Tuesday, May 10, 2005

Man Cannot Live in the Cradle Forever

Leaving Earth (Robert Zimmerman): An excellent non-fiction book covering the various space stations built by the United States and the then-Soviet Union. Zimmerman manages to cover the dreams, hopes and realities of the various programs and comes up with many interesting observations about the programs both in the United States and Russia. For example, is NASA becoming what the Soviet program used to be? Are the Russians stepping towards the innovation of the NASA of the 1960's? Lots of good stuff here and I hope he eventually follows up with a second book.

Friday, May 06, 2005

Larger Than Worlds (One)

George Zebrowski is one of those excellent science fiction authors who just don't do enough writing. I first encountered some of his work in the Laser series of books. A few years later I came across Macrolife, a fantastic work about living in space (not on planets, but living in artificial communities, as suggested by J.D. Bernal, Olaf Stapledon, Gerard K. O'Neil and many others). Coupled with a cover and interior (black-and-white) illustrations by Rick Sternbach, the book blew me away. Years later, after several more Zebrowski volumes were purchased, I was lucky enough to find a copy of Macrolife in hardcover (autographed!).

The book has been out of print for years. Until now. Get thee to the book store and buy this volume! In fact, I'll make it the first entry in my list of favorite fiction volumes!

An older interview with the author.

Addendum (May 16, 2007): The book at the publisher's site.