I chose this book knowing that Ray Bradbury was an excellent writer. I had only read his novel Ferenheight 451 prior to this class. After reading some of his short stories assigned to us, I was reminded of how much I enjoy Bradbury’s writing. Furthermore, I was compelled by the short form fiction style of SF we read in class. R is for Rocket stood out to me for two reasons. 1) It was an anthology and 2) all of the stories were written by Ray Bradbury. The book provides a wide range of story material; however, there are definitely strong themes throughout the book that provide insight into Bradbury’s outlook on the state of the universe. Space and time travel are frequent topics within this anthology. Although, rather than purely idolizing these concepts, Bradbury is quite thoughtful about his plot lines. Often, Bradbury uses space and time travel to critique aspects of contemporary society: the capitalist agenda, financial inequality, American escapism, and environmental exploitation. I can see how his stories attracted a huge age range; on the surface, these are stories for the adolescent boy desperate to get his hands on some spacey rocket story. But as a 21-year-old, I am compelled by many of the stories within the anthology. A very common theme within almost all the stories is loneliness: on earth, in space, in time. Many of his stories convey feelings of desperation, a deep longing to be free from the gravity beneath our feet or the confines of a job or the limitations of our earthly bodies. Yet, the grass always seems to be greener on the other side. Bradbury seems to truly believe that humans are destined to live grasping for the next scientific discovery, only to find that the loneliness we all seek to escape follows us wherever – or whenever – we may end up.

I would certainly recommend this book or any of Bradbury’s short stories (if you want some of my favs, A Sound of Thunder, R is for Rocket, The Rocket Man, The Long Rain).

Bradbury, Ray. R Is for Rocket. Doubleday & Company, 1962.

Hey folks.

I wanted to take a moment to share a Youtube channel that some of you may already know about. It’s called Kurzgesagt, and the work being produced by this animation studio in my opinion provides some of the best and most thought out explanations to theoretical science. Their videos cover a wide range of scientific and philosophical topics, such as the complexities of the immune system, realistic ways to combat climate change, and how to live your life with purpose. Often their videos focus on a central debate or topic relevant to present-day science to which they apply literature and expert opinions to formulate a set of answers to the video’s central question. But sometimes their topics get a bit more “what if”. For example, this channel exposed me to: the Fermi Paradox, the Dyson Sphere, uploaded consciousness, stellar engines, and other more SF-ey topics we’ve already talked about in this class.

To me, what is unique about this channel is rather than producing videos that simply outline ideas such as the Dyson Sphere, these people are like “no, what if humanity actually built a Dyson Sphere? How long would it take us? What resources would be necessary to construct such an engineering feat? When in the future could this idea actually become feasible?” Kurzgesagt takes far-fetched ideas and applies science, reason, and understanding to arrive at what they acknowledge is only Kurzgesagt’s answer to the question at hand. I wanted to share this with you all not only because they have some great videos explaining some pretty wild technological ideas (see links below), but their methodology behind video production is some of the most transparent I’ve seen on Youtube’s platform. They provide links to their papers, cite each one of their claims, and (in my opinion) are incredibly objective to the topic at hand. And when an opinion does arise, they are explicit in their video to say something like “based on what we’ve just shown you, this is what we think”. Kurzgesagt provides some of the best educational material regarding science on a platform that too often represents the epitome of misinformation. I encourage y’all to peruse their videos and find one that looks exciting. Oh, and their animation is likewise stellar.

Enjoy!

Dyson Sphere:

Fermi Paradox (there’s also a part 2):

Loneliness (one of their more holistic videos):