[hottip:*:Humanity and most of the passengers have been made effectively immortal due to "emergency genes"; artificial constructs that their genetically engineered bodies make, which repairs damage (age, disease, blunt trauma, decapitation) by burning excess mass or simply putting the brain into a ''very'' deep hibernation]] beings in the galaxy boost towards the ship on thin torchships, and buy berths using bits of technology and information.

Many of the short stories set in the ''Great Ship'' verse have a mix of action, mystery, with the occasional bit of SliceOfLife for the immortal passengers.

!!!The ''Great Ship'' series :

----
!!Tropes featured in the ''Great Ship'' universe:
* AerithAndBob: Some characters - primarily the older ones - have relatively normal names, such as [[TimeAbyss Quee Lee]]. Younger characters have odder names, such as Washen. The youngest have especially odd names, such as "Promise" or "Till"
* AndIMustScream: ''Mere'' starts with a child being kept barely alive (yet full conscious) through a 10,000 year voyage - most of which was spent screaming in pain and from insanity.
* AlienBlood: Humanity has very dark, almost black blood. Orleans, a Remora, has black blood with the consistency of ketchup.
* AllTheMyriadWays: Hyperfiber is so strong because it spreads any impact or heat damage across thousands of dimensions. In a more straight example, The Tila from ''Mere'' have quantum structures in their brain that causes an "aura" around objects they see - which they interpret as glimpses of thousands of alternate realities.
* {{Antimatter}}: A popular choice for ship propulsion, as you only need very small amounts of it to go extremely fast.
* ApocalypseHow: The end of ''Mere'' ends with [[spoiler: a binary star collapsing in on itself, wiping out all life in the system]]
* AuraVision: The Tila in ''Mere'' see faint auras around objects.
* AutoDoc: Autodocs are primarily used for repairing mutated genes, rather than blunt trauma usually seen in other stories.
* BigDumbObject: The Great Ship. it is a starship the size of Jupiter, made of the highest grade [[MadeOfIron hyperfiber]]. Discovered streaking towards the Milky Way at a third the speed of light by a human built probe, its origin is unknown (the area behind it is the emptiest part of the universe), it carries an ''entire world'' inside it, and it has tens of millions of caverns and fusion reactors all there to make the interior livable for almost any species. It may be as [[RagnarokProofing old as the universe]], and one character suggested that it ''[[GeniusLoci created]]'' the universe, or functions as a control center for it - the visible universe simply being another layer to the ship's hull.
* BinarySuns: The Tila's solar system in ''Mere'' has two stars in decaying orbits around each other.
* BizarreAlienBiology: Harum-sacrums have two mouths: one for breathing and talking, one for eating.
* BodyHorror: Remoras are ''extremely'' disturbing. One of them is described as having photosensitive hairs in the pits of their eye sockets instead of regular eyes.
* BrainComputerInterface: Keyboards and such are almost never seen, as everything is done wirelessly
* BrainUploading: Almost all humans depicted have ceramic, artificial brains, which are nearly indestructible.
* CasualInterstellarTravel: Averted. While it's not hard to get around, it's ''extremely'' dangerous - when you're moving at a significant percent of the speed of light, a few stray atoms of hydrogen can rip through your hyperfiber shield and annihilate your ship instantly; the dangers of interstellar travel is what makes the Great Ship such a popular destination, as the shallowest habitat in the Ship are buried under several kilometers of hyperfiber.
* CoolStarShip: [[http://i.imgur.com/ll7Dd.jpg The Great Ship]].
* CranialProcessingUnit: Averted. AIs in robotic bodies keep their "brain" in the chest.
* CyborgHelmsman: The Master Captain. While she still looks fairly human, she is [[LargeAndInCharge far larger than a regular human]] to help disperse heat, and her skin is jam packed with computers, AI assistants, and communication systems to interface with the [[StarshipLuxurious Great Ship]]
* DeathWorld: Marrow in ''Marrow''
* ElectronicEyes: Mere gets these in ''Mere'', to [[AuraVision see the world in a way similar to the Tila]]
* EyeScream: Mere in ''Mere'' carves out her ''own eyes'' with a knife.
* FasterThanLightTravel: Averted; FTL is completely impossible.
* FlingALightIntoTheFuture: The end of ''Mere'' has the Tila launching Mere (in a salvaged wreck) and their entire history and art, towards the Great Ship.
* GeniusLoci: The Great Ship has a "voice" spaced out at the beginning of some chapters in ''Marrow'' and ''The Well of Stars''. However, it is never shown to interact with the passengers.
** Gaians are entities that are effectively entire ecosystems - one Gaian covers an entire planet. Some are sentient, others are not.
* GoalOrientedEvolution: Remoras direct their mutations to be useful.
* GodzillaThreshold: When the [[spoiler: Polypond attacks]] in ''The Well Of Stars'', the crew decides to activate the ship's engines. ''All'' of the engines, in an attempt to flee as fast as possible.
* GoMadFromTheIsolation: Mere spent ten thousand years in complete isolation inside a barely functioning ship. She is ''thoroughly'' insane when the ship crash lands on the Tila's planet.
* HealingFactor: Humans and some other species have artificial "emergency genes", which will re-purpose matter in their body to heal wounds. The genes will keep on working until the only thing left is the brain - keep chopping off legs and arms and the genes will start re-purposing largely unneeded organs to regrow them.
* HollowWorld: The Great Ship, to an extent. It's the size of Jupiter, and full of billions of passageways and caverns. Inside the ship's hollow core is an entire world suspended by energy barriers.
* HumansAreSpecial: While humanity is not particularly special normally, they control the Great Ship, making them the richest and most knowledgeable species in the galaxy.
* HumanSubspecies: The Remoras, which are the descendants of the crews sent to repair the hull of the Great Ship. They've been twisted by the hard radiation of empty space, and they actively cultivate their mutations.
* JerkAss: Pamir.
* ImmortalityBeginsAtTwenty
* InterspeciesRomance: Considering that everyone is immortal they uh, ''experiment'' quite a lot.
* InTheFutureHumansWillBeOneRace: The only character described as having a specific set of racial features is Quee Lee - who is the only character from old Earth.
* LargeAndInCharge: The Master captain. Due to a huge amount of implants, she is packed with different methods of dissipating the implants' heat - which causes her to be very large.
* LivingForeverIsAwesome
* MechanicalLifeforms
* MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness: The Great Ship series follows almost all known laws of physics - the one exception is hyperfiber, which gains its strength from sharing energy across thousands of alternate realities; though it may not be entirely wrong, as some scientists propose that gravity is so weak because it shares its impact across multiple universal planes.
* TheMutiny: [[spoiler: Miocene and Till]]. Mostly bloodless, until Pamir and the Remoras fight back to restore the ship to the original owners.
* TheNeedless: Humans rarely need to eat, and do it mostly for pleasure.
* NeuralImplanting: Nexuses, which are implanted into one's body (or in say, a house), and mentally accessed for information or skills when needed.
* NoNameGiven: The Master captain. Her name is said a grand total of [[spoiler: twice - Liza]].
* NoOSHACompliance: Since everyone is effectively immortal, most safety equipment is non-existent unless it could damage the brain. Some ships will accelerate at a hundred g's, crushing the bones of the pilot into dust, then the pilot's emergency genes will kick in to mend the bones.
* ProHumanTranshuman: Despite most of the characters being immortal transhumans that can survive being dipped in lava, they still consider the Remoras and the SpaceAmish humans that [[WeAreAsMayflies live a mere century]] to be their brethren.
* OnlyOneName: Some of the younger human characters have only one name, such as "Promse" or "Dream". Most characters do have full names, though rarely ever said because they are implied to be ''enormous''.
* OrionDrive: If a ship isn't powered by a fusion rocket or an antimatter rocket, it uses an Orion Drive (called a "bomb drive" in the stories), loaded with nuclear bombs.
* RagnarokProofing: The Great Ship spent at least several hundred million years drifting towards the Milky Way, but it only sustained superficial damage to it exterior shell. All the original technology in it still functions flawlessly. The [[spoiler: Matter-antimatter reactor inside Marrow]] still functions after billions of years.
* ReactionlessDrive: [[spoiler: The Great Ship's true propulsion is this - only discovered at the end of ''The Well of Stars''.]]
* SapientCetaceans: Whale-like aliens are encoutnered in ''The Well of Stars'', who talk via radio wave bursts and worship a nearby gas giant.
* [[SciFiWritersHave/NoSenseOfDistance SciFi Writers Have No Sense of Distance]]: Averted. The Great Ship will take hundreds of thousands of years to complete one circle around the Milky Way. Travel is extremely slow - a small ship spends 900 years accelerating to near lightspeed in order to reach the Great Ship.
* [[SciFiWritersHave/NoSenseOfTime SciFi Writers Have No Sense of Time]]: Averted with the Great Ship; when it was discovered, the leading face of the hull was battered and scarred from being exposed to intergalatic dust for billions of years. The rocky core of the Great Ship is noted to have been scrubbed of ''any'' radioactive elements that would decay, as it would compromise the integrity of the ship as the elements decayed over millions of years, heating up the core and making it less dense.
* SlidingScaleOfLibertarianismAndAuthoritarianism: There is very little limits on what one can do on the Great Ship, provided it doesn't affect other passengers and you pay your ship taxes.
* SlidingScaleOfRobotIntelligence: Most AIs are at human level or above - even the houses and ships.
* SocietyOfImmortals: 99% of humanity is immortal.
* SpaceAmish: Some humans forgo the ceramic brain and most of the emergency genes, instead living short lives.
* StarfishAliens: Almost all of the inhabitants of the Great Ship. It's notable when the aliens ''are not'' StarfishAliens
* StarshipLuxurious: The Great Ship. Thousands of luxurious canyons, beaches, ''oceans'' are among the ''natural formations'' inside the Jupiter sized ship. In terms of space, the ''prisoners'' are guaranteed at least 10,000 cubic meters of personal space. Passengers can claim rooms larger than Manhattan very easily.
* StoneWall: The Great Ship. After humanity claimed the derelict, whole swarms of alien ships started showing up to try and capture it. The humans on-board simply closed the hyperfiber airlocks on the star ports and waited until the attackers ran out of fuel or ammunition.
* {{Transhuman}}: Almost all seen human characters have huge amounts of genetic modifications and implants. Emergency genes are artificial genes that all humans have, which can do some ''extreme'' modifications to the body in order to preserve the brain.
* TimeAbyss: Practically all the main characters of ''Marrow'' are at ''least'' several hundred thousand years old. Qeng Lee, a minor character, was born on ''Earth'', before the immortality treatments.
** Alone, in the short story ''Alone'', is a self-aware robot that had crawled on the Great Ship's hull for billions of years, long before it reached the Milky Way. The entity is so old that it doesn't even know how old it is, what powers it, or who created it.
* WeaponizedExhaust: Used in ''Aeons Child'' - a starship fusion engine was brought into the ship to use as a last ditch weapon to purge a cavern of a [[GeniusLoci Gaian]]
* WeWillHavePerfectHealthInTheFuture: The emergency genes and autodocs have effectively wiped out all diseases
* WorthlessYellowRocks: Diamond, sapphire, ruby, and emerald are all popular ''building materials''. Diamond is used in place of glass on almost everything, and the others are just pretty to look at but not particularly valuable.

Robert Reed is a HugoAward winning (and frequently Hugo Award nominated) science fiction author. He has written over 140 (mostly unconnected) short stories, though he does write stories in his "Great Ship" universe. Reed typically writes hard science fiction. Many of his works feature {{Immortality}}.

** ''Marrow''
** ''The Well of Stars''

** ''Mere''

* ''The Leeshore''
* ''Down the Bright Way''

* ''Beyond the Veil of Stars''
** ''Beneath a Gated Sky''
* ''The Remarkables''

* ''The Cuckoo's Boys''
* ''The Dragons of Springplace''
* ''Eater-Of-Bone''

* ''Literature/SisterAlice''

* ''Sister Alice''