A lot of people hate science fiction or are at least completely unmoved by it. I keep hearing complaints about sci-fi’s speculative nature and that it does not relate to anything “real”.
That’s true in a way, but when the same people read crime stories and historic novels with gusto, I begin to feel doubt 🙂
Anyway. The Image of the Day strongly reminds me of Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy. This is what his mars looks like after terraforming 🙂
The Mars trilogy is also a good example for the not-so speculative nature of “Hard Sci-Fi”. It was written in the first half of the 1990s and it is basically the blueprint of all current efforts to reach out for Mars. I’m afraid it’s also a blueprint of what awaits us on our way there politically, and I am not sure that KSR’s resolutions are more than desperate hope. It may turn out much worse.
If you haven’t read the Mars trilogy, and if you do enjoy science-based fiction, and if you are interested in where we go as a society, I can hardly recommend anything better. A mostly optimistic and non-dystopic look into a not so unlikely future.