Carl Sagan's Cosmic Connection
By Carl Sagan
Why this book?
The best books that have inspired my writings on astronomy and space
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Browse the best books on extraterrestrial life as recommended by authors, experts, and creators. Along with notes on why they recommend those books.
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By Carl Sagan
The best books that have inspired my writings on astronomy and space
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By Kevin Hand
The search for life outside the Earth is NASA’s greatest quest, and this book will bring you up to speed on it. Just a few decades ago, scientists thought life arose on the Earth in shallow seas, warmed by the early sun and zapped by energy-producing lightning. The best place to look for alien life was on Mars, where bacterial life may have formed in the shallow pools that covered the young Mars, and then hunkered down in subsurface spots of Martian water and ice as these pools evaporated. Scientists now suspect life arose in warm vents deep in the…
The best books to learn about the planets and life outside the Earth
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By Scott Westerfeld
The best sci-fi books to enjoy while expanding your mind
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By Alastair Reynolds
Chasm City is part of Reynold's Revelation Space series, but this future-noir mystery is perfectly readable as a standalone. It follows a man on a mission of revenge, one that takes him into the crumbling, plague-ridden remains of a once-great civilization that has descended into chaos and squalor. The world-building is top-notch—this is a dying, decaying city that you can feel in your bones—and full mysteries that explore ideas of identity, memory, and redemption in a twisty mystery that ties together past, present, and future.
The best gritty and gripping mystery books set in space
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By Vernor Vinge
This fascinating book asks “what if” someday we were to meet aliens who form group minds of three to eight individuals whose minds are connected into a collective intelligence by ultrasonic data transfer? With too few individuals such group minds wouldn’t be very smart. Minds with too many individuals would tend to be troubled by internal conflicts.
When two group minds get too close to one another, the ultrasonic messaging from one confuses the other’s group mind.
There are many other “what ifs” explored, including the idea that technology and brains work better in some areas of the galaxy, a…
The best “what if” books in science fiction
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By Andrew May
“Are we alone?” An age-old question that we may never answer. Andrew May walks us through the scientific study of whether there might be life elsewhere in the universe, and how we might identify it. And by “scientific study,” I mean actual scientific investigations, not wishy-washy sci-fi fluff. The book is both inspiring and terrifying, because the immense distances in space and time make you realize that intelligent life is both incredibly insignificant and incredibly precious.
The best books for people who can’t read five books on the same topic
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