SCIENCE FICTION FAN'S GUIDE TO SCIENCE

A select overview of topics addressed by scientists and science fiction writers alike.

In a cursory way that will leave explorers of both the experimentally demonstrated and the speculative reaches of science unsatisfied, Nardo covers a few general areas—interstellar travel, time travel, intelligent life on other planets, parallel universes, and sentient machines—in which science and science fiction have been chasing each other for a long time. Interspersed with glancing mentions of wormholes, AI, and a limited number of other fizzy topics in scientific research, he name-checks or briefly summarizes films and novels that incorporate such topics, some of which younger audiences may recognize. But many references feel less relevant: hoary 1950s classic films (The Day the Earth Stood Still and Forbidden Planet) and novels that are typically assigned than read voluntarily (H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine and Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle). Along with showing a preference for less-than-fresh examples, the author neglects to cover several currently hot common areas of interest, including cyborgs, nanotechnology, quantum entanglement, and various frontiers in the social, political, and biological sciences. Apart from Michelle Yeoh and Ziyi Zhang, the human figures in the thin assortment of photos are white.

A limited, superficial survey of one of human culture’s most fruitful synergistic pairings.