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Indeed, when I saw Ms. Newitz's book at the library, I thumbed through the index looking for Dr. Smith, and found my name instead. She had probably finished researching her book before his was published. If they read this review, I suspect they will mention each other in their next book; perhaps even collaborate. Indeed, when I saw Ms. Newitz's book at the library, I thumbed through the index looking for Dr. Smith, and found my name instead. She had probably finished researching her book before his was published. If they read this review, I suspect they will mention each other in their next books; perhaps even collaborate.

Scatter, Adapt, Remember

How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction

Annalee Newitz, 2013


Emigrating Beyond Earth

Human Adaptation and Space Colonization

Cameron M. Smith and Evan T. Davies, 2012


These two books complement each other, and will be reviewed together. Mostly so I will be able to keep my memories of both organized.

I've met the authors; Dr. Smith makes amateur spacesuits and teaches Anthropology at Portland State University. And while I can't find the memory in my own unreliable brain, Ms. Newitz met me when I presented "High Stage One" at the Space Elevator Conference in 2011, and notes this in her book. Her "day job" is Editor-in-Chief of the science/science-fiction website io9.

Indeed, when I saw Ms. Newitz's book at the library, I thumbed through the index looking for Dr. Smith, and found my name instead. She had probably finished researching her book before his was published. If they read this review, I suspect they will mention each other in their next books; perhaps even collaborate.

Both authors concern themselves with the long term ( "million year" ) survival of the human race, with Newitz focusing on the animals that survived mass extinction, while S&D (Smith and Davies) extrapolate from the human colonization of the Pacific Islands.


S&D is more academic and detailed, and answers "don't go to space until we fix the earth" complaints. The postulated individual motivation is the same as the motivations that spread mankind into the Pacific, the motivation to explore and find new places to live, according to Polynesian history. Personally, I suspect such stories are the brave face that refugees fleeing oppression and poverty tell their progeny; my grandfather left Sweden to escape grinding poverty, and came to Oregon, where real salaries were perhaps 10x what was available to an unskilled laborer near Osthammar and Upsalla. Another distant relative was mulatto, and fled antebellum slavery to reinvent himself/herself as white in Texas.

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ScatterEmigrating (last edited 2015-01-16 04:58:11 by KeithLofstrom)