Recommended Reading

I’ve just recently finished a couple of books, and thought I would make a couple of quick recommendations:

I recommend these and would love discussion in the comments on other peoples’ thoughts on them, as well as your recommendations.

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Robert Prather
About Robert Prather
Robert Prather contributed over 80 posts to OTB between October 2005 and July 2013. He previously blogged at the now defunct Insults Unpunished. Follow him on Twitter @RobPrather.

Comments

  1. Boyd says:

    I just grabbed The Physics of Star Trek for my Kindle. Let’s see how long it takes me to actually bring it up and read it.

  2. Boyd says:

    The Foreword by Stephen Hawking certainly doesn’t hurt the book’s credibility.

  3. Kylopod says:

    I read The Science of Star Wars a while back. I think my favorite book of this kind is Michio Kaku’s Physics of the Impossible. It isn’t about any specific science fiction work, but a general, point-by-point discussion about how far we may or may not be from inventing various sci-fi technologies: intelligent robots, deep space travel, teleportation, mind-reading, invisibility, light sabers–you name it.

  4. James in LA says:

    We breathlessly await the first cheap quantum computers, and the simulations they will permit, real like unto a scale one is completely fooled, and could live a whole life so hood-winked. It will raise serious question of the nature of reality.

    The SciFi Channel had a series that was probing these questions in a way that was terribly relevant — Caprica — and it got yanked. Too bad. It was an awesome story that direct bearing on our near future.

    One suggested reason as to “why no ET” is if evolution can produce quantum computers from the industrial revolution in c. 200 years, this is astonishingly short in cosmic time. It takes Hastur longer to blink. For, upon realizing space and flesh = ungodly expense with likewise ungodly boredom, Homo Sapiens turned inward to its Simulations, of what did they become?

  5. @Boyd: The forward does speak well of it. I think you’ll find the rest enjoyable as well.

  6. @Kylopod: I will take a look at your suggestions. Thanks.

  7. @James in LA: I didn’t like Caprica. I bought it through iTunes expecting it to be great, at least similar to Galactica, and it was nothing of the sort. I know they were trying to attract female viewers and wanted to get away from the “war in space” aspects of Galactica, but they went too far.