Kelly and Zach Weinersmith have won the Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize, given annually to a work of “outstanding popular science writing,” for A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through?
The Weinersmiths’ book, published in 2023 by Penguin Press, considers the implications of human settlements in space. A critic for Kirkus called the book, which won the 2024 Hugo Award for best related work, “a fun, informative read that puts the pop into popular science.”
John Hutchinson, chair of the judging panel for the Royal Society award, said, “A City on Mars blew me away with its incredibly ambitious cross-disciplinary perspective.…They walk a tightrope of maintaining not only scientific rigor and fairness, but also a lot of humor, leveraged by amusing and informative sketches. We finish the book understanding that, while humanity having a city on Mars might yet be centuries away, many good reasons remain to pursue the lofty goal of settling space.”
The Royal Society prize was established in 1988. Previous winners include Jared Diamond for Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, Caroline Criado Perez for Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men, and Ed Yong for An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
