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Science Fiction

The Long View 2004-06-14: Cracks in the Wall

Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers is beloved of military men. Many of Jerry Pournelle's books have the same audience. What is really remarkable about Heinlein as an author is that he managed to write three cult classics with non-overlapping audiences: Starship Troopers, The Moon is a Harsh

The Long View 2004-04-27: The Darwin Award Ceremonies

Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry wrote just this week that the birth rate in the United States now stands at lowest level ever recorded. It turns out the anti-natalist political program branded as reproductive rights has succeeded beyond the wildest dreams of its creators. Like many such things, it has also taken on

The Long View 2004-01-05: Duk Soop

I greatly enjoyed Babylon 5 when it was on television, and I appreciated John's allusion to it here. Duk Soop At this point in the Democratic primary campaign, I suppose that Howard Dean must be feeling a little like Ambassador Londo in the first season of the Babylon

LinkFest 2016-03-26

Holy Saturday Edition Ruby Slippers Gabriel Rossman makes a persuasive case that social construction is real, but the concept is mostly used by people who don't understand it, and have no sense of proportion. How Does America "Reshore" Skills that have Disappeared? The first couple of

The Long View 2003-11-20: Snappy Answers

John's 2003 ponderings about Mars in this post and the last are fortuitous, since I just reviewed the Martian by Andy Weir. This is exactly the kind of thing that got me interested in science, and directed me to physics as a field of study. Planetary science has

The Long View: Far Futures

John J. Reilly never really cared for Steve Sailer, even though they had some ideas in common. Even fifteen years ago, Steve traveled in intellectual circles that were considered gauche. However, the very first line of this review is an idea John and Steve share: science fiction usually tells you

The Martian Book Review

The Martian by Andy Weir Broadway Books, 2014 $15.00; 387 pages ISBN 978-0-553-41802-6 This is a book for nerds. Clearly written by a big fat nerd, for other big fat nerds. I mean that in the best possible way, since I absolutely loved reading it. From his dust jacket