User Profile

Kelson Reads

KelsonReads@bookwyrm.social

Joined 2 years, 1 month ago

Techie, software developer, hobbyist photographer, sci-fi/fantasy and comics fan in the Los Angeles area. He/him.

Mostly reading science fiction these days, mixing in some fantasy and some non-fiction (mostly tech and science), occasionally other stuff. As far as books go, anyway. (I read more random articles than I probably should.)

Reviews are cross-posted on my website at hyperborea.org/reviews and I have a blog dedicated to Les Misérables at hyperborea.org/les-mis

Mastodon: wandering.shop/kelsonv Websites: kvibber.com and https://hyperborea.org

This link opens in a pop-up window

User Activity

A City on Mars (Hardcover, 2023) 5 stars

Earth is not well. The promise of starting life anew somewhere far, far away - …

Accessible and intricately researched

5 stars

Accessible and intricately researched, with scattered humor to keep the reader's interest.

Getting to space is the easy part. Staying there is going to be a lot more complicated than anyone wants to believe. There are plenty of established tropes in science-fiction and among serious space enthusiasts, but a lot of them have major gaps in them when you start pressing for details. What happens to a fetus in microgravity? Can you scrape together enough soil nutrients to supply agriculture for a whole Mars city, or do you need to constantly import fertilizer from Earth? How do you make sure you have enough medical supplies on-hand?

The authors wanted to write about what we know about space settlement. But it turns out it's a really good primer for what we don't know and need to research before we can get serious.

It's also an interesting companion to Under Alien Skies …