Strange encounters with alien places and intelligences are the staple of science fiction and fantasy, yet it’s not only in fiction where these can be explored. Many recent popular science books look with great sensitivity and imagination at forms of intelligence on Earth that have been overlooked in the past and at the real environments, […]
Otherlands and More Science Books for Science Fiction Readers
Here are three excellent books about science that I’ve found helpful for updating ideas about the origins of life, the nature of the mind and the vanished worlds of extinct creatures and environments that preceded our present precarious moment. Otherlands: A Journey Through Earth’s Extinct Worlds by Thomas Halliday is one of the most extraordinary […]
3 Great Books about Cities for SciFi Readers
Since I’ve been writing about cities in science fiction recently, I thought it would be helpful to highlight three great books about cities that can give readers a lot of ideas on the growth and transformation of these centers of human life. People have been congregating in cities since they began to trade goods and […]
Signs of Life – Science Books for SFF Readers
Here are two books in this ongoing series of posts on science books for SFF readers that explore basic signs of life, one at the cellular level here on Earth, the other at the molecular level on Mars. The Sirens of Mars The Sirens of Mars by Sarah Stewart Johnson is an exciting record of […]
Pushing the Boundaries of Mind: Science Books for SFF Readers – 3
One of the reasons I’m drawn to science fiction is to see how writers explore boundaries of mind and consciousness. I mean not just the sort of psychic powers that were popular to write about 40 or 50 years ago (or superheroes today) but testing the limits of human consciousness. While sff fiction uses standard […]
Science Books for Science Fiction Readers – 2
This second post in my series of science books for science fiction readers moves from the inner space of the human mind to ideas of expanding human life across the galaxy. From Kip Thorne’s astrophysics and Antonio Damasio’s neurobiology to Freeman Dyson’s essays on space and the diary of a doctor in the aftermath of […]
