Books for a Mars Landing

So we’re on Mars again! I didn’t watch the feed from NASA, but I saw the amazing landing video (seriously, if you haven’t seen it, go look. I’ll wait) and have been avidly sucking up all the photos being posted on the mission’s website.

Looking at pictures we’ve taken on the surface of another planet always moves me to tears. I can’t believe we’re really out there, down there, sitting on dirt that is not of this world, looking up at another sky. It looks so much like Earth, and yet, with all that red rock and that faded orange sky, so unlike, so alien.

I’m a lapsed physics geek. For a while I wanted to go into astronomy, dreaming of working for NASA or SETI. Why? Science fiction, plain and simple. So today, I’m presenting a list of books inspired by our return to Mars.

(Honourable mentions, disqualified for being too obvious: War of the Worlds; Dune; the Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson.)

Weekly Roundup

Happy Friday to the blogosphere! Here are the best links I found on the Interwebs this week, for your reading pleasure…

Book News

Have I geeked out at you yet about SF&F writer Elizabeth Bear? No? I’ll have to do that, because she’s awesome. In the meantime, she has a new book out this week, Range of Ghosts. It’s epic fantasy inspired by Genghis Khan, and you can read about it in a Big Idea piece on John Scalzi’s blog.

General Geekery and Science

Somebody has re-created what Shakespeare’s works sounded like in the original pronunciation.

Scientists have figured out how to make cyborg snails (aka the mollusc militia).

The New York Times interviews scientist Rachel Graham,  the Jane Goodall of sharks.

Inspiration

Offbeat Home finds a Belgian B&B that belongs in a fantasy novel.

For Writers (and Interested Third Parties)

If you’re writing fantasy or science fiction, Juliette Wade offers some ways to approach measurements in your worldbuilding.

Deborah Biancotti points out that we are all running our own race.

Hope to see you back here on Monday, when I’ll be talking about Queen’s Man, the new science fiction release from KD Sarge at Turtleduck Press. Until then, happy weekend!