Captain French, or Looking for Paradise

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Russian science fiction novel (Capitan French, ili Poiski Raia; Капитан Френч, или Поиски Рая Russian) by Mihail Ahmanov and Christopher Nicholas Gilmore.

The novel is told from the point-of-view of a space trader about 20,000 years from now. Captain French was born in the 21st century in the United States and is considered to be the oldest man alive. Interstellar travel is a rare and expensive feat, only performed by colonists, space traders, and occasional missionaries. Human aging is a thing of the past, so death is mostly the result of accidents, disasters, or human action. The Captain's life's goal is to find his own Paradise - somewhere where he could be eternally happy.

[edit] Story

The novels begins with French going through the different ideas for Paradise in religions, none of which suits him. It is then revealed that he is currently on the planet Murphy, which is still recovering from a devastating comet strike, which completely destroyed any sort of social order present at the time. For decades, people have struggled to survive. Many turned to cannibalism. Eventually, a religious order known as the Holy Archonate brought the people of Murphy together and instituted a theocratic regime. All facets of life are strictly regulated by the Archons. All deviants are placed in mines or monasteries for "soul purification". Captain French's interaction with the people is limited to Archon Joffrey, and all his movements are closely monitored. It is to Joffrey that French retells the beginning of his trading career.

Early on in his life, French joins NASA and becomes one of their best pilots. When a new near-light drive system is developed, he is chosen to test it. He makes successful jumps to Triton and Alpha Centauri and then proceeds to travel to several nearby systems. After returning (the trip takes months to French and 180 years to everybody else), he is greeted as a hero, but the ship is under new ownership. Believing that only he can find a proper use for the ship, French steals it, renames it Circea, and jumps to one of the first five colonies. Despite Earth's message urging the colonists to apprehend the criminal, they agree to the Captain's offer of taking their goods to another colony for trade (the colonists have no spaceships of their own). Thus begins his space trading career. Shortly after that, he returns to Earth as a hero once again. By this time, Cell Regeneration (CR) is invented, and aging is eliminated. Time is no longer as much a factor as it used to be. Due to the fact that interstellar travel takes decades, if not centuries, from the planetary standpoint, almost all colony communication is achieved through space traders, who are usually greeted as celebrities.

After listening to Captain French's biography, Archon Joffrey makes an offer he believes the trader is unable to refuse. Joffrey offers to sell one (or more) of the women in a monastery to the Captain as wife. At first, French is appalled but then realizes that it might not be so bad. Joffrey shows him the files on the "sinful" women. Due to the creation of a medical procedure known as biosculpture, people are able to shape their own bodies and modify features. This, unfortunately, has the effect of many women looking nearly the same. Captain French looks through the photos until encounters one that looks very unlike the others. Joffrey reads her file and says that her name is Killashandra. She is 59, a virgin, and refuses to accept the Archonate's teachings for 43 years. After a brief haggling process, they decide on 1.5 kg of platinum for the woman (mostly because the Archon wants to be rid of her). After speaking with Killashandra remotely, French explains his intentions, and she agrees (not that the Archon leaves her a choice).

Together, they leave Murphy and continue on their search for Paradise.

(more to be added)

[edit] Trivia

• Many planet/star names come from popular works of science fiction. At the end of the book, there is even a list of all the references. For example, the Captain visits a water world called Solaris by the colonists - an obvious reference to the novel by Stanislaw Lem, except that the planet is not alive and contains small landmasses which are colonized.
• The novel makes it a point to show that humans still act the same despite them living on other planets and not aging. Many planets are either in a state of anarchy or uninhabited due to human-made disasters like genetic engineering and nuclear war.
• Captain French differs from most other space operas because it describes a galaxy where human planets are not joined in any way and interstellar travel is uncommon. No interstellar federations or empires exist because travelling from star to star takes decades, if not centuries, of objective time. By the same token, interstellar wars or invasions are also improbable. The fastest way to communicate between stars is still through radio waves, but most news travel via space traders, as setting up massive orbital relays is a costly and useless task.
• While most space traders travel because they do not like staying in one place for too long, there is also an interstellar law that forces them to do so. Should a space trader stay on one planet for more than a year (the novel does not specify what planet's year), the trader's ship becomes salvage and can be claimed by anyone. This law is hard-wired into every ship's computer to ensure that interstellar communication lines remain open.
• Although Captain French is considered to be the oldest man alive due to him being born 20,000 years prior to the events of the novel, he is actually only 2000 years old, as much of that time was spent performing interstellar jumps.