There are plenty of fantastic post-apocalyptic sci-fi books out there, like David Brin’s The Postman or Walter M. Miller Jr.’s A Canticle for Liebowitz. But usually these apocalypses are caused by something like a nuclear war, where society could at least theoretically come back from it. But what about an apocalypse where technology itself stops working?

There are loads of artificially intelligent ships in sci-fi, like Breq (formerly the giant military ship Justice of Toren) in Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Justice, or the General Contact Unit Of Course I Still Love You in Iain M. Bank’s The Player of Games. But what about naturally intelligent ships, star- or otherwise?