More Alliteration: Brian Ball, The Doomship of Drax (London: Heinemann, 1985)

Nick Pilot lives on a colony world. His people left earth generations ago to live more peaceful lives. Now there are rumours that the sun may be about to explode, and rumours also that the original settlers left a starship for the colonists to escape in if necessary.

Nick's village regards this as heresy and seeks to appease the sun with sacrifice. Nick follows the "false" prophet and discovers all this is true, and helps to find the starship.

Two things make this book stand out from all the other books with the same "our parents don't know anything, the ancients knew everything" theme.

1. The original colonists knew there was a very slight chance of the star becoming unstable, and although they wanted their descendants to be farmers, they made plans for emergencies. ie they weren't stupid.

2. The neighbouring town which does believe the prophet, do not place their entire faith in the idea of a lost starship. They start experimenting with explosives and rocketry. OK, we know they don't stand a chance, but they act like human beings not

oops

they act like humans not like dogs, calmly waiting for prophet/hero/master to give them their orders.