The Ballad of Beta-2
Samuel R. Delany
 The story is about the history of an ill-fated multi-generational interstellar expedition of discovery. By the time the spaceship has arrived at the destination star system, the descendants are incapable and uninterested in settling the system's planets, and continue to live in the spaceship as an obscure backwater culture isolated from broader human history. A quote from the ballad written for the book: