In the forty-sixth chapter of The Science of Discworld<\/i>, space travel and elevators and aliens! Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read Discworld<\/i>.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
One of the coolest panels I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve gotten to take part in at a science fiction convention dealt with a topic that is, in a roundabout way, what this chapter addresses: science fiction\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s uncanny ability to predict things that eventually came true. I recall practically the whole panel and audience losing their shit at the beginning over the fact that The Next Generation<\/i> and subsequent Trek<\/i> shows have tablets in them. OUR TECHNOLOGY ACTUALLY SURPASSED THE SHOW A FULL HUNDRED YEARS BEFORE TREK<\/i>\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S TIMELINE, DIDN\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T IT??? I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve touched on this before, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s that sense of potential and possibility that makes science fiction so endlessly rewarding for me. I love<\/i> thinking about what could be and how that would affect our world.<\/p>\n
And wow, I have both great thoughts and TERRIBLE thoughts about what our world would look like if we actually did<\/i> accomplish some of the things that the authors outline in this chapter. The idea of a space elevator is ridiculous enough, but hey, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s technologically possible! But you know<\/i> some horrible company would sponsor it, so we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d all have to take the Bud Light Inaugural Space Elevator in order to make it to the Kaiser Permanente International Space Station. That assumes that any of us could even afford the trip there, because you know<\/i> if anything like this happens, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be years\u00e2\u20ac\u201dif not decades\u00e2\u20ac\u201dbefore it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s available to PEDESTRIANS LIKE YOU AND ME. But I never thought of one possibility with a space station: you could build a ship in space<\/i> so that you wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have to try to escape Earth\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s gravitational pull. I imagine that humanity\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s first deep space mission is going to use this to pull off what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s always been science fiction for us.<\/p>\n
I mean, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s that or<\/i> we can all get carried into space by two griffins. I feel like one of those will be easier to accomplish. JUST SAYING.<\/p>\n
I am glad I learned why Florida is a great place to launch rockets from; I never knew what a bolas was either. (I mean, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d actually seen them used, but never knew the name for them.) I am also thrilled that the end of the last chapter makes more sense to me know. The wizards just barely missed<\/i> humanity on their Earth. Which means\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 humanity is elsewhere? Maybe? Perhaps they left on a generation ship, which\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all. Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ALL. I absolutely eat up<\/i> generation ship stories. I LOVE THEM SO MUCH, and I absolutely want to write one some day. I have zero ideas of how I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d do that, but still, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a sci-fi genre that hits so many buttons for me.<\/p>\n
Wow, I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t believe I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m done with this book with just one more post and video. I HAVE LEARNED SO MUCH.<\/p>\n
https:\/\/youtu.be\/PespnJ8w-8I<\/p>\n
Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n
– My YA contemporary debut, ANGER IS A GIFT<\/a>, is now available for pre-order!\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong>If you’d like to stay up-to-date on all announcements regarding my books, sign up for my newsletter<\/a>! DO IT.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the forty-sixth chapter of The Science of Discworld, space travel and elevators and aliens! Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read Discworld.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[451],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discworld"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4378\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}