Category Archives: Moon Colonization

Since time immemorial, mankind has been looking up at the stars and dreaming, but it was only centuries ago that we started turning those dreams into fiction. And what remarkable dreams they aredreams of distant worlds, unearthly creatures, parallel universes, artificial intelligence, and so much more. Today, we call those dreams science fiction.

Science fictions earliest inklings began in the mid-1600s, when Johannes Kepler and Francis Godwin wrote pioneering stories about voyages to the moon. Some scholars argue that science fiction as we now understand it was truly born in 1818, when Mary Shelley published Frankenstein, the first novel of its kind whose events are explained by science, not mysticism or miracles. Now, two centuries later, sci-fi is a sprawling and lucrative multimedia genre with countless sub-genres, such as dystopian fiction, post-apocalyptic fiction, and climate fiction, just to name a few. Its also remarkably porous, allowing for some overlap with genres like fantasy and horror.

Sci-fi brings out the best in our imaginations and evokes a sense of wonder, but it also inspires a spirit of questioning. Through the enduring themes of sci-fi, we can examine the zeitgeists cultural context and ethical questions. Our favorite works in the genre make good on this promise, meditating on everything from identity to oppression to morality. As the Nobel Prize-winning novelist Doris Lessing said, "Science fiction is some of the best social fiction of our time.

Choosing the fifty best science fiction books of all time wasnt easy, so to get the job done, we had to establish some guardrails. Though we assessed single installments as representatives of their series, we limited the list to one book per author. We also emphasized books that brought something new and innovative to the genre; to borrow a great sci-fi turn of phrase, books that boldly go where no one has gone before.

Now, in ranked order, here are the best science fiction books of all time.

50The Echo Wife, by Sarah Gailey

Westworld meets The Stepford Wives in this gripping revenge thriller about the unlikely alliance between a woman and her clone. When geneticist Evelyn Caldwell learns that her husband Nathan is cheating on her, she soon ferrets out the truthrather than work on their strained marriage, Nathan stole Evelyns proprietary cloning technology and replaced her with a more docile substitute. But when Evelyn finds her clone standing over Nathans dead body, crying, It was self-defense, these quasi-sisters will have to work together to conceal the crime and preserve Evelyns scientific reputation. The Echo Wifes juicy premise runs deep, raising eerie questions about love, justice, and individuality.

49Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson

Long before Facebooks Metaverse, Stephenson coined the term in this cyberpunk acid trip of a novel. Snow Crashs Hiro Protagonist lives a double life: in reality, he delivers pizzas for the Mafia, but in the Metaverse, hes a hacker and a warrior prince. When he learns about a lethal virus picking off hackers one by one, his race to find its dastardly architect sends him pinballing through everything from technological conspiracy to ancient Sumerian mythology. Sexy, action-packed, and downright prophetic in its vision of our virtual future, you'll want to strap in tight for this dizzying techno-thriller.

48Contact, by Carl Sagan

The great Carl Sagan wrote dozens of works of nonfiction, but just one novel: Contact, a 1985 bestseller that later became a Jodie Foster flick. Sagans preoccupations with intelligent life come into view through Dr. Ellie Arroway, a principled astronomer who detects and decrypts a deep-space transmission from a planetary system far, far away. At the transmissions urging, the nations of the world race to build a mysterious machine, but faith leaders call the enterprise (and the rationality of science) into question. Through this thoughtful, layered story, Sagan plumbs the often antagonistic relationship between science and religion, asking if perhaps both are seeking contact in different forms. After all, disciples from each camp can agree on one thing: The universe is a pretty big place. If it's just us, seems like an awful waste of space.

47A Canticle for Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller Jr.

After World War III, Earth has fallen into a new Dark Age; most of the United States is a radioactive wasteland, and civilization is in tatters. While violent packs of survivors burn books and slaughter those who can read, the monks of St. Leibowitz preserve the heritage of the past by smuggling important volumes into their monastery. As the novel progresses throughout the centuries and a new Renaissance gives way to a second space age, so much about modern life changes, but at the monastery, much remains the same. Millers ambitious sci-fi classic captures the human tendency for self-destruction, as viewed through the cyclical rise and fall of civilization, but its not all doom, gloom, and nuclear warfareA Canticle for Leibowitz is a moving paean to the power of knowledge and hope.

46Solaris, by Stanislaw Lem

No one writes about intelligent life quite like Stanislaw Lem, who scoffed at little green men and instead put the alien in alien. In this dense and brainy novel, scientist Kris Kelvin lands on the planet Solaris to study the mysterious ocean enveloping its surface. Kelvin and his crew soon discover that this massive ocean is sentient: aloof, unknowable, and mysterious, it explores these explorers, reflecting their most painful memories back at them. What if aliens dont care to know us, and what if we cant possibly dream of understanding them anyway? Lem never tired of asking these questions, but of all his novels, Solaris makes our list for its perfect encapsulation of his singular vision.

45Neuromancer, by William Gibson

Cyberspace: a consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation. This is the setting of William Gibsons Neuromancersounds awfully familiar, doesnt it? The winner of Hugo, Nebula, and Philip K. Dick Awards, Neuromancer is often called the definitive novel of the cyberpunk genre (it went on to heavily influence the creators of The X-Files and The Matrix). Our hero is Case, an ex-cyber cowboy banished from cyberspace by his former employers. When a criminal syndicate comes knocking, promising to restore Cases uplink in exchange for his hacking services, the novel transforms into a kaleidoscopic espionage thriller. Trippy, surreal, and slick as hell, Neuromancer is a ride you wont soon forget.

44The Book of Phoenix, by Nnedi Okorafor

Science fiction and magical realism collide in this imaginative prequel to Okorafors World Fantasy Award-winning Who Fears Death. Here we meet Phoenix, an accelerated woman grown in New Yorks Tower 7. Though shes only two years old, she has the mind and body of a middle-aged adult, along with superhuman abilities. Phoenix suffers a painful awakening when her lover takes his life under dubious circumstances, proving that Tower 7 is less of a home and more of a prison. Her daring escape leads her to Ghana, where she learns brutal truths about colonialism, and vows to fight back against her oppressors. Blistering with love and rage, Phoenixs fight for justice is downright electrifying.

43A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess

In the many decades since its 1962 publication, A Clockwork Orange has become such a high school curriculum fixture that its easy to forget just how damn good it is. Burgess transgressive dystopia is the story of Alex, a teenage gangster who leads his fellow droogs in shocking acts of ultra-violenceuntil hes apprehended by the draconian police. In prison, Alex is subjected to a brutal reconditioning, leaving him a changed and diminished man. Told in high-flying, pyrotechnic patois thats since bled into the cultural lexicon, A Clockwork Orange is a postmodern triumph.

42The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams

Few science fiction novels can claim to have inspired their own holiday, but The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy isnt your ordinary science fiction novel (the holiday is Towel Day, if you must know). Adamss signature work has cast a long shadow over popular culture, and for good reason. This absurdist comedy is the story of Arthur Dent, a hapless everyman who wanders the universe after Earth is destroyed to make way for the galactic highway. As he romps through space with alien travel writer Ford Prefect and a crew of android oddballs, Dents adventures illuminate how utterly insignificant our little blue green planet truly is. In the face of absurdity, Adams reminds us, what else can we do but laugh?

41This Is How You Lose the Time War, by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

Structured as a poetic correspondence between two time-traveling spies, this forbidden romance puts the distance in long-distance relationship. As Agents Red and Blue hopscotch through the multiverse, altering history on behalf of their respective military superpowers, they leave behind secret messages for one anotherfirst taunting, then flirtatious, then flowering with love and devotion. Theres a kind of time travel in letters, isnt there? Blue muses. Letters are structures, not events, Red replies. Yours give me a place to live inside. Amid the dangerous chaos of their circumstances, Red and Blue find constants in one another. Playful and imaginative, told with lyrical grace, this is a dazzling puzzle box of a novella.

40The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, by Robert A. Heinlein

Though Heinlein is considered one of The Big Three science fiction writers (along with Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke), hes arguably the least well-known among casual sci-fi readers. If youre new here, start your Heinlein odyssey with his best novel, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. In the year 2076, a penal colony on the moon rises up against the tyranny of Earth, declaring themselves the Free State of Luna, and themselves "the loonies." Its a parable for the American Revolution, but instead of tea dumped in the Boston harbor, weve got electromagnetic catapults hurling moon rocks at Earth with the force of atomic bombs. Fun fact: the phrase, There aint no such thing as a free lunch originated in this novel.

39A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L'Engle

Who says science fiction is only for adults? LEngles enduring young adult classic is the story of tweenage siblings Meg and Charles Murray, who travel through the universe by way of a space-time-folding tesseract. In search of their missing father, Meg and Charles encounter galactic marvels of all kinds, from a utopian planet to the source of all evil in the universe. A Wrinkle in Time never makes the mistake of assuming that young readers cant handle all the brainy concepts and mature themes that science fiction has to offer. Though its an unforgettable read at any age, its perhaps best-loved by the generations of readers who remember it as their gateway to sci-fi.

38The Time Machine, by H.G. Wells

Published way back in 1895, The Time Machine was one small step for H.G. Wells, but one giant leap for science fiction. The novel popularized the concept of time travel by vehicle, lighting the way for everything from Back to the Future to Doctor Who. The Time Machine is the story of the Travelers journey 800,000 years into the future, where he discovers that mankind has evolved into two races: the ethereal Eloi and the predatory Morlocks. Through the Travelers exciting, nail-biting adventure, we see an entire generations fin-de-sicle anxieties about industrialization and the future of humanity. This short, seminal book is a must-read for any sci-fi fan.

37Rosewater, by Tade Thompson

Tade Thompsons award-winning Wormwood Trilogy opens in Nigeria circa 2066, where the town of Rosewater has formed around a mysterious alien biodome rumored to have extraordinary healing powers. Enter Kaaro, a government security officer known as a sensitiveessentially, a bioengineered race of psychics with access to an alien informational network called the xenosphere. When sensitives start dying off mysteriously, Kaaro embarks on a hardboiled detective mission, bringing the true nature of sensitives existence into the cold, hard light of day. A work of dazzling cyberpunk imagination and visionary Afrofuturism, Rosewater masterfully fuses a story of postcolonial trauma with a first contact narrative.

36The Stand, by Stephen King

Horror, fantasy, and science fiction converge in The Stand, a master storytellers doorstopper about the eternal struggle between good and evil. After a bioengineered influenza virus escapes from a government laboratory, mankind succumbs to the deadly pandemic in just weeks, leaving survivors scattered across the barren United States. Two communities coalesce around very different leaders: Mother Abagail, a benevolent holy woman seeking utopia, and Randall Flagg, the human personification of violence and chaos. As the communities fight to wipe one another out, King weaves an epic tale about theology, morality, and human nature. In the wake of our own pandemic, The Stand has only grown in resonance and prescience.

35The Children of Men, by PD James

Before it was a grim Alfonso Cuarn film, The Children of Men was a grim, remarkable novel. The year is 2021: with all men inexplicably sterile, no child has been born for 25 years, and the human race faces extinction. England is ruled by the Warden, a despotic leader who prizes the youngest generation above all others. Theo Faren, the Wardens estranged cousin, sleepwalks through life as an Oxford historian until he receives a visit from a group of dissidents, whose company includes a pregnant woman. Packed with prescient insight about politics, power, and tyranny, The Children of Men will rattle you for years to come.

34Radiance, by Catherynne M. Valente

When documentary filmmaker Severin Unck fails to return from her latest project on Venus, so begins a metafictional odyssey into her life, work, and disappearance. Constructed in patchwork fashion from scripts, depositions, and interviews with people who knew Unck, Radiance ushers us into Valentes pulpy alternate universe, where Hollywood is an interplanetary system with backlots on the moon, but cinema never progressed beyond silent black and white films, thanks to the Edison familys tight grip on the patent process. Hopscotching through this kaleidoscopic universe of beauty, adventure, and artistry, Valente tells a moving story about why we tell stories at all.

33Red Mars, by Kim Stanley Robinson

Plenty of writers have contemplated the colonization of Mars, but few have done it with such extraordinary granularity as Robinson, who dug in with gusto through his Mars Trilogy. Arthur C. Clarke himself called Red Mars the best novel on the colonization of Mars thats ever been written. The novel takes place in 2026, when colonists fleeing an overpopulated Earth touch down on the red planet. Carefully selected and trained, they set about the task of terraforming hostile, sandswept Mars, but establishing a viable settlement will demand everything they have to give. Robinson looks at planetary colonization through every conceivable lens: politics, biology, ecology, medicine, psychology, and morality, just to name a few. The result is speculative fiction that feels astoundingly real.

32The City & The City, by China Miville

That this novel won a constellation of awards spanning science fiction, fantasy, and weird fiction is proof of Mivilles gift for straddling genres. The City & The City is set in two fictional Eastern European cities occupying the same physical space; from birth, residents are trained to unsee the opposing city, under the threat of criminal penalties. When a murdered woman is found lying in the wastelands, Inspector Tyador Borl of the Extreme Crime Squad is called to the scene, but the crime defies logic: this woman was murdered in one city, and her body was dumped in the other. Borls investigation exposes startling secrets about this strange way of life, taking us on a noirish metaphysical journey through the doors of perception.

31Hyperion, by Dan Simmons

Inspired by Chaucers Canterbury Tales, Simmons Hyperion Cantos begins with this story of seven pilgrims sent on a potentially fatal mission to the Time Tombs of Hyperion. There, they hope to confront the Shrike, a cosmic being with the power to bend space and time. Throughout the journey, they share their stories of suffering under the Hegemony of Man, the intergalactic government that sold humanity out to a civilization of AIs. From aging in reverse to encounters with immortality, each story is a cerebral fable, rich in Lovecraftian terror, mythological import, and breathtaking worldbuilding.

30Dhalgren, by Samuel R. Delany

Philip K. Dick once called Dhalgren the worst trash Ive ever read, while William Gibson described Delany as the most remarkable prose stylist to have emerged from the culture of American science fiction. Read it yourself, and you can be the judge. This cult classic opens when a man without a name wanders into Bellona, a midwestern city razed by a space-time continuum-altering disaster. Strange phenomena abound: two moons burn in the night sky, time moves in loopy circles, and electronic signals cant reach the city, cutting it off from the outside world. To borrow a phrase from our narrator, Dhalgren has more to say than vocabulary and syntax can bear; written in a circular structure, its a novel with multiple entry points, which will test your patience and bend your brain. Dense and psychedelic, packed with transgressive ideas about race, sex, and gender, its a work of singular vision, but not for the faint of heart.

29The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, by Becky Chambers

The first volume in Chamberss Wayfarers series is pure, rip-roaring funa space opera with a big, gooey heart. Running from her mysterious past on Mars, Rosemary Harper joins the multi-species crew of the Wayfarer, a spaceship that creates wormholes to connect distant trade routes. En route to their biggest job yet at the edge of the Galactic Commons, the eclectic crew has ample time to bond, and bond they do. Plot takes a back seat for the majority of this character-driven narrative as Rosemary learns deeply humane truths about what makes us human (or, rather, what makes us alien): identity, sexuality, race, tradition. Chambers proves that spacefaring neednt be all about the destination. Sometimes, its about the journey.

28The Body Scout, by Lincoln Michel

In Michels cyberpunk New York of the future, climate change and repeated pandemics have ravaged the city; meanwhile, cybernetic body modification is de rigeur, and Neanderthals roam the earth again. In this dystopian milieu, we meet Kobo, a down-on-his-luck baseball scout who recruits genetically engineered talent for Big Pharma-owned teams. JJ Zunz, Kobos adopted brother, is the souped-up superstar of the Monsanto Metsbut when Zunz drops dead on the field, Kobo smells foul play. Kobos transformation into an amateur sleuth sends him pin-balling through a web of corporate espionage, making for a breathlessly paced techno-thriller characterized by stunning, spiky world building.

27Zone One, by Colson Whitehead

After a zombie pandemic decimates American life, separating humanity into the living and the living dead, who cleans up the wreckage? In Zone One, we meet the janitors of the undead: sweepers like Mark Spitz, who are tasked with taking out zombie stragglers to prepare Manhattan for resettlement. Inspired by the horror fiction of Stephen King and the science fiction of Isaac Asimov, Whiteheads foray into zombieland delivers gallows humor and nightmarish gore in spades; at the same time, this post-apocalyptic elegy for the modern world elevates the genre to new heights.

261Q84, by Haruki Murakami

This epic descendent of George Orwells 1984 covers that fateful year in two storylinesone fictional, one real. Bridging that gap are two long-lost lovers: Aomame, an assassin targeting domestic abusers, and Tengo, an aspiring novelist ghostwriting a dyslexic teenagers bestseller. When Aomame discovers that the world is not what it seems and works to take down a dangerous cult leader, she and Tengo are drawn into a distorted reality, searching for one another across the chasm. Its often said that a novel should contain the world; in 1Q84, Murakami makes good on that promise, weaving everything from recipes to music into this mammoth tale of love and longing in a contemporary Tokyo lit by two moons.

25Future Home of the Living God, by Louise Erdich

In this chilling dystopian triumph, an American master warns against a world gone mad. When evolution runs in reverse, leading to babies born with primitive traits, government squads begin imprisoning pregnant women; meanwhile, religious extremists plot to take control of the nation. Enter twenty-something Cedar Hawk Songmaker, four months pregnant at exactly the wrong time, whose search for her Ojibwe birth parents leads her into the maw of danger. Like The Handmaids Tale before it, Future Home of the Living Gods nightmarish vision of theocracy and reproductive dystopia rings all too true.

24Ammonite, by Nicola Griffith

When anthropologist Marghe Taishan touches down on the mysterious planet Jeep, she soon finds that shes in over her head. Centuries ago, Earth colonized the planet; then, a fatal virus wiped out all the men, and contact with the remaining colonists was lost. Generations of radio silence later, Marghe arrives to test a promising vaccine while a greedy corporation waits in orbit, hoping to ransack the unspoiled planet. As Marghes stay progresses, she becomes fascinated by Jeeps powerful women, and ever more enmeshed in its tribal mythologies and conflicts. When Marghe endangers her life to unravel the biological mystery of how Jeeps inhabitants procreate, Ammonite asks: when does a human become an alien? Gripping and gutsy, rich in layers of feminist and queer thought, Ammonite gleefully throws a stick of dynamite into the sci-fi firmament.

23Oryx and Crake, by Margaret Atwood

Last man on Earth narratives are rarely as taut and morally provocative as Oryx and Crake, the first volume in Atwoods dystopian MaddAddam trilogy. Our protagonist is Snowman, the lone survivor of a plague that destroyed mankind. Now living among the Crakers, a bioengineered race of childlike humanoids, Snowman mythologizes their origin story, with some creative embellishments. The tale takes him back to the Before Times, when life was a corporatocracy characterized by genetic engineering and consumer culture. Oryx and Crake isnt for the faint of heart (here there be child pornography, ritualized killings, and animal abuse) but if you can stomach it, reading this prescient novel is like looking in a funhouse mirror of our own failings.

22The Resisters, by Gish Jen

Welcome to AutoAmerica, where AIs have put many people out of work, the privileged Netted live on high ground, and the rest of the population, known as Surplus, live in swamplands wracked by consumerism. Teenage Gwen plays baseball with fellow members of the Surplus in an underground league, but when the government takes notice of her talents, shes shipped off to the Olympics in ChinRussia, playing in dangerous territory alongside the Netted. Like Brave New World before it, The Resisters explores our consent in our own subjugation. "No one would have chosen the extinction of frogs and of polar bears and yet it was something we humans did finally choose," Jen writes. In this funny and tender novel, she makes the impossible look easy, grafting a heartfelt story about family onto big questions about freedom and resistance.

21Shikasta, by Doris Lessing

Though it was likely Doris Lessings long and varied career that netted her the Nobel Prize for Literature, we like to think that her ambitious excursion into science fiction, via her Canopus in Argos: Archives series, also had something to do with it. The first installment, Re: Colonised Planet 5, Shikasta, is a visionary work of imagination. Compiled from ephemera like documents, letters, and journal entries, the novel is structured as a history book for residents of the planet Canopus, who long ago colonized a little blue marble they call Shikasta. Shikasta is clearly the planet Earth, shaped from Genesis to World War III by the Canopians and their colonial rivals. Lessings perspective on history is downright cosmic in scope, but occasionally cheeky, too. (When Earthpeople complain that their heavenly leaders have abandoned them, the Canopians retort, "We've regularly sent people to guide and comfort them! Well, except for a brief period during the last fifteen hundred years.") Lessings ambitious vision of human lifeand human follyoffers alternate history on an eschatological scale.

20An Unkindness of Ghosts, by Rivers Solomon

Solomons intricate and imaginative debut novel takes place on the HSS Matilda, a generation ship carrying survivors of a destroyed Earth toward a new star system. Throughout the generations, life on the ship has become harshly segregated, with people of color confined to a grueling routine of hard labor on the lower decks. Here, we meet Aster, a brilliant and rebellious healer whose search for answers about her mothers suicide stands to galvanize a shipwide uprising. Peopled with a rich array of queer and neurodiverse characters, An Unkindness of Ghosts makes dazzling use of science fictions trappings to tell a gutting story about slavery and intergenerational trauma.

19Annihilation, by Jeff VanderMeer

In this spectacular blend of science fiction and climate fiction, VanderMeer sets his sights on Area X, a lush and remote landscape that has turned against humankind, producing brain-bending effects on scientists who venture into the territory to investigate. As the secrets of Area X reveal themselves not just to the scientists, but to the disorganized agency that monitors these expeditions, the bureaucratic and ecological consequences pile upward. Dreadful, Lovecraftian, and downright existential, Annihilation is a dizzying descent into a metaphysical wilderness leagues away from our lived reality.

18The Sirens of Titan, by Kurt Vonnegut

Perhaps you expected to see Slaughterhouse Five on this list instead, but bear with us. The Sirens of Titans takes Slaughterhouses science fiction slant and leans into it full throttle, making for something even more spectacular, strange, and side-splittingly funny. In The Sirens of Titan, Malachi Constant, the richest man on a future Earth, hopscotches across the solar system, suffering the slings and arrows of fortune at every turn. Constant has come into the crosshairs of Winston Niles Rumfoord, a malevolent space traveler whos become chrono-synclastic infundibulated by his voyage. Now, like a vindictive god, Rumfoord is determined to teach the entire human race a lesson by pitting them against the belligerent Martians. Pulpy and surprisingly poignant, The Sirens of Titan trafficks gracefully in some of sci-fis most enduring questions about fate, free will, and predestination.

17Childhood's End, by Arthur C. Clarke

Sci-fi godfather Arthur C. Clarke wrote dozens of acclaimed novels, including 2001: A Space Odyssey and Rendezvous With Rama, but he considered Childhoods End to be one of his favorite works. Who are we to disagree with him? In this formidable novel, the space race grinds to a halt when vast alien spaceships appear over Earths major cities. The Overlords (or, as they prefer to be known, The Guardians) have arrived on what seems like a mission of peace, determined to end war, ignorance, disease, and poverty. A new golden age begins, but utopia has a price: creativity stagnates, science loses forward momentum, and the human race, by and large, is stifled. As the Overlords secret motives come into view, Clarke reflects on the messy striving that makes us human. (Nominated for a Hugo Award in 1954, Childhoods End ultimately lost to Fahrenheit 451, but the novel remains timeless.)

16The Complete Robot, by Isaac Asimov

Asimovs landmark Foundation series could easily have landed on this listawarded the one-time Hugo Award for Best All-Time Series in 1966, its certainly made a mark on science fiction. But Asimov was at his best, both as a fiction writer and a conceptual thinker, when he wrote about robots, those rascally bags of bolts. The Complete Robot contains 37 of those stories, including the famous I, Robot. Here, Asimov laid down the highly influential Three Laws of Robotics, which would go on to shape both a genre and a field of study. From hostile to heroic to everything in between, the robots in these stories evolved as Asimovs vision did. The world hasn't been the same since.

15How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, by Charles Yu

National Book Award winner and Westworld writer Charles Yu is one of todays most exciting speculative fiction talents. His metafictional debut centers on Charles Yu, a lonesome time machine mechanic for Time Warner Time, which turns a profit by operating alternate universes. Charles oversees Minor Universe 31, a science fiction phantasmagoria where he encounters Linus Skywalker (who offed his famous father), but all the while, hes deep in mourning for his own father, a time travel pioneer who vanished. When Charles shoots his future self in a kneejerk moment of panic, he's soon stuck in a time loop that may see him colliding with his long-lost parent. Trippy and clever, playful and full of heart, this bittersweet novel speaks volumes about our all-too human desire to change the past.

14Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley

Aldous Huxley wrote dozens of far-out books, but Brave New World rises above the pack for a reason. In this nightmarish vision of the future, Huxley imagines a world of mood-flattening pharmaceuticals, information overload, and on-demand sex. The masses are mollified by this endless cycle of consumption, allowing the totalitarian World State to rule unchallenged, but sleep scientist Bernard Marx is unsatisfied by life without passion or pain. When he dares to fight back against the World Controllers, Brave New World veers headlong into a thrilling story about nonconformity and individuality that still rattles us today. In 2002, the novelist JG Ballard said it best: 1984 has never really arrived, but Brave New World is around us everywhere.

13The Employees, by Olga Ravn

The Employees accomplishes more in 136 pages than some sci-fi novels do in 500. On a ship hurtling through deep space, humans and humanoids work together under a rigid corporate hierarchy. When they land on New Discovery, crew members retrieve mysterious objects that exert a strange power over man and machine alike, awakening dreams, memories, and longing. Humans mourn their lost connections on Earth, while their humanoid colleagues yearn for connections theyve never known. Constructed as a series of witness statements from the crew, gathered after tensions with their oppressive employer boil over, The Employees is an unforgettable novel about the psychic costs of labor under capitalism. Yet it also reaches deeper to explore science fiction's animating questions: What makes us human? Which of us is more human, person or robot? Is a synthetic life still a life? Dreamlike and sensual, The Employees shouldn't be missed.

121984, by George Orwell

In a world where concerns about privacy, government overreach, and freedom of information are more relevant than ever, 1984 continues to frighten and astound. Published in 1949, Orwells masterpiece is the chilling story of a rebellious Ministry of Truth bureaucrat; through his eyes, we glimpse a terrifying, tyrannical society, where independent thought is a crime and truth is a fiction. All these decades later, 1984 still looms large in our cultural imagination, from its perch in our curriculum to its pervasive influence on our language. Its difficult to imagine any science fiction novel with more influence.

11The Three-Body Problem, by Cixin Liu

One of Chinas most acclaimed science fiction writers opens his Hugo Award-winning Remembrance of Earths Past trilogy with The Three-Body Problem, a gripping first contact thriller set against the backdrop of Chinas Cultural Revolution. When a young physicist comes to work at the governments secretive Red Coast Base, she soon learns that frontier scientists are communicating with extraterrestrialsand theyre planning to make a hostile visit. Enormous in scope, rich in both twisty-turny mysteries and big ideas about progress, The Three Body-Problem marks the ascension of a writer bound to become every bit as canonical as Arthur C. Clarke or Isaac Asimov. This series will soon become a Netflix series from Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, so get in on the ground floor while you still can.

10Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, by Philip K. Dick

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? famously became the basis for Blade Runner, but if youre a movie fan who hasnt read the novel, youre in for something new, as its more of a complement than a faithful adaptation. Some of the familiar bones are here, like bounty hunter Rick Deckard and his mission to retire rogue androids, but you wont find the term blade runner anywhere. Set in an abandoned San Francisco after World War Terminus radioactive fallout has destroyed the earth, this short gut-punch of a novel finds its central theme in empathy. Can androids experience it? Are humans who lack it any better than machines? Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? asks more questions than it answers, reveling in ambiguity about just what separates man from machine. Like all the best science fiction, its weighty foray into what makes us human will linger with you for a long time.

9Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel

Set before, during, and after the lethal Georgian Flu snuffs out 99% of the worlds population, taking the familiar contours of human civilization along with it, Station Eleven is the incandescent tale of the Traveling Symphony, a nomadic troupe of actors and musicians who perform Shakespeare for the scattered settlements of the Great Lakes region. Along the road, they encounter a violent cult leader known only as the Prophet, who preaches that the virus was an act of Goda divine cleansing of the unworthy. Where so many post-apocalyptic novels traffic in the forces that divide us, Station Eleven celebrates that which allows us not just to survive, but to live: making art, belonging to something bigger than ourselves, searching tirelessly for what it means to be human. Haunting and lovely, Station Eleven is at once an elegy for a lost world and a paean to the human spirit.

8Exhalation, by Ted Chiang

In this stellar collection of short stories, one of the most award-winning science fiction writers of our time tees up nine brilliant tales of time travel, artificial intelligence, and alternate universes. The collection opens with a Hugo Award-winning parable set in ancient Baghdad, where a merchant traveling through an alchemists portal learns a familiar lesson about the impossibility of erasing the past. In another standout, a software tester spends an emotional two decades raising an artificial intelligence as if it were a digital pet (Tamagotchi users, take note). The remarkable title story, structured as a journal entry by a mechanical scientist dissecting his own brain, offers profound wisdom about consciousness: Contemplate the marvel that is existence, and rejoice that you are able to do so. Through lean, thought-provoking prose, Chiang renders stories about man and machines deeply feltand deeply human.

7Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro

One cant say too much about Never Let Me Go without spoiling the novels gut-wrenching twist. But heres what we can reveal: in Ishiguros chilling magnum opus, we meet three students of Hailsham, a quixotic English boarding school where sheltered children are educated in the arts and taught nothing of the outside world. Only when they become adults do they learn the shocking truth about Hailshams nefarious activities, and the reality of their terrible purpose. At once an arresting mystery, a Gothic romance, and a tear-jerking work of science fiction, Never Let Me Go is a masterpiece of tension and tone, as well as a powerful indictment of a future shaped by science without ethics.

6The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula K. Le Guin

In 1969, Le Guin put feminist science fiction on the map with The Left Hand of Darkness. According to The Paris Review, "No single work did more to upend the genre's conventions. This barrier-breaking first contact narrative opens on the planet Gethen, where Earth-born emissary Genly Ai is dispatched to broker an interplanetary alliance. The ambisexual Gethenians live without gender binaries, meaning that theyve developed a world without war, where children are raised communally. Ais inability to think beyond his own misogyny and homophobia threatens his mission, imperils his life, and endangers his growing connection with Estraven, Gethens disgraced prime minister. In this visionary work of radical imagination, Le Guin explores a world beyond the constraints of gender and sex, and takes us to the heights of love without limitations.

5Kindred, by Octavia Butler

Octavia Butlers contributions to science fiction and Afrofuturism are legendary, meaning that selecting just one of her works for this list was a tall order. But Kindred, perhaps her best-known novel, stood out above the rest as a master class in the ability of science fiction to speak to the contemporary moment. This is the story of Dana, a Black woman in Los Angeles circa 1976, who finds herself violently transported back in time to the antebellum plantation where her ancestors were enslaved. Each time she pinballs through past and present, Danas stays at the plantation become longer and more dangerous, forcing her to confront the gruesome legacies of slavery, misogynoir, and white supremacy. As Harlan Ellison once said, Octavia Butler is a writer who will be with us for a long, long time, and Kindred is that rare magical artifact the novel one returns to, again and again. Almost like time travel, we keep coming back to it.

4The Fifth Season, by N.K. Jemisin

Like many science fiction writers, its impossible to categorize Jemisin in just one genre. Many of her works belong to the hybrid genre of science fantasy, including this paradigm-shifting first installment in her Hugo Award-winning Broken Earth trilogy. The Fifth Season introduces a characteristically Jemisinian feat of astonishing worldbuilding: the Stillness, a dangerous continent wracked with volcanoes, earthquakes, and tectonic chaos. There live the orogenes, who have the power to manipulate the elements, but face persecution and lynching. Through the linked narratives of three extraordinary women, Jemisin depicts the tragedy of an orogenes life with brutal, unsparing detail. As these unforgettable characters seek safety and agency, Jemisin weaves a shattering story about systemic oppression, where gritty glimmers of hope shine through the bleak edges.

3The Martian Chronicles, by Ray Bradbury

See the original post:
The 50 Best Sci-Fi Books of All Time - Esquire

In 1948-49, mathematician, physicist, computer scientist, and engineer John von Neumann introduced the world to his idea of Universal Assemblers, a species of self-replicating robots. Von Neumanns ideas and notes were later compiled in a book titled Theory of self-reproducing automata, published in 1966 (after his death). In time, this theory would have implications for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), with theorists stating that advanced intelligence must have deployed such probes already.

The reasons and technical challenges of taking the self-replicating probe route are explored in a recent paper by Gregory L. Matloff, an associate professor at the New York City College of Technology (NYCCT). In addition to exploring why an advanced species would opt to explore the galaxy using Von Neumann probes (which could include us someday), he explored possible methods for interstellar travel, strategies for exploration, and where these probes might be found.

His paper, Von Neumann probes: rational propulsion interstellar transfer timing, was recently published in the International Journal of Astrobiology, a Cambridge University publication. In addition to being an Adjunct and Emeritus professor of physics at NYCCT, Matloff is a Fellow of the British interplanetary Society (BIS), a Member of the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA), and has been a consultant for the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center.

His pioneering research in solar-sail technology has been utilized by NASA to develop concepts for interstellar probes and diverting potentially-hazardous objects (PHOs) in other words, asteroids. His writings have helped establish interstellar-propulsion studies as a sub-division of applied physics in academia. He also co-authored books with fellow luminaries like MIT science-writer Dr. Eugene Mallove, noted physicist, author, and NASA technologist Les Johnson, and Italian researcher Dr. Giovanni Vulpetti.

In April 2016, Matloff was appointed an advisor to Yuri Milners Breakthrough Starshot alongside fellow astrophysicists like Prof. Abraham Loeb (Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics) and Dr. Philip Lubin leader of the Experimental Cosmology Group at UC Santa Barbara. In January 2017, he presented a Frontiers Lecture on interstellar travel at the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan, where he is also a Hayden Associate.

It is essential to address questions about Von Neumann probes, considering their implications for SETI and the Fermi Paradox. For decades, theoretical physicists and researchers have used the possible existence of Von Neumann probes to constrain the search for intelligence beyond Earth. As Matloff told Universe Today via Zoom, the road that brought us to this point was long and winding and went beyond any single person.

As he explained, the connection between Von Neumanns idea of Universal Assemblers and space exploration emerged sometime in the 1970s. This was largely due to interstellar studies like Project Daedalus, a fusion rocket concept developed by the British Interplanetary Society (BIS) between 1973 and 1977. Amid the debate over whether or such missions should be crewed or robotic, the idea of the Von Neumann probe was revived and applied.

In no time at all, the old SETI saw came up, where humanitys ability to conceive an idea is seen as a possible indication that an older, more advanced species might have done it already! As Michael Hart and Frank Tipler noted in their respective studies, the fact that we see no evidence for extraterrestrial interstellar probes is the most compelling evidence that humanity is alone in the Universe. This is the basis of the Hart-Tipler Conjecture, the earliest-known proposed resolution to Fermis Paradox.

According to Tipler, if ETIs did exist, they would have developed the capacity for interstellar travel and explored the Milky Way within ~300 million years:

What one needs is a self-reproducing universal constructor, which is a machine capable of making any device, given the construction materials and a construction program In particular, it is capable of making a copy of itself. Von Neumann has shown that such a machine is theoretically possible As the copies of the space probe were made, they would be launched at the stars nearest the target star. When these probes reached these stars, the process would be repeated, and so on until the probes had covered all the stars of the Galaxy.

Famed astronomer and science communicator Carl Sagan rebutted their conclusions a few years later in an essay titled The Solipsist Approach to Extraterrestrial Intelligence. In this famous paper (nicknamed Sagans Response), he and co-author William Newman declared that while there was an apparent absence of probes and other technological marvels, this was by no means conclusive. As they poetically summarized: the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.

Matloff similarly takes the Hart-Tipler conjecture to task in his paper for its simplistic and presumptuous nature. As he explained to Universe Today via email:

The Solar System is huge and mostly unexplored, and the probes could be very small. There could be probes everywhere: in craters on the Moon, or lurkers in the Asteroid Belt and Kuiper Belt. There are 100 million objects in the Kuiper Belt alone and we have examined only two, one of which was very anomalous in its shape.

The object he refers to is MU69 (aka. Arrokoth), a contact binary that New Horizons studied during its historic flyby onJanuary 1st, 2019. As the images acquired showed, the object appeared to be two icy bodies that pancake-like in shape (rounded by flattened) and connected by a neck. This strange appearance led New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern to nickname the object Snowman.

In short, humanity has barely scratched the surface when it comes to cosmic exploration, including our backyard. For all we know, there could be countless probes lurking in our Solar System actively watching us, or which became inoperable long ago and have since settled into orbit around the Sun. The only way to resolve questions related to Von Neumann probes (and the Fermi Paradox) is to refine our search methods and keep searching!

As we addressed in a previous article, traveling through interstellar space is incredibly time-consuming! Using conventional technology, it would take anywhere from 19,000 to 81,000 years to reach even the nearest star system (Alpha Centauri). This includes chemical propellants, Hall-effect thrusters (ion engines), gravity assists, and solar sails. Hence, more advanced propulsion methods need to be considered when addressing interstellar travel.

Many concepts are currently being investigated by researchers here on Earth. These include nuclear-thermal and nuclear-electric propulsion (NTP/NEP), fusion propulsion, photon and electric sails, matter/antimatter annihilation, and even some truly exotic concepts (like the Alcubierre Warp Drive). In keeping with the idea that humanity is a recent arrival to the Universe, SETI researchers assume that more advanced civilizations are likely to have researched these concepts already.

First, Matloff considers unpowered gravity assists, where spacecraft use the gravitational force of giant planets to achieve higher velocities. To date, five space probes have been launched from Earth that used a gravity-assist maneuver to achieve escape velocity from the Solar System. These include the Pioneer 10/11, the Voyager 1/2, and the New Horizons mission. The fastest of these missions (Voyager 1) will reach the Alpha Centauri star system in about 70,000 years based on its current velocity.

Powered gravity assists, otherwise known as an Oberth Maneuver, consist of a spacecraft making a powered maneuver while deep within a massive planets gravity well. According to Matloff, such a maneuver could allow a spacecraft to achieve twice the velocity of the Voyager 1 mission (41 km/s; 25.5 mi/s) and make the journey to Alpha Centauri in roughly 30,570 years.

When adjusted for nuclear fission and fusions concepts (using NASA research as a template), Matloff concludes that a nuclear-electric spacecraft could traverse one light in 1500 years while a fusion spacecraft could do the same in 3000 years. That works out to a one-way transit time of 6,550 and 13,100 years to Alpha Centauri, respectively.

Based on several factors, like sail material and whether the probe is nano-miniaturized, Matloff estimates that photon and electric sails could achieve relativistic speeds (a fraction of the speed of light) and make the transit in 1000 years. This is considerably longer than the Breakthrough Starshot concept, which calls for velocities of 0.2 c and a transit time of just 20 years. However, this is based on an estimated velocity of 300 km/s (186 mi/s) and not Starshots ambitious goal of 60,000 km/s (37,280 mi/s).

Matloffs study provides no estimates for antimatter propulsion because the technology is simply not feasible yet. According to a report prepared by NASA scientist Robert Frisbee for the 39th AIAA/ASME/SAE/ASEE Joint Propulsion Conference and Exhibit (2003), a two-stage rocket could make it to Alpha Centauri in about 40 years. However, Frisbee indicated that the spacecraft would need over 815,000 metric tons (900,000 US tons) of fuel.

No FTL concepts are considered for precisely the same reason (i.e., the technology is not verifiable and may never be). Meanwhile, the estimate for photon probes is based on several factors, predominantly the types of materials used for the sail. Said Matloff:

Conservative values for sails were assumed. For instance, the industrial infrastructure necessary to produce a slower aluminum sail is a lot simpler than the infrastructure required to produce a faster graphene sail. A graphene sail could do this in ~1,000 years at an interstellar cruise velocity in excess of 1,000 km/s. My estimate of multi-millennia travel by solar photon sails at ~300 km/s is for the much more conservative aluminum sail. Less industrial infrastructure would be necessary for Al than for graphene.

In terms of rationale, Matloff explores many possibilities as to why a civilization would launch a fleet of Von Neumann probes. In this section, many of the arguments put forth by theorists who have explored questions related to alien probes. These include the Hart-Tipler Conjecture, the Berserker Hypothesis, and other research that attempted to place constraints on their reproduction and expansion rates.

Among the more popular rationales that have been explored include life after death, where an advanced civilization facing imminent demise would send out probes to broadcast messages. These could include stories of their accomplishments (look upon our works and be impressed!), instructions on how to avoid the same fate (its not too late!), or just advertisements of their existence (This is who we were. Remember us!).

There is also the possibility that probes would take the form of benign lurkers watching planet Earth from a distance. These probes could have been dispatched from a nearby star system as it made a close pass to our Solar System (Benford, 2021a, 2021b). A variant on this, malignant lurkers, suggests that extraterrestrials might dispatch armed probes (aka. berserker probes) to investigate Earth as a potential threat and destroy it.

It has also been ventured that some of these probes could still be here likely on the Moon, Earth Trojans, and Earth co-orbital objects and would make viable targets in the Search for Extraterrestrial Artifacts (SETA). Examples include recent studies by Jim Benford, Prof. Abraham Loeb, Konstantin Batygin, and the Initiative for Interstellar Studies (i4is) that show how interstellar objects (ISOs) like Oumuamua and 2I/Borisov regularly enter our Solar System and are periodically captured.

Related research has also shown that the study of the captured ISOs (and new arrivals) will be possible in the near future thanks to the Vera C. Rubin Observatory and initiatives like Breakthrough Listen and the Galileo Project. Another rationale is directed panspermia, where an advanced civilization may choose to forgo sending crewed ships to distant stars (which could take thousands of years) and instead send spacecraft equipped with gene banks or fertilized ova.

Matloff cites Tiplers 1994 book, The Physics of Immortality, where he elaborated on how humans could achieve interstellar colonization with probes someday. As Matloff summarizes it, A Von Neumann probe could carry fertilized human ova to be raised robotically and populate in-space habitats circling nearby stars that would be constructed by the probe. A more advanced civilization might replace embryos with computer uploads of human essences.'

In recent years, a similar idea has been proposed by Claudius Gros, a researcher with Goethe Universitys Institute for Theoretical Physics and the founder of the Project Genesis. The purpose of Genesis is to send spacecraft with gene factories or cryogenic pods to transiently-habitable planets that orbit M-type (red dwarf) stars. This refers to rocky planets with atmospheres rich in abiotic oxygen (not produced biologically) that would be uninhabited but still capable of supporting life.

By seeding these worlds with basic life, entire biomes could develop in places where life would not otherwise arise. If life turns out to be a very rare phenomenon in the Universe, a space-faring civilization might deploy Von Neumann probes with a much happier purpose, writes Matloff. Simply lifeforms might be planted within oceans on sterile, water-bearing worlds to spread life through the Universe.

A final possibility Matloff considers has been explored extensively in science fiction: could advanced ETIs be sending out probes to direct galactic or universal evolution? A popular version of this scenario known as paleocontact argues that advanced life may have visited Earth in the past and deliberately directed humanitys cultural (or even physical) evolution (2001: A Space Odyssey, Prometheus, Stargate, etc.).

While some versions of this argument are pure pseudoarchaeology (i.e., aliens built the pyramids), Carl Sagan argued the paleocontact is something that scientists should not dismiss. As he and Iosif Shklovsky stated in their seminal book, Intelligent Life in the Universe, evidence of this contact may be preserved in the oral traditions of ancient cultures. As examples, they cite Romanian folklore and the Tlingit story of their encounter with the La Perouse expedition in 1786.

While these scenarios are all plausible in their own way, all of them have implications as far as SETI research is concerned which Matloff addresses in the final section of his study.

In the end, Matloff concludes that human astronomers may feel compelled to focus on Sun-like stars when looking for evidence of Von Neumann probes. This is perhaps the result of a Sol-centric bias, where we assume that G-type (yellow dwarf) stars are most likely to support habitable planets because thats what we are familiar with. The implications of this could be that advanced ETIs suffer from the same bias and prefer to send their probes to stars similar to their own.

However, recent exoplanets studies have demonstrated that M-type (red dwarf) stars are very good candidates for finding find Earth-like (aka. rocky) exoplanets that orbit within the Habitable Zone (HZ). In particular, Matloff stresses how recent research has shown that these planets could be potentially-habitable. If an advanced ETI is anything like us (evolved on a rocky planet), they are not likely to overlook these star systems.

If the spacing is less with M-type stars, you have [orbital] resonances, where a planet wouldnt be tidally-locked because other planets cause perturbations in its orbit. Even if they are tidally locked, that doesnt rule out the possibility of life. Von Neumann probes wouldnt rule them out. [Future surveys should] look for probes and life at all stable and mature F, G, K, M main-sequence stars. M stars in particular seem to have lots of planets in or near the habitable zone.

In addition to searching based on stellar classifications, Matloff also considers various proposals for where probes could be found in our Solar System. This once again raises the issue of proposed resolutions to the Fermi Paradox and their possible implications for SETI:

Unless humanity is the first space-faring civilization or we are under some form of quarantine [a la the Planetarium and Zoo Hypotheses], it is reasonable to wonder where such probes might be found in the Solar System. Due to dynamic geophysical and meteorological processes, space might be a better place to search than Earths surface.

Possible locations include the Moon, Earth Trojan asteroids, and Earth co-orbital asteroids. However, as Matloff himself previously suggested, searches for ET will have a better chance of success in the outer Solar System. One possible (rather large) location is the Kuiper Belt:

An advantage of the Kuiper Belt for the construction of a subsequent generation of Von Neumann probes is the availability of resources including volatile materials, he said, adding: if they wish to keep their activities hidden, an outer Solar System location for a probe or a probe base makes the most sense. I think the Kuiper Belt is the best place to start looking.

One of the hardest parts of SETI is the limited frame of reference we have. We know of only one planet that supports life (Earth) and one technologically-advanced civilization (ourselves). As such, all of our efforts fall under the heading of the low-hanging fruit approach, where we are confined to looking for signs of life (aka. biosignatures) as we know it and evidence of technological activity (aka. technosignatures) that we are familiar with.

So when it comes to getting inside the minds of ETIs, we are forced to stick to what we know (and what we might do in their place) and use the conclusions we come up with to help refine the search. While somewhat limiting, this approach does have many upsides. We have to assume that ETIs will be bound by the same physics we are since we know the laws dont change from one place and time to another.

We are also pretty confident that if intelligent life exists elsewhere in our Universe, evolution will favor certain similar characteristics like curiosity. While nothing definitive can be said about alien physiology, psychology, communications, or technology, its a safe assumption that they would be equally motivated to explore. Besides the allure of learning more about the cosmos and seeing whats out there, they would surely be interested in whether there are intelligent species other than themselves.

In that respect, theoretical studies like this one help us refine the search by subjecting Fermis famous questions (Where Is Everybody?) to serious scrutiny. By asking the questions, what would work best? and why would we do it? we select places and signals that we can look for. Beyond that, the only thing we can do is to keep looking until we see whats out there!

Further Reading:

Like Loading...

Read more:
Why Would an Alien Civilization Send Out Von Neumann Probes? Lots of Reasons, says a new Study - Universe Today

Los Angelesbased artist Clarissa Tossin has created work in various modes from post-apocalyptic sculpture to installations comprising of woven textiles. For her current exhibition at the Moody Center for the Arts at Rice University in Houston, she presents The 8th Continent (2021), situated in Brochstein Pavilion on Rices campus as part of the Moody Centers Off the Wall series. The work is a wide-spanning triptych depicting three images taken by NASA of the moons ice deposits, which could potentially be mined and later produced as rocket fuel. With the warmth of woven, glittering metallic thread, The 8th Continent feels at once enveloping and eerily clinical with its scientific images rendered on a digital loom.

Born in Porto Alegre, Brazil, before moving to L.A. in 2006 to complete an MFA at the California Institute of the Arts, Tossin has previously spent an extended time in Houston, when she was a fellow at the Core Residency Program, at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, between 2010 and 2012. Her work has also appeared in major exhibitions like the 2018 Gwangju Biennale and Pacha, Llaqta, Wasichay: Indigenous Space, Modern Architecture, New Art at the Whitney Museum in New York, also in 2018.

In addition to her Moody Center show, which runs through August 27, Tossin was recently the subject of a solo show at her L.A. gallery Commonwealth & Council earlier this year, where she showed Disorientation Towards Collapse, and will have a solo exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver that opens in June. A 2019 sound piece by her, You Got to Make Your Own Worlds (for when Siri is long gone), was also included in a group exhibition Kissing Through a Curtain, which opened in 2020 and closed earlier this year at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art.

For her current show in Texas, Tossin is thinking about the relationship between space entrepreneurship and exploration: Im curious to see how land use and territory play out in the 21st-century space race, and whether the abuses of land and people that have marked our time on Earth get perpetuated as we move out into the solar system. To learn more about her Moody Center exhibition and her other recent projects, ARTnews interviewed Tossin by email.

ARTnews: How did your interest in moon exploration/exploitation begin?

Clarissa Tossin: Ive been using NASA images of Mars and the Moon in my weavings and collages for the past few years, as a counterpoint to devastating scenes of environmental collapse. Im interested in how the narrative around 21st-century space exploration is being put forth as a solution to the challenges facing humanity due to climate change. It seems quite absurd to me, and I really hope to be proven wrong.

I recently began researching Moon-based mining because I wanted to know what resources there were considered worth extracting. Initially, I thought that rare Earth elements must be the Moons gold since theyre so important in making high-tech electronic equipment. But in conversations with Dr. David Alexander, director of the Rice Space Institute, and Dr. David A. Kring, principal scientist at the Universities Space Research Associations Lunar and Planetary Institute, who both generously offered me guidance during my research, I learned its really the Moons water ice that holds the greatest mining potential, as its crucial for producing hydrogen rocket fuel for NASAs Artemis program.

Its poetic and disturbing that our presence on the Moon will begin with water (ice deposits) and sunlight (harvested by solar arrays to power the machinery necessary for extraction)the same two elements that fostered biological life on Earth, billions of years ago. Whats about to happen on the Moon will most likely begin to push humanity toward a different kind of life beyond Earth.

For those of us less familiar with this part of space history, could you give us a brief background of the Moon Agreement and how the U.S. created a loophole around it?

The Moon Agreement was adopted by the U.N. in 1979, expanding on the 1967 U.N. Outer Space Treaty that created a basic framework of space law, banning nuclear weapons in space, reserving the Moon and other celestial bodies to peaceful uses, and making space a kind of international demilitarized zone for free exploration and use by all nations. The Moon Treaty further declares the Moon the common heritage of mankind (which is a source of ongoing disagreement) and stipulates that an international regime should govern any resource extraction or mining. The U.N. held a series of conferences to try and settle on an appropriate regime of law, but failed to get anywhere, and the Treaty was never ratified by any of the major players in space flight, like the U.S., Russia, and China.

Fast forward to 2015, the U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act, signed into law by President Obama, effectively legalized space mining by American private enterprise, allowing companies to own mining rights and profit from sale of resources produced on asteroids and other off-world bodies like the Moon, Mars, and beyond. Many other nations have followed suit. In 2020, President Trump went a step further by signing an executive order, Encouraging International Support for the Recovery and Use of Space Resources, formally recognizing the rights of American private interests to claim resources in space, thus ending the decades-long debate that began with the signing of the Outer Space Treaty. It establishes Americans right to engage in commercial exploration, recovery, and use of resources in outer space, consistent with applicable lawand directly refutes the Moon Treaty in declaring that the United States does not view space as a global commons.

Do you believe the human impulse to explore is also inextricably linked to the desire to have and ownor control?

History as a patriarchal narrative written by the winner has taught us that this might be the case, but Im interested in alternative narratives that question those assumptions about human nature, for instance, the book The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by anthropologist David Graeber and archeologist David Wengrow. The authors show how history becomes a far more interesting place once we learn to throw off our conceptual shackles and perceive whats really there. They challenge our most fundamental assumptions about social evolution and reveal new possibilities for human emancipation with startling implications for how we make sense of human history today, including the origins of farming, property, cities, democracy, slavery, and civilization itself.

I have a related question in regards to a quote from the exhibitions wall text: By focusing on the eminent extraction of resources on the Moon,The 8th Continentrecalls the tension between environmental preservation and industrial exploitation of Earths diminishing resources, and considers how frontier mythologies rationalize discovery and the subsequent stages of development and extraction. Do you believe the U.S.s notion of unfettered optimism toward progress is inextricably linked to colonial conquest? Especially as someone who isnt originally from the U.S.: do you see an America that is forever entangled in its own mythology?

Every empire uses mythologies and values systems to sustain and justify the control it exerts over others, over its own people, and so on. The colonial project goes beyond issues of border and territory; just think about how our minds are colonized, trained to think along certain lines and not others. But going back to the issue of resources, if you believe that expansion is a given and progress will always bring benefits to people, then we might one day have to extract beyond the solar system!

In my sound piece, You Got to Make Your Own Worlds (for when Siri is long gone), which was recently on view at Mass MOCA, I selected excerpts of [historical] interviews with sci-fi author Octavia E. Butler and put them in conversation with Apple Inc.s iOS virtual assistant, Siri. Heres an excerpt from that constructed conversation, a quote by Butler: I think that the one thing we can be sure of is that we wont have, you know, straight line prophecy coming true that whatever technological things were doing now will just do more of that and better. I think well get surprises. Its dangerous to assume that we can actually see the future by only looking at the advancements weve made so far. Its very interesting to see how some of Butlers statements about the future and the faith in progress reflect our present.

Youve expressed interest in Butlers writing in past work. Does your interest in Butler also relate in any way to The 8th Continent? If so, how?

Octavia Butler sparked my interest in science fiction, as well as space exploration and some of the current science associated with it. The 8th Continent doesnt draw directly from any of her novels, but it certainly comes from a familiar place of interrogating scientific propositions from a humanistic perspective. Im curious to see how land use and territory play out in the 21st-century space race, and whether the abuses of land and people that have marked our time on Earth get perpetuated as we move out into the solar system.

The wall text also seems to delineate a connection between exploration and exploitation via colonization. However, I suspect there are implicit nods toward other forms of colonization at play in this work. Could you speak to that?

The work also operates at a metaphorical level, where the conquest of new territory reflects colonial historiesespecially when the land in question is considered desert, or wilderness, or empty, hence there for the taking. Certainly, this has been the premise behind the swindling of vast territories from Indigenous communities, who have occupied and used their traditional lands in very different ways from those favored by their conquerors.

As space exploration becomes a more privatized entrepreneurial endeavor in the 21st century, I wonder what will become of these celestial bodies and their relationship with geopolitical power plays on Earth. Will they become repositories of resources that benefit the few, yet rely on public money for their exploration? Moreover, if the end goal is profit, whats to safeguard different forms of lifeperhaps far beyond any understanding of life on Earththat we may well encounter out there? And then theres the military angle, space treaties notwithstanding, of defending territorial claims, and the potential for space wars that comes with that.

Could you explain the impetus to connect the technological advancements of NASA with medieval and Renaissance tapestries in The 8th Continent? Why, for you, was this the most salient way to symbolize anexertion of power?

Theres something very luxurious in tapestries made with metallic thread (or the gilt-metal-wrapped silk that was used back then). Its almost decadent. Their production was painstaking, with high-quality tapestries requiring a group of very skilled weavers laboring, sometimes for years, to achieve the desired outcome. It seemed interesting and provocative to render these NASA images of the Moon with such intricacy, at this specific moment in space history, when the Artemis program is being outlined in stages, to unfold in the decades to come. My upcoming solo exhibition at MCA Denver opening in June 2022 engages further with Moon exploration.

You talk about tapestries being symbolic of the wealth and power of the medieval era as well as the Renaissance. Would it be fair to also find a link in this work to the Arts and Crafts Movement of the late 19th century and its emergent feminism? If so, how does it change or add to the idea of conquest in this piece?

In fact, I was not thinking about Arts and Crafts Movement, though I can understand the desire to associate textile artworks such as these with the feminist art canon. But these jacquard weavings were made with a digital loom, so to me this work speaks more to digital translation in its materiality than to craft and the handmade. Though I must say that when I weave with strips of Amazon cardboard delivery boxes and satellite photographs, I do use my own hands, and work within a different scale of time and intimacy with the materials.

Can you talk about those works more?

In my solo exhibition at Commonwealth and Council, Disorientation Towards Collapse, I had a new series of weavings titled Future Geographies which combines strips of broken-down Amazon delivery boxes with NASA satellite images depicting Shackleton Crater, the proposed site of the first US lunar ice mining facility; Jezero Crater on Mars, later dubbed Octavia E. Butler Landing, where NASAs Perseverance rover set down in February 2021; and the Hyades, one of the best studied star clusters, 153 light years distant. Another weaving, in Disorientation Towards Collapse, is made entirely from cut up Amazon boxes, highlighting their pervasive materialitycardboard covered with Amazons ubiquitous arrow logo, a banal index of circulation and consumption in the global economy. The slow, laborious process of flattening the boxes, cutting them into strips, and weaving them together stands in contrast to accelerating cycles of mass extraction/production/consumption and waste on which our lives presently depend. A disposable container transformed into a contemplative experience signals a broader invitation to stop, look, and reflect.

The work in the Moody Center show feels texturally gratifying in terms of its excruciating level of detail, the iridescent thread, and the material warmth emanating from the woven tapestry. Yet, these high-resolution, scientific images also register as clinical, icy, and even evasive. Could you talk more about this seductive push/pull technique going on in the work and how it relates to the subject matter at hand?

I wanted to stay true to the digital realm, treating outer space images for what they are: more a matter of selective mapping and coding than anything like photography in the traditional sense, the straightforward record of a landscape. Images of planets and moons taken from satellites and rovers are far less straightforward than meets the eye. Every image must be processed, manipulated, and interpretedand this is after a team of scientists has haggled over what they should even be imaging, to begin with. Janet Vertesis book Seeing Like a Rover has been illuminating, and a great source of inspiration in this regard. She unpacks the role of digital processing in uncovering scientific truths, where images craft consensus and team members develop an uncanny intimacy with the sensory apparatus of a robot, millions of miles away.

Could you elaborate more on the use of a digital loom?

Using a digital loom to output the images into the weave of the tapestries seemed to go with these processes, which inherently complicate the relationship between reality and photographyits documentary capabilities and relationship with the human eye. I think its interesting to think about the visualization of space landscapes as something created by scientists through technological imaging processes that go beyond human sight. Think about how Google Earth allows us to surveil the surface of the Moon and Mars from a detached robotic perspective, and how more and more, these landscapes are getting incorporated into the visuality of our world.

Could you talk a little bit more about your recent show at Commonwealth and Council? In what ways does that show parallel or intersect with this work?

In Disorientation Towards Collapse, I further engage with the global environmental catastrophe, and the key role humans and corporations have played in accelerating the disaster. Im also looking at the paradigm shift from environmental conservation to industrial exploitation against a backdrop of Earths dwindling resources, and how frontier mythologies really pave the way, charting the relentless course that leads from discovery and development to extraction, over and over again, starting just beyond whatever frontier we just used up. Of course, the privatization of space exploration in the 21st century is gearing up for the next cycle. I want to show how this flourishing new industry is predicated on the same bad logic of over-extraction that has brought our planet to the brink of ecological collapse.

See the original post:
In Houston, Artist Clarissa Tossin Ponders the Colonial Implications of the 21st-Century Space Race - ARTnews

Elon Musk believes that a manned mission to Mars could happen in just a few years. Credit: NASA/JPL/CalTech

Elon Musk stated that a manned mission to Mars could happen as early as 2029 on Wednesday when asked on Twitter.

A twitter user posted a picture comparing an image from the Moon landing, along with 1969, the year the historic event took place, and an image depicting a potential Mars landing with the text 20_ _? The user wrote Whats your guess? and tagged Musk in the tweet.

Responding to the question, Musk replied simply 2029.

The SpaceX and Tesla CEO Musk has long advocated for the colonization of Mars as a solution to many of the Earths problems, particularly climate change, and has made landing on the planet one of his biggest goals.

While speaking at the International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico in 2016, Musk asserted that traveling to and even building a city in Mars is something we can do in our lifetimes.

Musk has even claimed that a Mars colony will be established as early as five years from now, with ten years being a worst-case scenario.

The billionaire has gone on to state that he believes that establishing a city of roughly a million inhabitants on the planet is possible by 2050.

While many scientists disagree with Musks timeline, they still believe that colonization of the planet could be on the horizon.

Professor Serkan Saydam, who works at the School of Mineral Energy Resources Engineering at UNSW Sydney, says that a colony on the Red Planet is in fact possible within the next three decadesas long as autonomous forms of mining are commercially viable.

For its part, NASA is interested in investigating the possibility of establishing a colony on Mars.

A statement from NASA released in August of 2021 clearly indicates that they are interested in cultivating readiness for the possibility that humans will be on Mars in the near future:

As NASA ventures farther into the cosmos, the astronaut experience will change. In preparation for the real-life challenges of future missions to Mars, NASA will study how highly motivated individuals respond under the rigor of a long-duration, ground-based simulation.

The simulated mission will have four crew members live in a small 3D printed module that simulates the real-world environment of a Mars living space, challenging the crew members to deal with resource limitations, equipment failure, communication delays, and other environmental stressors.

Interest in surveying and studying Mars with the goal of someday landing on the Red Plant has been widespread in recent years.

Europe and Russia had planned to send rovers to the planet later this year, but the war in Ukraine led to the cancellation of the mission, called ExoMars. The ExoMars mission was aimed at discovering any signs of life on Mars.

NASA is also working on a Mars Ascent Vehicle which will be used to launch samples from the surface of the planet back to Earth.

The Mars Ascent Vehicle, known as the MAV, is a small rocket that will launch sediment, rock, and atmospheric samples, becoming the first rocket launched from another planet back to Earth.

Link:
Elon Musk: Manned Mission to Mars is Just a Few Years Away - Greek Reporter

Columbia University School of the Arts will present Chaesong Kim's (Columbia MFA Directing Candidate 2022) production of She Walks the Air IX.

Inspired by a line out from Ota Shogo's seminal work, The Water Station, She Walks the Air IX finally lands in its ninth iteration after morphing through multiple iterations with over 40 collaborators at institutions across the country. A rejection of Shogo's hypererotization of the female body and refusal to acknowledge colonization, She Walks the Air IX harnesses the breathtaking beauty of the non-western canon in an ensemble ritual that invites its participants to imagine walking in the air, like walking on the road, but also walking the air, like walking a dog.

Anthony Sertel Dean, Anuka Sethi, Ari LaMora, Ariel Urim Chung, Begum "Begsy" Inal, Chaesong Kim, Noa Toledano, Sarazina Stein, and Willow Green

Producers Zhiwei Ma and Yining (Vivian) Cao, Production Stage Manager Emma Hughes, Assistant Stage Manager Jonah Yoder, Company Manager Gabriel Szajnert, Interactive Experience Designers Andrew Agress, Kanika Vaish and Phoebe Brooks, Scenic Designer Hsin-Ho Yang, Costume Designer Karen Boyer, Lighting Designer Christopher Wong, Sound Designer Anthony Sertel Dean, Props Designer Begum "Begsy" Inal and Hyoju Cheon, Projection Designer Vivienne Shaw, Somatic Advisor Fana Fraser.

Darby Davis, Divyamaan Sahoo, Ellen Oliver, Eva Wang, Fiona Gorry-Hines, Julie Moon, Liz Peterson, Siting Yang, Sophie Kovel, Victoria Awkwards, e??e??e??, e??i??i-?, e??i??e??, e??i??i??, e??i??e??, e??i??, i?oei??i??, i?oei??i??, e-?i??

Chaesong Kim's Directing Thesis will be presented at Lenfest Center for the Arts.

Thursday, March 24 at 8pmFriday, March 25 at 8pmSaturday, March 26 2pmSaturday, March 26 at 8pmSunday, March 27 at 2pmClick here for tickets.

e??i??i?? / Chaesong Kim (she/they) was born and raised by two social activists who were a part of the student-led democratic revolution and labor rights movement in South Korea. Often subconsciously, they were fueled by a kind rage towards hierarchy, oppressive system and colonization. Recently, they have been recontextualizing such dissatisfaction as love - taking care, taking time, noticing, and holding space. They deeply identify with the inheritance of "in-between" spaces, and celebrate transcendence through an embodied communal practice. Most recently their work has been a part of Seoul Dance Center's CO-Choreo LAB, EstroGenius Festival, Ping Chong + Company's Nocturne in 2020, and La MaMa E.T.C. They have also performed in Okwui Okpokwasili's Sitting on a Man's Head, and Samita Sinha's Infinity Folds at Danspace, and Claire Chase's Density 2036 with Constellation Chor at The Kitchen.

More:
Columbia School of the Arts to Present SHE WALKS THE AIR IX - Broadway World

Todays stories range from The Cloud Decoded to a video preview of The Man Who Fell to Earth to Was there life on early Moon to If energy cannot be created or destroyed, where does it come from? and much more. The Planet Earth Report provides descriptive links to headline news by leading science journalists about the extraordinary discoveries, technology, people, and events changing our knowledge of Planet Earth and the future of the human species.

The Coronaviruss Next Move Here are four shapes that the next variant might takewhich will also dictate the shape of our response, reports The Atlantic. Omicron is not the worst thing we could have imagined, says Jemma Geoghegan, an evolutionary virologist at the University of Otago, in New Zealand. Somewhere out there, a Rho, a Tau, or maybe even an Omega is already in the works.

Alpha Centauri Star System: Life On Its Earth-like Planets Have Had About a Billion Years Longer to Evolve reports Maxwell Moe for The Daily Galaxy. A billion years ago, our ancestors were amoeba-like creatures fond of engulfing paramecium-like creatures.

Moores Law: Scientists Just Made a Graphene Transistor Gate the Width of an Atom, reports Singularity Hub Theres been no greater act of magic in technology than the sleight of hand performed by Moores Law. Electronic components that once fit in your palm have long gone atomic, vanishing from our world to take up residence in the quantum realm.

Is there asymmetry in nature? From lefty snails to deadly chemicals, asymmetry in nature is more common than you think. Have you ever wondered why your heart is on the left side of your chest? Or why snail shells always seem to coil to their right side? Is there asymmetry in nature? Sometimes known as chirality turns out its more common than you might have guessed.

Icy, Earth-like worlds may be rare Hundreds of thousands of simulations show few possible exoplanets with climate conditions like ours, reports Astronomy.com. A team of researchers from the University of Washington and the University of Bern computationally modeled hundreds of thousands of hypothetical exoplanets. They discovered that our fortunate ice situation isnt that common, and is due mostly to Earths relatively moderate axial tilt.

Google hijacked millions of customers and orders from restaurants, lawsuit says Restaurants say blue order online button saps profits, diverts customers, reports Ars Technica.

Time to take a long, hard look at humanitys future in the cosmos, reports New Scientist If so many planets are out there, how come intelligent life hasnt come our way? asks astrophysicist Martin Rees in the captivating interview.

Check out the preview of the Man Who Fell to EarthPeople attending SXSW this weekend were treated to the series world premiere.

Astronomer Spotted An Asteroid Just Hours Before It Impacted Earth, reported Eric Mack for Forbes For just the fifth time ever, astronomers discovered a new asteroid right before it slammed into Earths atmosphere.

Einsteins Diet Was Einsteinnewscientist.com//mg25333771-200-if-energy-cannot-be-created-or-destroyed-where-does-it-come-froms genius, as some have claimed, aided by what he ate? Lets find out, reports Inverse.com

What is a law of nature? asks Aeon.com Laws of nature are impossible to break, and nearly as difficult to define. Just what kind of necessity do they possess?

If energy cannot be created or destroyed, where does it come from, asks Herman DHondt for New Scientist. It may sound incredible, but many scientists believe that the total energy of the universe is zero. Hence, no energy needed to be created when the universe came into existence.

Is this Idea Too Crazy? Was There Life on Early Moon? asks Mind Matters Astronomer Dirk Schulze-Makuch and planetary scientist Ian Crawford have looked into the possibilities.

This Ancient Turtle Survived the Extinction Event That Killed T. Rex The softshell turtle roamed the waters during the Late Cretaceous 66 million years ago. With this study, we gain further insight into winners and losers during the cataclysm that ended the Age of Dinosaurs, said research adviser Peter Dodson. The mighty dinosaurs fell, and the lowly turtle survived.

Scientists Warn a Giant Palm-Sized Spider is Spreading Across U.S. According to the University of Georgia, giant spiders the size of your palm are set to parachute from the sky all over the Eastern United States this summer, reports Futurism.

The New Captain of the Endurance Shipwreck Is an Anemone A whos who of the new invertebrate crew steering Ernest Shackletons sunken ship in the Weddell Sea, reports The New York Times.

Future Evolution: How Will Humans Change in the Next 10,000 Years?, asks Singularity Hub.

A piece of space junk hit the Moon. Oddly, scientists are elated One scientist called the impact of human space debris a fortuitous experiment, reports Salon.com

Octopuses Are Increasingly Using Trash For Shelter, Harrowing Study Shows Human waste has become so ubiquitous in the ocean, its becoming easier for octopuses to shelter in our trash than in seashells or coral, reports Science.com

The next generation of robots will be shape-shifters reports University of Bath Physicists have discovered a new way to coat soft robots in materials that allow them to move and function in a more purposeful way.

I Just Want to Know What Im Made Of -Its time to admit quantum theory has reached a dead end. Can we please go back to the math? reports Michael Brooks for Nautilus.com

Why Werner Herzog thinks human space colonization will inevitably fail Herzog and son discuss their new Discovery+ documentary, Last Exit: Space, reports Ars Technica.

Will artificial intelligence help us find evidence of UFOs? Top tech founders and research scientists are now taking UFOs seriously, reports Sifted.com, In May last year, Barack Obama admitted that there really are objects moving in our skies that cant be easily explained away: Theres footage and records of objects in the skies, that we dont know exactly what they are, we cant explain how they moved, their trajectory They did not have an easily explainable pattern.

China Plans Asteroid Missions, Space Telescopes and a Moon Base The China National Space Administration has released an overview of its plans for the next five years, which include launching a robotic craft to an asteroid, building a space telescope to rival the Hubble and laying the foundations for a space-based gravitational-wave detector, reports Scientific American.

What makes mankind special? And what does it mean to flourish on the frontier of a technological future? Robert J. Marks discusses new technology, what artificial intelligence can and cant do, and the ethical implications of artificial intelligence with Gretchen Huizinga. This interview was originally published by the Beatrice Institute and is repeated here with their permission, reports Mind Matters.

Limited Tactical Nuclear Weapons Would Be Catastrophic Russias invasion of Ukraine shows the limits of nuclear deterrence, reports Scientific American. The blatant aggression against Ukraine has shocked Europe and the world. The war is a tragedy for Ukraine. It also exposes the limits of the Wests reliance on nuclear deterrence.

Could the James Webb Space Telescope detect civilizations similar to ours? How would we look for them? The best answers come from understanding what humanitys presence on Earth looks like from outer space, reports SETI Institute.

Company Plans to Dig Worlds Deepest Hole to Unleash Boundless Energy The geothermal startup Quaise Energy has raised $63 million in funding to tap Earths deep subterranean power, reports Becky Ferreira for Motherboard/Vice.

What Were Humans Doing in the Yukon 24,000 Years Ago? -Scientists have examined remains from caves and think the shelters served as temporary camps for hunters who targeted horses, reports The Smithsonian.

Recent Planet Earth Reports:

Go here to read the rest:
Einsteins Diet to Is a Rho, a Tau, or Even an Omega Variant Already Out There? (Planet Earth Report) - The Daily Galaxy --Great Discoveries Channel

DUBAI: As Russias invasion of Ukraine enters its fourth week, any lingering fondness the latter may have had for shared bonds of kinship and culture is now history, replaced by resentments and bitterness likely to last generations.

Underlying the current attempt to bring Ukraine back into the fold of Russia appears to be the conviction that the two peoples are one and the same the product of a shared history spanning centuries.

The Kremlin has said its special military operation is aimed at protecting Russias security and that of Russian-speaking people in Ukraines eastern Donbas region.

However, for many Ukrainians, particularly those who came of age after 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed and Ukraine declared independence, the invasion has only served to accentuate the ethnic, political, and cultural differences between Russia and Ukraine at the expense of their commonalities.

My paternal grandparents are from Ukraine, Eugene B. Kogan, a researcher at Harvard Business School who emigrated to the US from Russia in the 1990s, told Arab News. The unexpected effect of this war is that I have a renewed interest in understanding where my ancestors came from and in my family history.

Far from drawing Russians and Ukrainians closer, the invasion, which started on Feb. 24, appears to have driven a deeper wedge between the two peoples, while fanning the flames of Ukrainian nationalism and cementing further the political and defense ties that bind Ukraine to Western Europe.

Regardless of the seething bitterness, indeed hate, that consumes many Ukrainians as their cities are pulverized by the Russian military, the two peoples share undeniable bonds, linked by a common thread of history in everything from religion and written script to politics, geography, social customs, and cuisine.

In a recent opinion piece in The Guardian, Alex Halberstadt, author of Young Heroes of the Soviet Union, said: Ukrainians and Russians share much of their culture and history, and an estimated 11 million Russians have Ukrainian relatives. Millions more have Ukrainian spouses and friends.

Both nations, alongside Belarus, can trace their cultural ancestry back to the medieval kingdom of Kievan Rus, whose 9th century Prince Vladimir I, the Grand Duke of Kyiv, was baptized in Crimea after rejecting paganism, becoming the first Christian ruler of all Russia. In fact, in 2014, when Russian President Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea, he cited this moment in history to help justify his actions.

Religious identity has played a part in the justification of the war on the grounds of defending the Moscow-oriented Orthodox Christian population of Ukraine, who are divided between an independent-minded group based in Kyiv and another loyal to its patriarch in Moscow.

Leaders of both Ukrainian Orthodox communities, however, have fiercely denounced the invasion, as have Ukraines significant Catholic minority.

Another factor is demographics. When Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union, a policy of Ukrainian out-bound and Russian in-bound migration saw the ethnic Ukrainian share of the population decline from 77 percent in 1959 to 73 percent in 1991.

Upon Ukraines independence, however, this trend was thrown into reverse. By the turn of the 21st century, Ukrainians made up more than three-quarters of the population, while Russians made up the largest minority.

Modern Ukraine shows influences of many other cultures in the post-Soviet neighborhood not just Russia. Prior to its incorporation into the Soviet Union, the country was subject to long periods of domination by Poland and Lithuania. It enjoyed a brief bout of independence between 1918 and 1920, during which several of its border regions were controlled by Romania, Poland, and Czechoslovakia, all of which left their mark.

We always thought of ourselves as brothers and sisters. We have so much shared history and to see what is happening is even more heartbreaking because of that.

The Russian and Ukrainian languages, while both stemming from the same branch of the Slavic language family, have their own distinct features. The Ukrainian language shares many similarities with Polish.

Although Russian is the most widely spoken minority language in Ukraine, a significant number of people in the country also speak Yiddish, Polish, Belarusian, Romanian, Moldovan, Bulgarian, Crimean Turkish, and Hungarian.

Russia has left an indelible mark, nonetheless. During both the tsarist and the Soviet periods, Russian was the common language of government administration and public life in Ukraine, with the native tongue of the local population reduced to a secondary status.

In the decade after the Bolshevik revolution of 1917, the Ukrainian language was initially afforded equal status with Russian. But, during the 1930s, a policy of Russification was implemented, and it was only in 1989 that Ukrainian became the countrys official language once again, its status confirmed in the 1996 constitution.

Many of the present-day commonalities between the two cultures are actually the result of long spells of Russification, first under the Romanovs and later under Joseph Stalin when the Soviet dictator unleashed his disastrous collectivization policy on the Ukrainian population.

Nadia Kaabi-Linke, a Ukrainian-Arab artist based in Berlin, was due to open a solo exhibition at the National Art Museum of Ukraine in Kyiv on March 4 but is now back in Berlin helping Ukrainian refugees.

She told Arab News: I would not put the relationship between Ukraine and Russia in terms of similarities right now because, after the invasion, many things have changed in my mind and in the core of my own being.

I have started to question my mother tongue my Ukrainian mother spoke to me in Russian and I never did before. I even speak Russian to my two children.

I will not discuss differences and similarities, but I will put it in a way that I might not have ever done before the invasion. Now I feel it is fitting to say this is colonization, she said.

Unsurprisingly, it is not just people with Ukrainian heritage who feel that the rhetoric of nationalism has poisoned a once close relationship, pulling the two peoples apart.

Russian-born Tanya Kronfli, who has lived in the Gulf for nearly 10 years, told Arab News: I feel heartbroken, sad, angry, and helpless. We always thought of each other as brothers and sisters. We have so much shared history and to see what is happening is even more heartbreaking because of that.

Kronfli pointed out that Ukrainians, Belarusians, and Russians were from different countries but are the same people. Our languages are nearly the same and many families have intermarried. Its such a mix with many similarities.

The Kremlin has repeatedly said that NATOs expansion into Eastern Europe and Ukraines ambition to join the alliance created a security dilemma for Russia. It has continued to demand Ukraines disarmament and guarantees that it would never join NATO conditions that Kyiv and NATO have ruled out.

Kogan said: Another security analysis is that the Kremlin felt uneasy with Ukrainians Westward leanings and democratic aspirations, thanks lately to the efforts of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Past color revolutions (Georgia in 2003, Ukraine 2004, Kyrgyzstan 2005) and Zelenskys West-leaning ambitions are of deep concern to the Kremlins sense of control over Russias near abroad.

Intent on halting Ukraines drift to the West, Moscow has rejected the idea of Ukrainian national identity, saying that Russias Ukrainian brothers and sisters have been taken hostage by a Western-backed Nazi cabal, and that Russian troops would be welcomed as liberators.

One often-heard argument is that the post-Soviet Russian leadership never accepted Ukraine as a nation and Ukrainians as a separate people requiring a geopolitically viable nation state in the international system, Kogan added.

In a speech just days before the invasion began, Putin defended his formal recognition of the breakaway Donetsk and Luhansk Peoples Republics by declaring that Ukraine was an invention of Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin, who he said had wrongly endowed Ukraine with a sense of statehood by allowing it to enjoy autonomy within the Soviet Union.

Modern Ukraine was entirely and fully created by Russia, more specifically the Bolshevik, communist Russia, Putin said in a televised address.

This process began practically immediately after the 1917 revolution, and moreover Lenin and his associates did it in the sloppiest way in relation to Russia by dividing, tearing from her pieces of her own historical territory.

It remains unclear whether all Russians believe this interpretation of history or consider it a plausible moral justification for the invasion.

It is true that through wars, disasters, and Soviet tyranny, Russians and Ukrainians, living side by side as neighbors or compatriots, managed to preserve their kinship.

Nevertheless, for many Ukrainians, their distinctive history, identity, and sovereign right to choose their own destiny are evidently not matters open to debate.

The rest is here:
Ukraine foreign minister says he discussed further Russian sanctions with EU's Borrell - Arab News

Various

Before we begin ranking space movies and incurring the wrath of correctional commentsbecause, invariably, we will exclude the one film you have on VHS, which is really a banger but doesnt get enough love and so, of course, is ignored from yet another list by yet another incompetent writer who has the film taste of a child, etc., etc.we should get definitional.

Were going to be strict with this list. Movies just involving beings from space, either invading or just sort of hovering therethink Arrival or District 9were excluding. So, too, are we ignoring movies set on futuristic Earths, which have technically achieved deep space travel, but where the central plot takes place only on our familiar terrestrial plane. So movies like Blade Runner or the Fifth Element are also absent.

Were talking about movies set in space. Movies where the central action involves characters who exist in space. Movies where space is the antagonist or the frontier or the battlefieldnot simply the highway between other more interesting worlds. Were talking about movies where space is so much a part of the film that without space the movie is simply incoherent nonsense. Could 2001: A Space Odyssey take place on a school bus? No. Then it's a space movie.

Sure, well probably skew a bit more modern with these picks, if only to make it easier to stream our choices (well provide links). But space may be that cinematic genre which only gets better with time.

Here are the best space movies of all time.

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

Alien (1979)

Ridley Scott taught us something about space we didn't learn in science class: it is terrifying. Frickin' terrifying. All the nights we spent lying awake as kids wanting to be astronautsgone. We say, leave us the hell on this planet.

STREAM IT HERE

Dune (2021)

Dune is more political fantasy (the term, we think, is "space opera") than straight space exploration. And we dig it. Predating and inspiring Star Wars (that other space opera), Dune's depiction of outerwordly hegemony and planetary colonization feels more real than any work of cinematic realism.

STREAM IT HERE

The Martian (2015)

If planetary colonization was real, The Martian may be the most accurate depiction of this future enterprise. Unlike other very serious films on this list, The Martian also maintains a welcome sense of levity, giving the film just the right ratio of botany humor to existential terror.

STREAM IT HERE

Spaceballs (1987)

Parodying just about every film that predates it on this list, Spaceballs is an absolute delight. It's also exceedingly dumb. It's perfect.

STREAM IT HERE

Solaris (1972)

Your film studies friends cannot stop talking about Andrei Tarkovsky and this is why. The Russian director's adaptation of the 1961 novel of the same name brought something new to the genre of science fiction: grounded emotionality. We take this for granted in contemporary science fiction. Tarkovsky was one of the first to really pull it off.

STREAM IT HERE

Star Trek (2009)

As early as 1968, the creators of the popular TV series were already wondering how to turn the story into a film, a prequel. And while there had already been ten films in the franchise, 2009's iteration finally found the winning formula. It's truly a blast.

STREAM IT HERE

Interstellar (2014)

One of director Christopher Nolan's more divisive films, Interstellar really goes there. The team consulted with actual astrophysicists and remains one of the few films to actually depict relativity theory in a plausible way. It's not a short movie, nor one that can be appreciated on the first viewing. But it is epic.

STREAM IT HERE

Apollo 13 (1995)

Entering historical realism are three films we think best capture actual space exploration. The first (and maybe the best) is Ron Howard's docudrama.

STREAM IT HERE

First Man (2018)

While it will be compared to others in the genre of historic space exploration, First Man finds a way to stand out from the space race competitionif only for its IMAX cinematography during one of the most awe-inspiring moments of any film on this list. You'll know it when you see it.

STREAM IT HERE

The Right Stuff (1983)

Based on the book by Tom Wolfe which chronicled NASA's first team of astronauts, The Right Stuff captures all the terrifying, inspiring, maddening moments of early space exploration. It remains a near-perfect blend of Hollywood and history.

STREAM IT HERE

Moon (2009)

Moon is perfect science fiction. Filmed on a small budget and and depicting just one character (well, kind of) in one location (kind of), the movie manages to do more, say more, and affect you more than probably any other on this list. Read nothing about it. Just watch.

STREAM IT HERE

Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

We know, we know. There are many Marvel films that could be considered "space movies" insofar as they involve intergalactic wars. But Guardians of the Galaxy really is Marvel's space movie, and maybe the most fun and free-wheeling film in the entire MCUand the moment when Marvel realized they could sell us anything.

STREAM IT HERE

Sunshine (2007)

Danny Boyle's trip through space to save a dying sun by dropping a nuclear bomb on it may be one of the more outlandish plots on this this list, but the film delivers. What begins as conventional science fiction turns into something more horrifying and existential and strangely beautiful.

STREAM IT HERE

Gravity (2013)

Gravity is probably the most space movie of any space movie, in that it takes place entirely in space with its characters floating (for most of the film) entirely in space. Director Alfonso Cuarn delivers an absolute masterclass in tension, pacing, and visual language. The man deserved that Oscar.

STREAM IT HERE

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

It takes about 20 minutes of apes grunting and throwing bones before we arrive in space, but once we get there, oh boy. Is it the greatest space movie of all time? Will flying into a monolith transport you across space-time and reincarnate you as the star child? Um, yes.

STREAM IT HERE

Star Wars: A New Hope (1977)

This one's a bit of a deeper cut. We're not sure if you've heard of it, but try and give it a watch if you can. We think it had some kind of impact on space cinema. It's pretty good.

STREAM IT HERE

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

See the original post here:
The Best Space Movies of All Time - Men's Health

In 1961, U.S. President John F. Kennedy declared that his nation would be the first to land a man on the moon. That ambitious goal would later be fulfilled as two NASA astronauts took wobbly steps across the lunar surface on July 20, 1969, much to the dismay of Russias own space program leaders.

More than 60 years later, a new space race to the moon has begun, albeit with much higher stakes and brand new players ready to make the 238,855-mile journey. This time, the race to the moon is about much more than just planting a flag on its dusty surface. Getting to the moon first could also mean calling dibs on its limited resources, and controlling a permanent gateway to take humans to Marsand beyond.

Whether its NASA, China, Russia, or a consortium of private companies that end up dominating the moon, laying claim to the lunar surface isnt really about the moon anywayits about who gets easier access to the rest of the solar system.

James Rice, a senior scientist at the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University, remembers growing up with the Apollo program and getting bitten by the space bug as he watched the 1969 moon landing unfold on television.

As a kid, I saw that happening and I wanted to be a part of it, Rice told The Daily Beast. Thats basically why Im in this career today.

As Rice reflected on the current space race, he recognized some key differences. Things have really changed dramatically in terms of the technology and the players that are out there, he said. This is not the moon we thought of during the Apollo days. Scientists have learned so much more about the moon through more detailed analysis of lunar samples, as well as several missions that have probed exactly what might be sitting on the moons surface and remain hidden deep underground.

Though we have known for over a decade that the moon is probably teeming with reserves of water ice, NASA announced just last year that it had found the best evidence yet that water trapped in icy pockets were far more spread out across the lunar surface than previously believed. The discovery further fueled the idea of building a permanent base on the moon, which astronauts could then use to reach Mars and other celestial destinations.

Conceptual art for a NASA-led astronaut base involving water ice prospecting and mining.

NASA

Why is this such a big deal? Water is a precious resource for space travelersnot just for astronauts to drink, but also to turn into rocket fuel to use to blast off.

Remember your grade-school science here: Water is made of hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen is known to be the most efficient rocket propellant whereas oxygen can be combined by fuel to create combustion. The ability to break down all that water ice on the moon means you have access to both of its constituent elementsan enormous supply of rocket fuel. (And as an added bonus, you can use any excess oxygen as breathable air for astronauts.)

Finding these resources on the moon is much better than transporting them from Earth. Packing resources to space comes at a hefty priceit costs about $10,000 just to launch a payload weighing a single pound into Earths orbit, according to NASA. It could be far less costly to use what the moon has to offer to build a lunar pitstop to cosmic destinations.

I think the moon has been placed as this midpoint, or first step towards Mars, Casey Dreier, senior space policy adviser at The Planetary Society, told The Daily Beast. Its not an end destination.

In other words, going back to the moon is not really about the moon, at least not entirely. Its a gateway to truly larger space ambitions. Thats why ArtemisNASAs new lunar exploration programhas been consistently touted not as simply a redux of Apollo, but rather the initial foundation for a permanent presence on the moon.

Acting NASA Administrator Steve Jurczyk, left, and Rick Gilbrech, director of NASA's Stennis Space Center, right, watch as the core stage for the first flight of NASAs Space Launch System rocket undergoes a second hot fire test in the B-2 Test Stand on March 18.

NASA/Robert Markowitz via Getty

Martha Hess, the director for human exploration and spaceflight at the Aerospace Corporation, a nonprofit for technical guidance on space missions, echoed those sentiments. This time, the moon is a training ground, and Mars is the destination, she told The Daily Beast.

Todays space race is also not merely between competing nations and political ideologies. It also involves private companies trying to pursue profits. We are at a unique point in time where our economy and technology are aligned, allowing for private and commercial investment in space based capabilities, said Hess. This investment takes the pressure off government agencies to sustain the industry.

Private companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin are also looking beyond the moon. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has an obsessive vision of going to Mars and terraforming the planet to make it suitable for human colonization. Blue Origins Jeff Bezos is looking to be a dominating player in the field of commercial space travel, transporting (probably very wealthy) citizens to the moon or beyond.

Private companies have their own long term goals that exist outside of the national space program, Dreier said. Theyll do whatever NASA asks them to do, they dont care whether NASA is going to the moon or Mars.

Something that will define the upcoming moon race is the fact that not every region on the moon is equal in value. There are limited places to go, and its all about location, Rice said.

Just as the California gold rush of the 19th century was defined by where the gold was found, so too will the water rush to the moon be defined by where the water is stored. The U.S. is looking to build its lunar base at the moons south pole, where there is thought to be a wealth of water ice reserves.

Moreover, the south pole is a wellspring for fulfilling energy needs: Its exposed to more sunshine than anywhere else on the moon, which would fuel solar panels and supply power to the base.

Li Xianhua, China Academy of Sciences academician and Institute of Geology, speaks during a press conference in Beijing on Oct. 19.

Noel Celis/AFP via Getty

And with no clear space laws currently in place over ownership of objects in space, lunar resources may very well come down to whoever calls dibs first.

Who else wants to build a base on the moons south pole? For starters, theres China, which recently announced long-term plans to build a base on the moon with Russia. Its more distant goal, of course, is to send a crewed mission to Mars by the year 2033.

The Chinese Lunar Exploration Program, or the Change Project, is relatively new to the scene but has already made great strides. In Jan. 2019, the countrys Change-4 lunar probe was the first spacecraft in history to safely land on the far side of the moon. In Dec. 2020, the Change-5 mission returned samples from the lunar surface. Those new moon rocks are already paying off in new scientific revelations. .

Chinas space agency recently approved three more missions to the moon, targetingyou guessed itthe lunar south pole. The nations space program is hoping to land astronauts on the moon by the year 2030. Down the line, we may see Chinese and American astronauts hanging out on the moon at the same time.

Nevertheless, China and Russia dont pose much competition to the U.S. as long as NASA doesnt dawdle on its way back to the moon. China is absolutely working on building up its capability, Dreier said. But Id say theyre at least a decade behind, if not more, compared to the U.S. capability.

First up on NASAs agenda is Artemis I, an uncrewed test flight to the moon that is meant to debut the brand new Space Launch System (the biggest rocket system ever built) and the Orion crew capsule that will eventually take astronauts back to the moon. Launching tentatively in April, Artemis I will simply orbit the moon and come back to Earth. It wont be until Artemis III, set to launch in 2025 (if youre an optimist), that well finally see human boots make it to the lunar surface.

China has the benefit of being able to establish a long-term plan and funding, which allows them the ability to chip away at their 30-50-100 year vision. We dont have that luxury.

Martha Hess

Hess does believe, however, that China has one advantage over the U.S. that it could exploit to make speedy progress.

China has the benefit of being able to establish a long-term plan and funding, which allows them the ability to chip away at their 30-50-100 year vision, Hess said. We dont have that luxury; our plans are good for a presidential term, and our budgets are appropriated annually so our programs start, stop and starve. Long-term exploration of the solar system isnt actually something thats crystallized in U.S. budgets for decades to come.

NASA estimates that the Artemis program will cost $86 billion by 2025. The current U.S. administration has made a $24.8 billion fiscal 2022 budget request for NASA to cover the return to the moon.

During the first space race, the agency spent $28 billion to land the first humans on the moon, which is about $280 billion when adjusted for inflation, according to The Planetary Society.

As the space program for each of the space race participants begins to take shape, policy makers are realizing that they need to update the laws at hand to better govern the new era of space exploration thats about to launch.

Regardless of who gets to plant space boots on the moon next, there is an overarching benefit to human exploration as a whole.

There's more to it than that because there's an inspiration to it that you can't put a price tag on, Rice said. It does something to you when you walk out there and look at the moon and now there are people out there doing something, that just resonates.

Go here to see the original:
The New Space Race to the Moon Is Really About Going to Mars And Beyond - The Daily Beast

BOOKSHELF

Science fiction, as a literary genre, explores the impact of scientific technologies on societies. Hard science fiction uses realistic scientific arguments and extrapolates to make a logical argument based on science and its impact on the society. Soft science fiction, conversely, comprises far-fetched stories based on science and the use of futuristic technologies. For instance, Star Trek and Star Wars are interesting stories. However, the concept of time travel, space jump, and humans meeting with alien civilizations are purely fictional narratives. They are stories carved out of our imagination and by the curiosity to know if life exists across the universe and if humans can travel through vast areas in the universe.

When it comes to science fiction novels, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, and Arthur C. Clarke are considered as the Big Three of the genre. Their imaginative insights, creative sense, and storytelling have remained unparalleled. Isaac Asimovs The Foundation series is a literary classic that appeared in print as short stories during 194250. The story is about a Galactic Empire, a government set in the future. Hari Seldon is the protagonist who is a mathematician. He determines a theory of psychohistory and forecasts the future of large populations.

Robert A. Heinleins Stranger in a Strange Land (1961) is the story of Valentine Michael Smith, a human who was raised by Martians. When he returned to Earth, the planet became a strange place for him as he tried to comprehend human customs. Arthur C. Clarkes 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) reveals the presence of a monolith in Africa in the year 3 million B.C. It is placed there by an unseen alien force. The subliminal psychological influence of the monolith endows the humans with the power to develop tools. The story takes the main characters from our solar system into the future and to the unknown alien worlds. While the genre of science fiction was propagated by Asimov, Heinlein, and Clarke, their predecessors laid the foundations to the genre. They were Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, and Hugo Gernsback.

Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864) by Jules Verne is the story of a geologist, Professor Otto Lidenbroc. He goes on a journey into the centre of the Earth to find lost worlds. In 1865, Verne published From the Earth to the Moon, where he discusses three men traveling to the Moon. In 1872, Verne explored the depths of the sea when he published Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. The story is about Professor Pierre Aronnax, who with his two colleagues, tries to hunt a sea monster that turns out to be Captain Nemos futuristic submarine. H.G. Wells in his novel The Time Machine (1895) takes his protagonist across various eras. He explores the advancements of civilizations and criticizes the social structure of his era that holds ground today. In his other novel, The War of the Worlds (1898), Wells uses alien lifeforms attacking humans on Earth as a metaphor to show how the Western nations invaded third-world states for vested interests. It was, however, the Luxembourgian-American inventor, writer, and magazine publisher Hugo Gernsback who first conceived a magazine that published science fiction-related stories. He founded Amazing Stories in 1926. Gernsback is regarded as the Father of Science Fiction.

The magazine itself facilitated the development of the genre. Through this publication, Gernsback brought to fore a concept he called, Scientifiction which was charming romance intermingled with scientific fact and prophetic vision. While regarded as the most influential writer in science fiction, it was not Gernsback but William Wilson who first used the term Science-Fiction in his 1851 book about poetry.

Science fiction as we know of today was once a primitive form of writing. Traces of it are seen as back as during the second century. A True Story written by Lucian of Samosata comprises several sci-fi elements including space travel, alien life, and interplanetary colonization. 1n 1420, an anonymous French writer explored the underwater sea travels of Alexander the Great. Perhaps the first fictional accounts of a man traveling to the moon were shared by Francis Godwin in his book The Man in the Moone published in 1638 - nearly 331 years before Neil Armstrong set his foot on the Moon. The story is about Domingo Gonsales who reaches the moon after traveling across the world. The concept of utopia in science fiction narratives was first shown by Margaret Cavendish in The Blazing World (1666). The novel is considered to be a precursor of science fiction. The satirical story explores an ideal monarch, social hierarchy, and various styles of government.

Speculative fiction a sub-genre of science fiction - was first explored in 1733 when Samuel Madden published Memoirs of the Twentieth Century. Madden explores how the world would be in the 20th century and how the domains of politics and religion would operate in this era. In 1818, Mary Shelley wrote a major work of science fiction when she published Frankenstein. With themes of ambition, family, and alienation, she brought to the fore a concept that redefined the genre. She used galvanism with creativity based on gothic horror to create Frankenstein.

A dystopian-era speculative fiction novel was The Air Battle: A Vision of the Future written by Herrmann Lang in 1859. Langs future had remarkable political implications. He showed a time when the British Empire was no more and the US was divided into smaller states. He set his story in the year 6900 when the African-Americans along with races from South America rule the world.

In 1979, Douglas Adams published a science fiction novel with elements of comedy. The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy follows the misadventures of Arthur Dent, the last man who survived the Earths destruction. Dent explores the universe with a weird team including Prefect, a human-like alien who is a writer documenting his voyages across the galaxies for his electronic travel guide.

In Pakistan, science fiction is still an unexplored genre. Sidra F. Sheikhs The Light Blue Jumper (2017) is a science fiction story set in a different era than ours. Zaaro Nian is an alien who confronts the Interplanetary Forces (IPF) after a calamity hits his ship. Mohsin Hamids Exit West (2017) is a sci-fi / speculative fiction story about the refugee crisis and emigration. Seventy Four by Faraz Talat (2020) is a Pakistani science fiction novella set in a dystopian era, during a post-pandemic world. It is a commentary on how humans actions led to their demise. Usman T. Maliks Midnight Doorways: Fables from Pakistan (2021) explores various characters in diverse settings through speculative fiction. Pakistani writers including Kehkashan Khalid, Nihal Ijaz Khan, Nur Nasreen Ibrahim, and Sameem Siddiqui have ventured into the genre of speculative fiction. With time, the genre of science fiction will grow. We have creative writers; they will tell stories by creating worlds of their own and they shall take readers on wonderful adventures.

The writer is a fiction writer, columnist and author of Divided Species a sci-fi story set in Karachi

Visit link:
Science fiction: origins and history - The News International