It’s not often that you see a novel about a generation starship that doesn’t end in bloody revolution, but that’s just what Susan R. Matthews has created in Colony Fleet (Eos, $6.50 paperback). No two-headed mutant heads roll on the deck here, and that’s breaking a tradition that’s almost as old as the generation ship idea itself.

The peaceful conflicts of the book are particularly surprising coming from Matthews, whose first novel – An Exchange of Hostages, about a space navy where the ship’s doctor is also the ship’s torturer – proved she wasn’t afraid of Grand Guignol storytelling. Matthews can dish out the gore with the best of them, but this low-key story proves to be a refreshing change.

Matthews doesn’t change everything. The fleet of the title has almost completed a 400-year trip from Earth to the first of five colonies, and as usual its society has changed and stratified along the way.

The original crew of engineers, administrative personnel and technicians has become three hereditary castes of Jneers, Oways and Mechs. Movement between castes is virtually unheard of, and the system is rigged for the comfort of the Jneers.

It sounds like a revolution waiting to happen, especially after an ambitious young Jneer is done a grave injustice and reclassified as a Mech. Once she discovers the hard but vibrant culture of the Mechs, she’s ready to make some changes in society.

Cue the drumbeats and barricades . . .

Revolutionaries with pocket protectors

. . . or maybe not. Most of the characters with power in this book are surprisingly reasonable. They like their creature comforts, but they’re smart people, open to the possibility of change.

In the hands of another author, this would make the Mechs' quest for a more equal society almost too civilized, but Matthews keeps the story moving by concentrating on conflicts going on beneath the surface.

While her characters are consciously rational, all have blind spots and prejudices that distort their "reasonable" views of the wider world, providing stumbling blocks in the relationships between the castes and ultimately resulting in some potentially fatal mistakes as the fleet nears its destination.

In general, Matthews poses some enjoyable problems for our heroes to solve, but the book occasionally reads like a love letter to the Practical Mechanic. That’s okay – the story keeps moving, the characters are appealing, and it’s nice to see a generation ship story where surviving your destination is as important as who is in charge when you get there.