Astronomy Cast

#724: Summer Science & SciFi Reads

PlayPlay

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

It’s almost time for our summer hiatus. A time to catch up on all that reading. We’ll give you some book recommendations, and what we’re hoping to read during the summer.

Show Notes

The following books were discussed (These are Amazon Assoc links and we may make money off any purchases)

Fiction

Non-Fiction

Transcript

Fraser Cain [00:00:49] Join Patreon for ad -free experience at patreon .com slash astronomycast. Astronomy Cast episode 724, Summer Reads for 2024. Welcome to Astronomy Cast, our weekly facts based journey through the cosmos, where we help you understand not only what we know, but how we know what we know. I’m Fraser Cain. I’m the publisher of Universe Today. With me as always is Dr. Pamela Gay, a senior scientist for the Planetary Science Institute and the director of CosmoQuest. Hey Pamela, how are you doing? 

Pamela Gay [00:01:19] I am doing well. I am finding a stupid amount of joy in the little fact that the last episode of the season is 725. I don’t know why that is such a pleasing thing. The brain just likes certain numbers and apparently my brain likes 725. But yeah, we have one more episode this season, one more episode. But this summer we’re actually going to be doing some remastering of some of our old episodes and things like that. So the feed will stay active throughout the summer. There will be content. Yes. 

Fraser Cain [00:01:52] Yes. Well, it’s almost time for our summer hiatus. Time to catch up on all that reading and we’ll give you some book recommendations and what we’re hoping to read during the summer. And we’ll talk about it in a second, but it’s time for a break. And we’re back. All right. So this is sort of, I mean, I don’t know if we’ve gone back 

Pamela Gay [00:02:14] and we’ve done this every summer just before we break. We’ve recommended something for the summer, either things to go out and observe things to watch for. And right now I feel like these space agencies are utterly unpredictable and recommending that people stay tuned to watch this or that is not reasonable. There are no particularly outstanding meteor showers without a bright moon this summer. So books, books are where is that? 

Fraser Cain [00:02:46] Okay. All right. All right. Well, let’s just take turns and talk about some recent books that we’ve read and enjoyed and would recommend. So do you want me to go first or do you go first? You go first. Okay. 

Pamela Gay [00:03:01] So I’m going to start by recommending, because I know our audience is full of Gen Xers like us, Alex White’s The Salvagers series. This is the only book series I’ve ever encountered that actually expresses what it’s like to be not exactly young and trying to just make it through the day in outer space. So you have people getting the, you need to exercise more, you need to, and it’s just, it’s just like there in the background of super interesting plots, some twists that I haven’t seen before in terms of how people interact with technology. So you have these really novel science fiction concepts, a bit of fantasy and magic thrown in for flavor, and it’s middle -aged folks like me. I am here for it. Right. Now, how many books are there? There’s three. So you can get through all of them. They’re already out. It is done. And that’s my favorite kind of thing to recommend. 

Fraser Cain [00:04:09] All right. That sounds great. I’m going to, I’m going to take some notes. I got some books to read. Now, I think this time last year, I was raving about Alistair Reynolds and his Revelation Space series. And that got me inspired to finally read the Culture series. And so for those, you know, and that’s 10 books. So I read four books in the Revelation Space series. Plus there’s some additional stuff. And I also read the Culture series. So that’s like, so now we’re up to like 16 books. Yeah. No problem. And this is always the problem. People recommend books to me. And I’ve done these too. We’ve gone on this journey just in opposite orders. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So, but, but I just, I loved Alistair Reynolds so much that I sort of have continued on reading others of his books. And in fact, the one that you’ve read that I haven’t read yet is Pushing Ice. My wife read Pushing Ice and she loved it. And, and so I’m going to read it, but the one that I read is called House of Sons. And this is a standalone book, although it sort of has a connection to some short stories that he did. And it’s very similar to Revelation Space and very similar to the Culture series. It’s this sort of super advanced civilization that has been around for millions of years expanding the galaxy and is up to shenanigans. And the gist is, is that these people are clones of one person who started off on earth and sent versions of herself across the entire galaxy. And then someone is trying to murder them. And they’re sort of discovering the horrible things that they did as a society that has created these implications and revelations and has sort of this interaction between humans attempting to strike a balance with the machine civilizations that exist, some of which are more powerful or less powerful and more wise and less wise. And so if you kind of enjoy, again, back to like Mass Effect, Culture series, and if you read the Revelation Space, this is in that same genre and that’s House of Sons. I really enjoyed it, but it’s standalone. So it doesn’t fit within, but it also feels pretty similar. So just to be clear, the culture is actually 

Pamela Gay [00:06:39] Ian Banks. Yes. So Alistair Reynolds, who you’re talking about, he wrote the Revelation Space 

Fraser Cain [00:06:45] series. Yes. Yeah. And so he wrote House of Sons. Yes. But so if you, so if you, like, if you hear me raving about Revelation Space and you’re like, now I’ve read those, what’s next? I mean, I think the default has to read everything by – Yeah. Yeah, it’s true. But I really enjoyed House of Sons as a standalone book, but with just mind -bending ideas in it. At one point, a person is tortured or interrogated by being like cut into microscopic slices and turned into a floor. As one does. As one does, they can walk around. It’s pretty horrific, but also pretty fiendish. So anyway. 

Pamela Gay [00:07:34] Yeah. I love his stuff consistently. He also did the Dreyfus Emergencies, but Revelation, the Revenger series. That’s the other one he did. 

Fraser Cain [00:07:48] Oh, this is just going to be my whole life. Yeah. Yeah. That’ll be next summer. I’ll be 

Pamela Gay [00:07:52] like, okay, I read all these other books by Alistair Reynolds. So Poseidon’s Children are my favorites. So there’s those as well. All right. The thing I also, sometimes you just have to read things that bring you joy. Becky Chambers books are ones that have plots, have adventure, have depth of character, but are not dystopian, are not wars. They’re just like romps and ideas. I’ve read much, but not all of her Wayfarer series, and I’m going to finish it. I’ve only read the first book in her Monk and Robot series, which has this really interesting premise of what if one day the AI just got over us and walked away into the woods and left us behind. Right. Like Her. Like the movie Her. But like all the AIs. All of them. Yeah. That was Her. But yeah, that sounds great. And so I clearly haven’t seen Her long enough to remember any details at all. So yeah, Becky Chambers Monk and Robot series then has one of the robots that comes back and wants to get to know humanity again and see how it’s changed in this new, without them future. And so that’s also something I’m going to finish reading this summer. 

Fraser Cain [00:09:16] I, there’s an idea in the culture series where they, whenever they make a super artificial intelligence, when they just like create one, it immediately leaves the universe every time. I’ve forgotten that part. Yeah. They just immediately go, nope, and disappear from the universe that they, they become incredibly intelligent. And so the only way that you can actually have an artificial intelligence kick around is to, is to have it be born into kind of a state and then have it grow up and have it be embodied and, and instill most of them nope out as soon as they get smart enough. So there’s something wrong with the universe that we just aren’t smart enough to understand what it’s, what it lacks. That sounds great. All right. I’m going to recommend a book, but first, time for another break. And we’re back. So I’m going to recommend a kind of thriller series. So it’s a two part series called demon and freedom by the writer, Daniel Suarez. And the gist of this back to your artificial intelligence idea is that a computer programmer like has created this big online game and is, has terminal cancer. And after he dies, he releases a demon into the world, a sort of, you know, a computer process that is essentially super intelligent and then begins manipulating human beings to some nefarious purpose. And there’s a lot of just great ideas about how a computer program could interact with human society. It, you know, in that it sets up all of these incentives for human beings to, to get rewarded, to play ball and to receive immense punishment if they don’t play ball. And so you could see the human beings are actually very easy to manipulate. And then you have people who can then manufacture things and create things. But then the AI is developing new designs for things. And so you get these like, uh, super bikes, like crotch rockets with blades that come out and they’re completely autonomous and can just make quick work of, of soldiers and stuff. And, and, and people will start to act like ants, just part of this larger node and network. Um, and so, uh, it’s, 

Pamela Gay [00:11:47] That is not uplifting summer reading phrases. 

Fraser Cain [00:11:49] Well, I didn’t say it was uplifting. Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know that was a requirement. It was not. It was absolutely not. All right, fine. And that’s like the first book and you’re, and then the second book takes this really interesting turn and you, and you start to understand what was the purpose of this whole thing. And, and that in fact, it’s not for domination in the ways you understand it. It’s more complicated. I don’t want to spoil it, but anyway, um, and it’s interesting because the book is now probably 10 years old and yet a lot of the ideas that are presented the book are, are starting to come to fruition in understanding how some of this stuff might come together. So yeah, so the, the books are called demon, like D A E M O N Damon and freedom. And that’s by Daniel Suarez. And a lot of people swear by tons of other Daniel Suarez books. So these are the only two that I’ve read, but, but other people have recommended 

Pamela Gay [00:12:47] other ones. All right. So, so along the lines of not your uplifting summer reads, I’ve been noticing that more and more of the stuff that I read is just short stories from Cory Doctorow is just a little too close to reality in this world. And, and there’s a lot of conversations I want to have with people that I feel reading more of his books through to completion instead of noping out part way through because they’re a little too close to reality. I need to like human up and not nope out on Cory Doctorow books. So one of my homework assignments to myself this summer is to read a lot more Cory Doctorow so that I can better articulate a lot of the concerns I have with the direction that technology and copyright and capitalism are all going in, but mixed in with reading Cory Doctorow, I’m going to read Master and Apprentice, which is a Star Wars book and Brotherhood, which is a Star Wars book, respectively by Claudia Gray and Mike Chen. So this is like must read Cory Doctorow and then allow myself friendly. Nothing of a Star Wars book. It’s not nothing of a Star Wars book. It’s just like a Star Wars book and then read more Cory 

Fraser Cain [00:14:03] Doctorow and then read more Star Wars. So you’re telling us that the books you’re going 

Pamela Gay [00:14:08] to read. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Sorry. This is so what I’m telling you is there’s a whole list of Cory Doctorow books. I have started to read. I’ve read many of his short stories and I’ve not completed them because they hurt the soul with their truthiness and I need to find the 

Fraser Cain [00:14:27] personal courage to make it through a Cory Doctorow novel. Right. So what I’m reading right now and I’ve only read the first book and oh, let me get that. Sorry. Hold on a second here. Okay. So it’s the first book in a series called the Machineries of Empire and the author is a guy named, hold on. I guess right. So a guy named Yun Ha Lee and the gist of the book clearly I have a type. So this is very much in the culture, in the revelation space. It’s a very weird book and it’s hard to understand but the gist is that the main character is a general in an army in some future version of humanity where humanity is broken up into six large factions and the factions are warring against each other and one is becoming heretical to the other factions and so they need to shut this down and so this general recommends that they bring out of cold storage one of the famous generals that ever fought for the empire who also became a psychopath and killed a million people including all of his own soldiers and he’s just brutally effective, never lost a war and yet is maybe crazy and the only way for them to actually bring this general into being is to place his consciousness in the mind of the protagonist and so she’s having to have this non -stop interaction with this general who is incredibly effective, doesn’t know why he went crazy because the backup that she’s got was created before he went crazy and so he’s effective and also teaching her to accomplish the goals and you kind of don’t know what’s going on. The first book is called the Nine Fox Gambit and it’s very weird and it’s very hard. There’s something like psychic, the more strong the beliefs of the people who are using various gear in this universe, the weirder abilities that gear can have and so there’s kind of no rhyme or reason to how everything works except adherence to various cultural practices so it’s a very strange book and it takes a while to get into the rhythm of it but it’s so creative. I’m really enjoying it so that’s the first book. First book is called the Nine Fox Gambit, the second one is called the Raven Stratagem and the third one is called the Revenant Gun and they are part of the Machineries of Empire trilogy so if you want a totally baffling but there’s something there definitely check out this series. 

Pamela Gay [00:17:58] If you like that you’d probably like John Scalzi’s The Interdependency series with Collapsing Empire. I haven’t read that, I mean obviously I’ve read Old Man’s War but I haven’t read others. This is more on his Old Man’s War side of writing style versus his like the Agent of the Stars or Red Shirts or Kaiju Preservation Society. Those are like off humor with science fiction but the Collapsing Empire is the first book in the series and there’s so many different ideas in it and yeah it is in the same genre, belongs on the same shelf as what you described. All right we’re going to take another break 

Fraser Cain [00:18:51] and we’re back. All right, what else have you got for us? Have you got like a non-fiction book that you’ve been reading? Yeah that’s exactly where I was going to go next. 

Pamela Gay [00:19:00] You completely read my mind. So the book that I have staring at me that I need to read is Challenger, a true story of heroism and disaster. It’s by Adam Hegel Botham. It came out in May. It has rave reviews. It is apparently super enlightening especially as we’re watching what’s going on with the new human space race. So that’s on my summer reading list and then sitting beside it is Phil Plait’s new book which of course under Alien Skies, A Sightseer’s Guide to the Universe has humor and lightness and goodness as so much 

Fraser Cain [00:19:41] of Phil’s writing has with sarcasm because it’s Phil. So I’ve got two non -fiction books. The first one I want to recommend is A City on Mars. This is by Zach and Kelly Wienersmith. This book was terrific. The gist was that Zach and Kelly were like, we want to tell the future of human space exploration how humans, if the goal is to set up a city on Mars and for humans to spread off across the solar system, how is this actually going to happen? They found to their utter horror that there’s no good reason to actually set up a human civilization on Mars, that we are woefully unprepared to develop any of the technology that’s going to be required. There’s no financial reason to do it and that every single justification that’s ever been proposed is inadequate. So asteroid mining isn’t going to be profitable, space -based power, that getting our eggs in multiple baskets isn’t going to work. And so for a lot of people, they really hate the conclusion that Zach and Kelly came to. I loved it. And I think it’s because for a lot of people, when they think about space exploration and they think of that, they’re like, well, we need to set up, put all our eggs in multiple baskets. That’s the justification for doing this. And after you sort of read all the explanations, you realize it’s not a great reason or we’re going to fund it with asteroid mining. Well, you’re not. But space is awesome. And the line that runs through the entire book over and over and over again is we don’t need a reason. Let’s just go to space because going to space is the place that’s next. That space is, by learning to live in space, by learning to go to other worlds, by learning to explore, that brings out the best in humanity in the way that setting human feet on the surface of the moon back in the Apollo era brought out the best in our engineering and our capability. And so as soon as you’re looking for some justification for why to do it, that it’s going to be good business and that business falls apart, then you’ve lost the momentum. And I think at the heart of it, that it’s that loss of momentum is what really is crushing to people. But if you’re not trying to justify it, you’re just saying, well, go because we want to explore, because human beings keep looking around the corner to see what’s next. That is reason enough. And so I found the book inspiring, but I know a lot of people. And yet I’m sure if we go back 10 years from now and we talk to each one of these people who were like, I didn’t like the book because they pooh -poohed on asteroid mining, you’re like, well, asteroid mining didn’t pan out. How do you feel now? Right? Do you still want to go to space? Yes. Okay. Great. Because it’s awesome, right? So, yeah. So anyway, great book. Yeah. And that whole, we need that joy. We need to channel that joy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We go to space because it’s awesome. That’s the beginning and the end. We don’t need any other reason. That’s sufficient. And I always ask people like, okay, let’s say that asteroid mining doesn’t pan out. Would you still like to go to space? Yes. Why? Okay. Is that your reason? Oh, if that reason doesn’t pan out, do you still want to go to space? Yes. Why? Okay. If that reason doesn’t pan out, yes. Why? At the end, the very base level, you’re going to be like, 

Pamela Gay [00:23:24] because I just want to. Right. That’s good enough. That’s it. That’s the reason. All right. So other books. So it’s not space, but it has lessons for space. The deepest map, the high stakes race to chart the world’s oceans by Laura Trethaway. I’m sure I just destroyed her last name. We know so little about our oceans. We don’t have good maps of our oceans. Subs still hit stuff. We don’t know what’s living down there. There’s recommend the deepest map as, as let’s look at our world as a planet and what it takes to explore in the inaccessible places. And it just blows my mind on a regular basis that we have dreams of getting ourselves to Europa, digging a sterile hole, dropping a sterile probe and exploring the oceans of Europa when we are so bad at exploring our own oceans. 

Fraser Cain [00:24:37] So start here, but if, but if you line up the plans for exploring the deep oceans on earth, like the papers that have proposed ways to explore the deep ocean on earth and line them up against the plans to explore the deep oceans on Europa, I think there’s more earth plans 

Pamela Gay [00:24:51] than there are Europa plan. It’s true. We just don’t talk about them. Yeah. It frustrates me 

Fraser Cain [00:24:55] when people compare, uh, like someone sat down and go and wrote down some numbers and thought a way to maybe do something compared to actual practical projects that are proceeding. There are prototype mentor, a mentor, robotic mentor rays that are exploring the oceans. There are all kinds of really cool ideas that are actually in practice today. There are, there are boats that are trolling across the ocean with radar scans and sonar scans. Like there is work done compared to, I was, I’m about to rant, but I get all the time where, where I’ll, you know, like someone has proposed an idea for removing perchlorates on Mars to make it less toxic, you know, for like, if you’re going to dig some regolith off of the ground and you want to grow food in it, you want to remove the perchlorates from the Martian regular. And then I get comments on the YouTube where like, why are we going to even like, why do that when we haven’t cleaned up earth? Well, on earth, we have prototype carbon capture storage. People plant trees. There are increases of renewable energy. There’s methods of monitoring carbon dioxide, stuff from space. And on the removing Martian perchlorates, somebody wrote a paper. Yeah. And that’s it. Yeah. Yes. We’re working on the making earth less, you know, making earth less toxic. Like just people not allowed to think anymore. Here’s my book, which is the little book of aliens by Adam Frank. And Adam Frank is one of my favorite authors, but also a scientist. And so he does a great job of sort of blending between fulfilling people’s desire to understand and think more about where all the aliens in the universe, but also kind of practically debunking the kinds of evidence people think are aliens. So, uh, I did an interview with Adam Frank and you know, he, he’s doing some really interesting cutting edge research into the search for aliens. And at the same time does a great job of communicating his work to lay audience. So, so I highly recommend the little book of aliens by Adam Frank. 

Pamela Gay [00:27:08] That is excellent. All right. So we have lots, we have probably more reading than we 

Fraser Cain [00:27:14] have hours to read given we still have day jobs. Yeah. I’m now reading two to three books a week. Yeah. And still the list stretches out. It’s just into infinity. You just gave 

Pamela Gay [00:27:29] me a bunch of problem. I know same. I took notes the whole time. All right. Awesome. Thanks. And thank you, Fraser. And thank you to our amazing audience out there. You are what allow all of this to work. All right. So this week and we have a ton of names to get through because, well, uh, it’s our penultimate episodes. We have a ton of names to get through. So thank you everyone. And as a reminder, you can get ad free versions of the show for joining us on Patreon. I’m going to thank our $10 and up patrons this week. And there’s a lot of them to get through this week. I would like to thank Adam, Adam and niece Brown, Adam W, Alex Cohen, Alex Rain, Alexis, Andrew, palestra, Andrew Stevenson, and to soar astro sets, boy on throw levels of all Bart Flaherty be bop apocalypse, Benjamin carrier, Benjamin Davies, Benjamin Mueller, Bob Zatzi, Bob Kral, bogey net, Brenda, Brett mormon, uh, Brian Cagle, Brian Kelby, Bruce Amazine, Bruno, let’s buzz parsec, cami, rassians, Manskey, Claudia Mastriani, Conrad, Haling, Cooper, Daniel Donaldson, Daniel loosely, Daniel Neffis, Danny McClitchie, David, David Bogardy, David Gates, David Frogdean, Diane Philippon, uh, D’sastrina, Don Mundus, Dwight Ilk, Ed, Eron Zegrev, Evil Melky, Father Prax, Felix Goot, Frack Stewart, Frody Tenenbaugh, Jeff McDonald, Georgie Ivanov, Greg Schweitzer, Glenn McDonald, Gold, Gordon Dewis, Greg Davis, Greg Vilt, uh, Gregory Singleton, Hal McKinney, Harold Bardenhagen, Jay Alexanderson, uh, James Roger, Janelle, Jarvis Earl, Jason Cordukas, Jeanette Wink, Jeff Collins, Jeff Wilson, Jeremy Kerwell, Jim McGeehan, Jim Schoeller, Jim Drake, Joe Holstein, John Drake, uh, Jordan Turner, Jordan Young, just me and the cat, Justin Proctor, Justin S and Katie Byrne. Thank you all so very much for being part of our patron community. That sounded very alphabetical. 

Fraser Cain [00:29:57] It was. This is how I sorted the duplicates. Yeah. All right. Thanks everyone. We’ll see you next week for the final episode in this season. Bye everyone. 

Pamela Gay [00:30:12] Astronomy Cast is a joint product of Universe Today and the planetary science institute. Astronomy Cast is released under a creative commons attribution license. So love it, share it and remix it, but please credit it to our hosts, Fraser Kane and Dr. Pamela Gay. You can get more information on today’s show topic on our website, AstronomyCast.com. This episode was brought to you thanks to our patrons on Patreon. If you want to help keep this show going, please consider joining our community at patreon .com slash astronomycast. Not only do you help us pay our producers a fair wage, you will also get special access to content right in your inbox and invites to online events. We are so grateful to all of you who have joined our Patreon community already. Anyways, keep looking up. This has been Astronomy Cast.