One of my favorite authors (and one of the most scientifically grounded around) is Ben Bova, who has recently published the third book in his trilogy about Mars exploration called Mars Life. The Biology in Science Fiction blog has an interview with Bova, where he talks about the possibility of life on Mars, and why he doesn’t like the idea of terraforming the red planet.
Archive for the ‘Exobiology’ Category
Ben Bova Back In The Saddle
Spore: A Galaxy of Fun
It’s been a long time in the making, but Spore has finally been released today for Windows and Macs. The brainchild of Will Wright, (best known as the creator of The Sims) this video game allows the player to go from controlling a protoplasmic blob in a tide pool to commanding a galactic empire. DISCOVER interviewed Will Wright about the Big Thoughts behind Spore in 2006, but what’s it like as a game?
10 Best Science Fiction Planets
Most planets featured in science fiction tend to be rather generic. These planets are usually convenient celestial bodies upon which to pitch a narrative tent for a few scenes before the plot moves on. Generic planets also tend to be one-note, reflecting some particular environment on Earth. You have your ice-worlds, desert worlds, lava worlds, jungle worlds, water worlds, city worlds, forest worlds (in particular, forests that look like those near the city of Vancouver), earthquake worlds, and so on.
But sometimes an author will create a world whose presence has a weight and ring of truth, a world that feels like it could happily go on existing on its own terms, with or without a protagonist or antagonist strolling around on its surface. Setting aside obviously artificial habitats like ring words or hollowed out asteroids, here are my top ten best science fiction planets, in chronological order:
It’s Life, Jim, But Not as We Know it
In both A&E’s recent remake of The Andromeda Strain, and the 1971 version of the Micheal Crichton novel, scientists are confronted with a microscopic invader, Andromeda, that has none of the trappings that we associated with life, but which is definitely alive. It grows, reproduces and evolves—all without the benefit of DNA, amino acids, water, or the complex carbon-based proteins that make all life as we know it tick. Instead, Andromeda appears to be crystalline in nature.
Is such a lifeform possible? (more…)
