Book Review: THE LAST ASTRONAUT by David Wellington
Some books grab me by title alone. As someone whose life has been spent very emotionally involved with the fortunes of the United States’ space program, I felt positively yanked by David Wellington’s The Last Astronaut. An actual last astronaut is something that I fervently hope never actually exists except in the extremely long-term “heat death of the universe” sense. The idea has haunted me since at least my teenage years when I grappled with Bruce Sterling and William Gibson’s melancholy short story, “Red Star, Winter Orbit.” In this story, there are still people going into space, but only for commercial gain; the tasks are finite, clearly defined, not even suggested if they don’t enhance shareholder value. Whatever the members of such crews are, they are not astronauts. They are not exploring the sea of stars. It’s a sad and all too plausible vision of the future of the space program. The Last Astronaut has its own unique take on the future of human space travel. Just look at the cover!
Aliens: Will They Come For Us (in the Dark)?
If you haven’t been paying attention to science lately, then you might have missed out on a lot of talk about why aliens might visit us. Not to say hello and give us warp drives and all that fun stuff. No. They’ll show up to get rid of us, because we’re too dangerous to exist in the Milky Way. I have reservations myself (about the study, not humanity), but it’s a question we should really ask ourselves: do aliens have a reason to get rid of us? And what can we do to make ourselves less a threat to the galaxy (let alone our galactic neighbors)? So the question comes to you: what do you think?
