Starborne by Robert Silverberg (
ISFDB,
Wikipedia,
SFE), an SFWA Grand Master and inductee into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame, is his standalone science fiction novel, starring a crew undergoing a deep space exploration in the hopes of discovering new worlds to colonize and thereby revitalize the human spirit, with a stagnant 23rd century Earth and the spaceship kept in contact by a pair of telepathic twins until the link breaks and the crew discovers that their assumptions about life, the universe, and everything may be very mistaken indeed, free for a limited time courtesy of publisher Phoenix Pick Press.
This is their featured Free Book of the Month for August, has previously been offered free in 2013, and was originally published in 1996 by Bantam's Spectra imprint.
Currently free through the month of August directly @
the publisher's dedicated promo page (DRM-free ePub & Mobi bundle available worldwide; follow the instructions on the webpage to reset the price in the cart to $0.00)
The tie-in offer for this month is pretty nice, at the minimum suggested price of $4.75 for an additional 4 books: a recently-written entry in the Stellar Guild novella series pairing up Silverberg with a newer author, another backlist novel with a continuation by another author, and two more backlist works including a vintage 1968 Nebula Award nominee and a newer small press title from 1992. These have mostly previously been offered free or discounted, so you might already have some, but it's a good deal if you don't already and like Silverberg's work.
Description
It promises to be the greatest voyage of exploration in human history.
From the stagnant, placid society of twenty-third-century Earth comes an idea so powerful that it seizes the imagination of all humankind. A starship will be sent deep into the unknown galaxy in search of habitable worlds, with the hope that the challenge of colonization will somehow rekindle the dying human spirit.
Fifty men and women are chosen to crew the Wotan, each nursing his or her own secret dreams and fears. Their leader is the stoic year-captain, drawn to the dangerous mission by his lifelong quest for meaning.
The single most important member of the crew is the blind Noelle, whose telepathic link with her blind twin sister on Earth provides the Wotan's only contact with Earth as it speeds through the pearl-gray twilight of unfathomable nospace.
The worlds that the Wotan encounters are both strange and inhospitable, and with each disappointment its mission seems more and more hopeless. Then Noelle's mind-link with Earth is inexplicably broken, and the crew begin to despair, fearing they've been condemned to wander alone through the vastness of space forever, cut off from any contact with humankind.
But when Noelle unexpectedly senses a massive alien presence in the vast vacuum of deepest space, the crew suddenly realize that their every assumption about life and the universe may prove dead wrong.
Starborne is a thoughtful, introspective look by one of the Grand Masters of science fiction at what it means to be human and to live a life of meaning.