Let's Get Off This Rock Already!
An Author's Adventures in Space Travel, Science Fiction, and Worlds Beyond
Robert Zubrin is a persistent man. An engineer, author, and above all, space advocate, he's lobbied for a human voyage to Mars for about three and a half decades now, even as the US government has dilly-dallied its way through various questionable exercises in pork-barrel spending. It's 2025 and human boots haven't even returned to... Continue Reading →
How to Mars is like Andy Weir's The Martian, if The Martian had been written by a humanities major instead of an engineer. It is also, not coincidentally, a better book. Now, the subject of today's review was something of a happy accident on my part. I was at my local library---the same library where... Continue Reading →
A think piece for today: If you want to get a rise out of space nerds, bring up Mars colonization1. These days it's the subject of countless op-eds and heated Facebook discussions. The Elon Musks and Robert Zubrins of the world are fierce proponents, viewing the expansion of humanity as a matter of survival; on... Continue Reading →
Sometimes, the underdog really does win against the odds. Sometimes, a small, plucky band of visionaries, armed only with a dream, really can rise to dizzying heights and reshape the world into something better. Sometimes, their success is so profound and transformative that later generations think it was inevitable all along. Mars One was not... Continue Reading →
Hello, everyone! Today I have a guest post by my friend Eamon K. Minges, author of the upcoming novel Paradigm's End from Kindle Direct Press. He'll be examining various energy-efficient methods of orbital launch, comparing their merits, and discussing their possible applications. With no further ado: Part 1: Tsiolkovsky's Tyranny For over sixty years, humans... Continue Reading →
Well, it looks like it's been almost a month since I last posted, but the hectic days of midterms and Thanksgiving break are behind me, now, and I can give this blog the attention it deserves. I'll start things up again with a review of the newest book on my shelf: Andy Weir's Artemis. This tale... Continue Reading →
Post by Nic Quattromani: All right, a few weeks ago I discussed the anthology Galactic Empires, and now I shall talk a bit about the trope behind it: the galactic empire. It is one of my favorite tropes of all time. Few other sci-fi backgrounds offer such rich possibilities for adventure and intrigue on an... Continue Reading →
Post by Nic Quattromani: Well, here's the second part of my review of Neil Clarke's Galactic Empires. Here I will tackle the book's latter twelve stories, twelve tales of weirdness and wonder, and try to make sense of how this anthology fits together, if it does at all. “A Cold Heart” by Tobias S. Buckell: When... Continue Reading →
Post by Nic Quattromani: I’m quite fond of tropes. Yes, when overused they can flatten a story, make it a bland template more than a work in its own right (looking at you, Starship Troopers: Traitor of Mars), but nevertheless they provide a tremendous library of ideas, stories, and tools spread across literary space, which... Continue Reading →
Post by Nic Quattromani: In the space colonization crowd there are a few contrarian fellows who see the ever-popular Mars as a cold, irradiated waste of time, and look instead to the sunny real estate just two planets over on Venus. While steamy Venusian jungles and lizard men were long ago replaced by a scorching... Continue Reading →
