Chicago Nerds- Leviathan Wakes

For the last 2016 meeting of the Chicago Nerd book club, we discussed Leviathan Wakes (2011) by James S.A. Corey, the first book in "The Expanse", an on-going series that is also going into its second season as a SyFy television show.

Leviathan Wakes is set in a fairly-near future where humans have colonized chunks of the solar system using an extremely efficient new impulse engine, but have not yet moved on to interstellar exploration. At the book's start, there's a bit of three-way political tension between Earth, a partially-terraformed (and militarily well-equipped) Mars, and the inhabitants of the outer asteroid belts, moons, and dwarf planets. The novel alternates viewpoints between James Holden, who becomes captain and unwitting political player after his original civilian ship is destroyed, and Joe Miller, a detective on Ceres whose hunt for a missing young woman leads him to a plot that killed Holden's ship and threatens the solar system.

Notes & possible spoilers below!

Worldcon Recaps- Space & Science Panels

There were a host of science-related panels at Worldcon, many focusing on spaceflight. Some notes from the few I attended. Misattributions and errors possible.

Earth. We're stuck here!

James Patrick Kelly, Jim Davidson, Henry Spencer, John Strickland, Jr, Alison Wilgus

• Opening question: what's the biggest obstacle to a future in space? Turns out to be a divisive question, without about half the panel saying "the government", weirdly--blaming lack of funding, and restrictions on private ventures.
• Wilgus has a very different take. Money, sure, but to be honest: mass. It's very expensive to even practice space stuff, much less get good at it and do it at scale, because it's just so hard to get mass into even low orbit.
• Kelly says the biggest barrier to a future in space is us: the human body is not designed to go into space. Refers to radiation primarily, as well as known and unknown problems with long exposure to micro/zero-gravity.

Chi-SF: Seveneves

For September's meeting, the Chicago Speculative Fiction Community met up to discuss Neal Stephenson's newest: his 2015 novel "Seveneves".

"Seveneves" is Stephenson's hardest and most classically science fictional story to date; the first half of the book is survival-oriented, space-tech heavy, and has a thriller-ish page-flipping quality; the last section is a far-future tale that reminded us a bit of an updated golden age SF adventure, like something by Heinlein or Anderson or the like.

General consensus was that this is a smashingly good book, easily one of the best SF novels of recent years, at least.

So this isn't a spoiler, because it happens in the first sentence: THE MOON BLOWS UP! More substantial spoilers, and a really good discussion, after the jump:

Chi-SF: The Quiet War

At last week's meeting of the Chicago Speculative Fiction Community, we discussed Paul McAuley's "The Quiet War" (2008), a relatively near-future science fictional tale wherein humans have spread a bit throughout the solar system, and Earth-based interests are rapidly headed towards a military engagement with the fairly anarchic societies of the Jovian satellites.

Before we got talking about the novel, we got some reports from Worldcon--we had three attending members who gave us some highlights from Spokane this year. That in turn led us to talk a bit about the Hugos, the preponderance of "No Award", and the whole Puppy kerfuffle. Also: fire! Spokane was apparently inundated with smoke from (relatively) nearby forest fires for a few days.

But! "The Quiet War". I was so pleased to come back to this book--hadn't read it since it came out, and forgot how enjoyable it was. Possible spoilers below!