Narration + Your Thoughts On Extinction/Expansion

[bobbocesu19]

yeah read TIME and i thought it was pretty good. Re-reading EXULTANT now though. My fav Baxter book and one of the best science fiction books around! A must read

[ATiredDogsMouth]

I really liked Time and the early Xeelee cycle up to Ring. The Coalescent type ones with the asteroid trench warfare werent so hot.

Other things you might like;

Ted Chiang. Google "understand" for a stunning sample. Better than Greg Egan at hard logical sf

Blood Music by Bear is a great Singularity story.

Cordwainer Smith and Theordore Sturgeon for their poetic beauty.

Upon the Dull Earth by PKD; chilling.

[danger0usknowledge]

Manifold Time was a Great book. Manifold Space was even better. The only thing I ever heard from blogger Instapundit that made sense, mining asteroids. We are experiencing Peak Metals kinda soon.) Baxter does a great job of taking NASA to task & the southern politicians who have used our space program as their personal employment agency. Vacuum Diagrams was kinda tough but absolutely amazing. I went from that to the Bible. Good progression??? Robert Sawyer??????

[VisitingXenoc133]

I have read Time, Space, Flood, Times Eye, and Coalescent. I will soon read Exultant, Transcendent, Origin, Phase Space, Voyage, Titan, Moonseed, the Xeelee Omnibus and Ark when they come out in the US, Vacuum Diagrams, and other books he's written.

I do love Reynolds as well, but Banks is not scientific at all!

Hamilton is not greatly scientific but his worlds have a lot of depth and interesting elements, so I still enjoy his books greatly, much better then Banks.

[squidfanny]

Interesting... I read the book a while ago, and I reckon it's one of Baxter's best works.

How did I feel? I wanted to hear more...

[Myst936]

The Fermi Paradox is incredible bullshit.

[SpacedTime]

Fermi? The box and the black pebble?

[TurkishPoltergeist69]

My opinion about it is this: When humanity in general can work together, when every life is treated as precious, when the governments of the world realize that violence is never the answer, it is then that we will have an obligation to populate the universe. If we had the technology readily available now, I couldn't mentally handle humanity polluting another planet & possibly destroying another civilization. We can be the most primitive intentioned beings of the universe, or the gatekeepers...

[FatalAnimal]

Have you tried Greg Bear? Excellent if you like Hard Science Fiction.

If you can stomach Space Opera I HIGHLY recommend Peter F Hamilton's Night's Dawn Trilogy

Another recommendation for Science Fiction would be Dan Simmon's Hyperion

[nathanforst1]

I love hard sci-fi. I'll check out Greg Bear. Which book would you suggest to start out with?

[FatalAnimal]

Books by Greg Bear I would recommend:

(Man consider him the best hard scifi writer ever)

The Forge of God

Darwin's Radio

Eternity

Queen of Angles

[nathanforst1]

I have never tried Iain M Banks. Which book would you suggest?

Yes, I have noticed that about Alastair Reynolds. His books are good fiction but they lack the hard sci-fi that I crave sometimes. Baxter is probably my favourite science fiction writer.

Who is your favourite sci-fi writer? Arthur C. Clarke? Rendezvous with Rama is a classic.

[philhellenes]

Baxter is great. Can't think of any other author who captures the scope and desolation, even pointlessness, of space and time as he does, yet, still, it leaves me wanting to see it. I guess some people see a point in exploration just for the sake of seeing and learning, while others, the majority, don't. Let them stay behind. It's like we're all stuck on an island and some are content to let the food run out and can't see the point of building boats for the generations to come.

[nathanforst1]

Baxter is probably one of the best science-fiction writers I have ever read. Another great Sci-Fi author is Alastair Reynolds. Have you ever read any of his books? Right now I am reading Century Rain.

What Baxter books are you favourite?

[nathanforst1]

*your

[philhellenes]

"Space" is my favourite. Yes, read a couple of Alastair Reynolds, but, although enjoyable, they seem a bit too "space opera" for my tastes now, although I obviously enjoyed the first (Revelation Space) to buy the second (Chasm City). Have you tried Iain M Banks? Like Reynolds, he lacks Baxter's "realism" but there is a lot of depth to his story telling.

[nathanforst1]

I have never tried Iain M Banks. Which book would you suggest?

Yes, I have noticed that about Alastair Reynolds. His books are good fiction but they lack the hard sci-fi that I crave sometimes. Baxter is probably my favourite science fiction writer.

Who is your favourite sci-fi writer? Arthur C. Clarke? Rendezvous with Rama is a classic.

[philhellenes]

Hmmm. Which Banks book would I recommend? Good question. I'd say "Consider Phlebas", but only because it was the first I read and took me on to his other (I think I've read them all). I also found "The Algebraist" quite clever, but then so was "The State Of The Art" and "The Player Of Games". All those mentioned were good.

Favourite sci-fi author? Tricky. Clarke is up there with the Rama trilogy, and Asimov got me into it as a kid, but "buy-on-sight" would go to Banks or Baxter.

[nathanforst1]

Have you read Evolution by Baxter? If so, what did you think? I found it incredibly interesting but the end of the book was haunting - a grim warning of humanity's future if we do not smarten up.

I agree. I'll buy Baxter books immediately if I see them. Have you read his non-fiction book, titled "Far Future?" If so, how is it? I have always wanted to read it and learn what Baxter thinks the actual far-future will be like.

[philhellenes]

Not read "Evolution" but it sounds like my kind of thing. I'll go hunting.

Not read the other book eather, "Far Future". I tend to read about what people know or suspect now and do my own extrapolating into the future. But Baxter would be worth reading as he doesn't tend to exaggerate and tell his readers "it's all just around the corner". Many (though by no means all) sci-fi predictions have turned out accurate, or at least accurate when compared to mystic predictions anyway. ;)

[nathanforst1]

Yes, you should definately read Evolution. It is a bit slower paced than his other novels. However, if you like hard sci-fi, you'll love evolution. It spans from the dawn of life right up to its termination, some billion or so years into the future. It's fantastic.

There are those scientists that tend to be on the incredibly optimistic side of things. One of them is Dr. Michio Kaku.

[nathanforst1]

A lot of what he says is interesting to hear, but he is somewhat discredited in the scientific community because of the more... outlandish theories he has.

Mysticism? LoL. I've never understood why people have to dilute themselves. I would much rather see the universe as it is, no matter how unfortunate that truth is. However, I don't see the real universe as a series of unfortunate events. There may not be a god and there may not be a heaven, but damnit,

[nathanforst1]

we are alive and we live in an amazing universe.

[nathanforst1]

Have you ever read "Galactic North" by Alastair Reynolds? I am moving on to that book soon. It is a collection of short stories, pointing to the fact that intelligent life will self-terminate after reaching a certain technological level. It seems interesting. We can certaintly see the possibility of humanity going extinct within the next couple centuries - given all of our new technologies.

[nathanforst1]

Another great book is Calculating God by Robert J Sawyer. I highly suggest it.

[DeletedDelusion]

Wow, that was an awesome story.

How realistic is it?

I'm skeptical, how much smaller structures can we build to make computers more effective, are we able to build an effective and safe fusion reactor, generally will our technical progress come to physical limits or will innovation even speed up in the coming decades?

I would not dare to make any prediction and I think it also depends on our actions today, if we decide to go back the the dark ages we will just die off.

[JJJPaxton]

I don't think we will be the only ones out-there, neither that exploitation will happen the same way it happened on earth, in the stars... I imagine there will be expansion and colonization but exploitation will be different

I'm sure very advanced civilizations will have, and maybe we will have capabilites, beyond exploiting land to harvest or exploiting minerals, probably confilcts will arise on top this issues, but the technology to not to require a field to eat or mine to subsist will exist

[AnarchyBegins]

it sparked me to feel that perhaps we are the remnants of another civilisation from elsewhere.

that perhaps we could even be the last....

[AnarchyBegins]

awesome video man.

[2bsirius]

Yes, going to my local INDEPENDENT bookshop this morning to find a copy of this...

I think I'm a little bit pessimistic cause I'm not sure it's a great idea for us to propagate ourselves and our consciousnesses to the rest of the cosmos...We haven't done such a great job with the abundant resources we found here on earth...why would we do better in an exploitive project that somehow escapes the natural constrains we experience here?

This reminds me of a more techno Stapledon. Great video!

[nathanforst1]

Glad you liked it. Be sure to look out for my personal response to this video.

If you like, I would love to see a video response from you, explaining what you thought of the reading and what you believe the future of humanity will be like.

Ciao,

Nathan Forst

[chris3443]

The issue humans are going to face once we move into different star systems is evolution. Being physically separated for that long is going to end in different species eventually.

[nathanforst1]

Exactly!

Stephen Baxter explores that topic in a couple of his other books, one being Transcendent. I highly recommend it!

[Excelion333]

We could be colinizing the universe but people want money to help this happen a new life should not cost money it should be free.

[mykindom666]

Very interesting. I might have a response up soon.

[AnethSvartalf]

Oh yes! I'm all for privatizing the space industry! Great reading. Thank you!

[Martyj2009]

You get the feeling of inspiration that you want to go out there and expand your knowledge and learn more about the universe.