Rancid

Nightfall by Isaac Asimov My rating: 3 of 5 stars The story I read was the original format penned by the author, and I also had the opportunity to listen to BBC radio adaptations of it. While it's not one of my favorites, as I've entered my senior years, I've gained a new perspective that truly fascinates me. It's akin to the three-body problem, but with stars. The concept of a planet orbiting a star while all the other stars do not orbit the same central star raises intriguing questions. Could it be that the primary star and its companions are actually orbiting an unseen gravitational center, perhaps a black hole? On the other hand, if you were a resident on this planet, you would naturally assume that all the other stars revolve around the primary star, much like how we perceive Jupiter's orbit around the sun in our own solar system. However, the truth is that both the Sun and Jupiter orbit a common gravitational center, and Jupiter's enormity is astonishin...

Blue Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson My rating: 2 of 5 stars Blue Mars The third book of the Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robison This is the book that milked the cow. There's really not much that I can write about it because the book is basically a continuation of the previous one which is Red Mars.  A lot more social drama and politics then there is technology.  It has some good points.  For example, the planet take the lead in technology better than earth, and it is responsible for colonization of the rest of the solar system. View all my reviews

Green Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson My rating: 3 of 5 stars Green Mars Book two of the Mars trilogy. Written by Kim Stanley Robinson. Here one read about the continuation of human trying to make Mars an earth-like planet. This particular book was released in 2003. I stress the date because the author used the science known at the time as to what would be needed to terraform a planet like Mars. The book becomes a long read. If you intend to read through and research the science for terraforming and world building, and genetic engineering. View all my reviews

Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson My rating: 4 of 5 stars Red Mars This is a very good read it definitely falls into the hard science fiction genre. The novel gives you a good idea about terraforming a planet in our solar system. Scientists already know the makeup of the planet there is a lot of ideas on how to terraform mars. Actually there are many theories on how to do it. All of them takes a long time. The characters are very well developed. If you get to read it I hope you enjoy it. View all my reviews

The Disappearance of Mr. Davenheim - a Hercule Poirot Short Story by Agatha Christie My rating: 4 of 5 stars Wonderful!!! Solving a problem without leaving his apartment. This reminds me of the sci-fi/ science writer Issac Asimov. In 1968, there is a collection of 14 short stories by American writer Isaac Asimov, ... Four stories in the collection feature the character of Wendell Urth, who is a leading extra-terrologist (an expert on alien worlds and life originating on them) Who would solve mysteries, without leaving the grounds of the University he resided in. Urth is eccentric in that he has a phobia of all mechanical forms of transport. So I wonder, since Agatha Christie and Issac Asimov were contemporaries and both were proflific writers, did one borrowed the concept for the other? View all my reviews