The Songs of Distant Earth (Arthur C.Clarke)

A wonderful novel, it tells the story of a star ship that leaves a dieing earth behind to continue human life on a new planet around a different sun. On the way they stop at a planet to make repairs and discover that human life is already there. There is a lovely part about how the 'president' of the planet is chosen not by volunteering and asking for votes, but by random choice. The theory being that anyone who wants to be president would automatically be a bad choice. There are other interesting ideas and theories set out in the book, all plausible if not actually (yet) possible. I love also the way Arthur C Clarke uses and creates language, once you've read this book you'll understand why I can use "Kumar's Kayak" as a metaphor for this web site ;-)