The Wreck of the River of Stars

What Hacker News says

1. DennisPOct 2023
   I'm a big fan of his book The Wreck of the River of Stars, and think a lot of people here would like it.

   The River of Stars is an interplanetary craft, originally driven by solar sail, with snazzy new fusion drives recently added. The crew combines new fusion people and sail traditionalists, and they don't like each other. The story is part engineering, part psychology; everybody does what they think is best for the ship, but they don't communicate well and unfortunate things happen.

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2. FiatLuxDaveFeb 2017
   Even though the term is not used in it, possibly the best sci-fi novel example of an Incident Pit is "The Wreck of the River of Stars" by Michael Flynn. A ship's crew independently make a set of small decisions, any one of which would not result in failure, but in total which result in the loss of the ship and much of its crew. It is much more character-driven than most sci-fi, since the story is basically about a breakdown of teamwork due to the crew's inaccurate perceptions of each other.
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