It's been so long since I read Niven, but weren't some of the settlement ships in Known Space generation ships? Or were they eggships or sleeper ships or just time dilation ships? Not that Niven to my knowledge ever did anything with that, which suggests they were not generation ships...
More to the point:
I suspect it's more a case that authors think the drama on a generation ship has been wrung dry, so they need to move on to the hilarity that ensues when something goes wrong on-planet after the arrival.
(How many ways are there--dramatically--for a generation ship not to reach its target? The accident, the AI goes mad, the uprising, the forget-we-are-on-a-generation-ship...I'm sure there are others.)
no subject
More to the point:
I suspect it's more a case that authors think the drama on a generation ship has been wrung dry, so they need to move on to the hilarity that ensues when something goes wrong on-planet after the arrival.
(How many ways are there--dramatically--for a generation ship not to reach its target? The accident, the AI goes mad, the uprising, the forget-we-are-on-a-generation-ship...I'm sure there are others.)