Mission To Universe

This is a classic 'first interstellar journey' story by the amazing Gordon Dickson. Impatient with the bureaucracy who is delaying the launch of the new-technology 'phase ship', (very cool technology!) Brigadier General Benjamin Shore hijacks it by faking false orders, and takes it and its crew onto mankind's first trip into space to find planets suitable for colonization. They come across remarkably un-alien aliens (seriously, what's the likelihood of coming across anything even remotely humanoid?) on remarkably Earth-like worlds (hmm...). Some of the aliens are rather unfriendly, and the crew are seriously decimated, before Shore finally decides to turn the ship around to head home and face the music. But not everybody aboard actually wants to go home... Why it's at this place on the list: Could have been higher, but I thought I'd mix things up. This is one of those novels you'd expect from the early days of SF. Dickson, who wrote it in the mid-1960s, effectively took another look at the topic of the first trip to the stars and made it into something more than just a pulp. The novel doesn't really exert itself in terms of imagining strange aliens, but focuses on Shore, the crew and the weight of command and responsibility for one's actions. Great storytelling, as you'd expect from Dickson, who never disappoints. Read if you like: Spaceship' SF. Exploration stories. Character-driven narratives.