A classic generation ship story is getting the series treatment from Jamie Magnus Stone, who has directed a solid handful of Jodie Whittaker-era Doctor Who episodes (including Spyfall, Part One). Brian W. Aldiss’s Non-Stop (called Starship when it was first published in the US) is about a man born into a “primitive world” who discovers that he is actually aboard a giant starship—and Deadline reports that this large-ship story is coming to a small screen near you.
Here’s the novel’s synopsis:
Non-Stop is Grand Master of Science Fiction and Hugo and Nebula Award–winning author Brian W. Aldiss’s debut novel. Written in response to Robert Heinlein’s Orphans of the Sky and published in the late 1950s, it is set in a primitive world, home to tribes of inhabitants who endure their harsh and stunted lives in a maze of corridors. Though legends exist that they’re actually on a ship traveling through the universe, no one really believes it. But that conviction doesn’t stop a group of people from embarking on a mission to find the rumored “Forwards” section and its control room. Through a tangled, hydroponic jungle, they’ll encounter telepathic animals, giants, outcasts, and mutants in an epic race to uncover the truth—and survive . . .
As is so often the case with generation ship tales, things aboard this ship have gone somewhat … awry.
Aldiss, who died in 2017, was a major figure in SF, especially British SF; no less a luminary than Iain M. Banks called him “One of the most influential—and one of the best—SF writers Britain has ever produced.” He was named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association in 1999. This is not the first time an Aldiss work has been adapted; his story “Super-Toys Last All Summer Long” was the inspiration for Steven Spielberg’s A.I.
No casting has been announced for the adaptation—yet.
