The Songs of Distant Earth is a 1986 science fiction novel by British writer Arthur C. Clarke, based upon his 1958 short story of the same title.

The story is set in the 39th century and depicts the journey of the spaceship Magellan as it carries a large group of colonists in suspended animation to a distant planet after Earth's sun goes nova.

En route, it has to stop for repairs at the planet Thalassa, which was colonised 700 years earlier but the colonists there lost contact with Earth for the past couple of centuries.

The story delves into the cultural and emotional impact of the distant Earth’s demise on both sets of colonists, and how humans from two different worlds and societies interact with each other.

Their peaceful existence is changed with the arrival of the Magellan, an interstellar spaceship from Earth containing almost a million colonists who have been put into cryonic suspension for a five century-long voyage to the planet Sagan Two, which they aim to terraform and colonize.

However, this limitation is eventually overcome with the development of the "Quantum Drive" – an engine that taps the bottomless well of zero point energy – less than a hundred years before the Sun is set to become a nova.

Due to this and other aspects of the Thalassans' way of life, and the duration of the stay on the planet to repair the ship's ice shield, a small contingent of the Magellan crew quickly becomes disenchanted with the original objective of their mission to Sagan 2, leading to a threat of mutiny.

It soon becomes evident that the scorps are responsible for the theft of metals and wire from several Thalassan underwater projects, including a fish trapping tool being developed by Brant.

Several unforeseen events occur that shatter the dream of idyllic life on Thalassa, and also remind the Magellan crew that they must soon continue their prime mission, and leave the Thalassans to their own destiny.

The story concludes with an air of tragedy and hope, as the relationship between Mirissa and Loren ends; the transient nature and ultimate futility of their love revealed.

In the 'Acknowledgements' section of the book, Clarke explains why he chose vacuum energy for spacecraft propulsion – speculated as scientifically viable, but highly futuristic technology.

In his introduction to the novel, Clarke states that he wished the work to deal with a realistic interstellar voyage, without the use of warp drives or other fantastic faster-than-light technologies that provide near-instantaneous interstellar travel in which light years are traversed in days, hours, or even minutes (such as in the Star Wars and Star Trek franchises) as opposed to years, decades or centuries.

Writing in The Observer, Paul Ferris opined that it was "better than the average space fiction" and it contained a "shuddery juxtaposition of complicated technology and simple fear.

[citation needed] The final part of 1987 science fiction anime Space Fantasia 2001 Nights is named "The Songs of Distant Earth".