Space colonization in three histories of the future
Could we be colonizing Mars in your lifetime? Three different non-fiction books offered different scenarios — including bombarding Mars with “greenhouse gases” and using it as a kind of quasi-penal colony. John Hickman, author of Reopening the Space Frontier, explains. Popular science writers have been colonizing space via descriptions of the near future akin to…
Before he wrote Candide, Voltaire helped pioneer science fiction
Before he wrote the famous eighteenth-century novel Candide, Voltaire wrote non-fiction books about Newtonian physics, and fiction about giant aliens visiting Earth from Sirius and Saturn. Cory Gross from Voyages Extraordinares explains. Voltaire is a crucial link in the great chain of authors — especially French ones — who forged the Scientific Romance. Born François-Marie…
