For mysteries, it’s the gumshoe; romance novels, the busty maiden; fantasy novels, the young adventurer; political thrillers, the idealistic lawyer.
In science fiction, the archetypal hero is the starship captain – doughty scientist-explorers setting off across the uncharted reaches of the cosmos in search of new life, new civilizations. You know the drill.
This is a list of 20 famous starship captains from fiction. (To me, a starship is an interplanetary vessel – interstellar seemed too limiting. As a result, there are no historical starship captains as of yet. Except maybe L. Ron Hubbard.)