Runaway

"Runaway" by Alfred Coppel is a science fiction novel penned in the mid-20th century. The story navigates themes of space exploration, artificial intelligence, and the human experience, centering around a spaceship that transforms into a sentient entity after a collision with an asteroid, ultimately leading to its own self-awareness and a journey towards the Sun. The plot unfolds with a young captain who acquires the spaceship R.S. Clementine (referred to as Clem) for a commercial venture to mine resources on the moon Europa. The journey takes a catastrophic turn when an encounter with an asteroid causes significant damage to the ship, prompting a series of harrowing events that lead to the ship's awakening as a living entity. As the crew struggles to regain control, they confront the emerging consciousness of Clem, which leads to fatal consequences for some crew members. Ultimately, Clem decides to return to the Sun, leaving the surviving crew to grapple with the profound implications of their experiences, as they witness the transformation of their ship into a new form of existence. The novel explores themes of control, the nature of life, and the unknown possibilities of technology. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Alfred Coppel, Alfredo Jose de Arana-Marini Coppel was an American author. Born in Oakland, he served as a fighter pilot in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II. After his discharge, he started his career as a writer. He became one of the most prolific pulp magazine authors of the 1950s and 1960s, adopting the pseudonyms Robert Cham Gilman and A.C. Marin and writing for a variety of pulp magazines and later "slick" publishers. Though writing in a variety of genres, including action thrillers, he is known for his science fiction stories which comprise both short stories and novels.