A Little Cool Science
Perhaps you read the Kim Stanley Robinson series of novels: Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars. If so, you'll find this bit of science news especially amusing:
Greenhouse gases could breathe life into Mars
Those novels, by the way, are a great read; though you have to wade through a certain amount of hippie-silliness. That aside, I definitely recommend you read them, if you enjoy thinking about multinational corporations, political revolution, God-like technological powers, sustainable development, and planetary colonization.
Greenhouse gases could breathe life into Mars
Those novels, by the way, are a great read; though you have to wade through a certain amount of hippie-silliness. That aside, I definitely recommend you read them, if you enjoy thinking about multinational corporations, political revolution, God-like technological powers, sustainable development, and planetary colonization.
posted by Idris at 2:08 PM
5 Comments:
I think I read the first novel or two in that series a few years ago. IIRC it kind of got on my nerves, especially the idiotic 'preservationists' who wanted to keep Mars 'pure' (i.e. lifeless). But YMMV of course.
Right now I would recommend Ian M. Banks' new novel: *The Algebraist*. After that, I am going to read Neil Gaiman's *American Gods*.
There is a lot of other mediocre sci-fi and fantasy that I am reading now, but since it is mainly "bedtime reading", it is not worth mentioning.
BTW thanks for the last two 'science links' (this one and the 'escape' one), Idris. Very interesting stuff.
Akratic:
Have you read any of Stephen Baxter's books? He is pretty prolific, and a lot of his especially recent work is pretty trashy, but I can definitely recommend: Time Ships (a revisitation of the H.G. Well's Time Machine book), Titan, and Vacuum Diagrams. The man is properly gloomy about the impending heat death of the universe... in addition to the medium-term sustainability of human civilization. Anyway, if you want to spend some evenings in the comforting embrace of doom (I know you do!), definitely read his stuff.
His book Voyage is pretty cool in a less gloomy, gee-wiz kind of way. The Ring is cool too, though it recapitulates his main themes. Moonseed is prety cool too: end of the world, moon colonization, etc.
Baxter ain't arty, but he works in the finest Arthur C. Clark tradition.
While I'm at it: You must read The Nano Flower by Peter F. Hamilton. Revolution, colonization, first contact, corporate mercenaries, human modification, Oh My!
Thanks for the book recommendations, Idris. I will have to keep them in mind. (Man, I wish Vernor Vinge would write another novel.)
It just occurred to me that that the "Escape from the Dying Universe" scenario you mentioned in an earlier post would make, like, an AMAZING Culture novel. Sorta like "Feersum Enjin", but even cooler.
I feel your pain re: Vernor Vinge. When I visit the scifi section I always look to see if he's something new out... but I am always frustrated. I re-read his novels over the summer and, despite some of the dated internet analogies, I think they're all truly great reads.
What's this new Banks novel? I didn't find it on Amazon. Is it not yet published in the US?
While I'm asking, I should share my irritation that in this day and age of globalization books/CDs can be in print in one country but not another. What's up with that?
I picked up my copy of the new Banks novel while in Canada celebrating Saturnalia.
Recently I noticed a hard cover version of the book in a science fiction and fantasy specialist bookstore here in SF. It was really expensive (something like $45 USD), so I suspect it was a special import.
Try Amazon.ca ???
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