The Library Ship Saga

The original Tau Ceti trilogy was inspired by a visit my family took to Old Sacramento, many years ago. We visited the Wells Fargo Museum, and I was attracted to an exhibit about the Wells Fargo wagon, immortalized in song in "The Music Man." The exhibit explained that the visits of the Wells Fargo wagon were the only contact with civilization for people far out on the prairie, and how important those visits were to the people living there. It occurred to me that, if we ever colonized another star, the colonists would be far more isolated than those people in the frontiers of America. After all, Einstein showed that we cannot travel faster than the speed of light, and it takes light four years to get to the nearest star other than the Sun. The original trilogy takes place on the planet Pitcairn of the star Tau Ceti, twelve light years away. Ships arrive from Earth only every twenty years or so, bringing news, supplies, and new colonists. The trilogy is foremost a story about people, how they have adapted to their new home, and how their lives are affected by the arrival of the Asimov, a ship unlike any of the previous supply ships.

More novels expand on the universe that began with the trilogy to chronicle human expansion into other worlds, aided by the library ships, conscious star ships dedicated to protect humanity from the universe and itself.