Calypso

Can you rebirth the Generation ship trope by making it into a prose poem? Oliver Langmead makes a sprited effort but the whole product did not gel with me.

Your mileage may vary!

If one read the epic poem as magical realism then it might work better. Certainly the fantasy elements overwhelm the science-fictional in the story of Calypso, the generation starship which rewrites Genesis anew. There is a whole trove of handwavium propping up the rickety infrastructure. If the language and wordcraft trancended the holes, then one could excuse the weaknesses - of which there are legion.

All the standard tropes are there. The genius who conceives of the generation ship to assuage his dissatisfaction with humanity. The mid-flight rebellion by a faction of the crew. The debilitating war beteeen the factions which almost derails the mission. The crew which it seems lives off air, plastic and gruel oh so happily. The corpsicle colonists who will populate the new world. The terraforming via deus ex machina. The secret plan of the genius to fulfill his mad ambition.

The majority of the tale is from the POV of Rochelle, the surviving engineer and counterpoint to the messianic madness/genius Sigmund. Our 'hand of god' comes from the biologist and fungus factory Catherine. The story of the crew is told by its Herald. There is also some funny typesetting which merely serves to make the prose hard to read, without adding anything. Daniel Kerrigan's illustrations are brilliant.

This was one of 6 works eligible for the one-off Hugo award for Poetry in 2025 at Seattle Worldcon. Its fellow finalists each fit on a single page. Much can be said for quality over quantity. I did rank Calyso above 'No Award'