Winner of the Nebula Award for Best Novel • Discover the novel that launched one of science fiction’s most beloved, acclaimed, and awarded trilogies: Kim Stanley Robinson’s masterly near-future chronicle of interplanetary colonization. “A staggering book . . . the best novel on the colonization of Mars that has ever been written.”—Arthur C. Clarke For centuries, the barren, desolate landscape of the red planet has beckoned to humankind. Now a group of one hundred colonists begins a mission whose ultimate goal is to transform Mars into a more Earthlike planet. They will place giant satellite mirrors in Martian orbit to reflect light onto its surface. Black dust sprinkled on the polar caps will capture warmth and melt the ice. And massive tunnels drilled into the mantle will create stupendous vents of hot gases. But despite these ambitious goals, there are some who would fight to the death to prevent Mars from ever being changed.

Recommended on 1 episode:

Is Decarbonization Dead?

Biden passed the most ambitious climate legislation in American history. Trump just shredded it. What does that mean for the future of renewable energy in America? Where does the climate movement go from here? And is it too late for us to avert climate catastrophe? To answer these questions, I invited onto the show two climate experts: Jesse Jenkins, who is a leading climate modeler and a professor at Princeton University, where he runs the Princeton ZERO Lab, and Jane Flegal, who is the executive director of the Blue Horizons Foundation and served on the Biden administration’s climate policy team. We discuss how far Trump’s policies have set us back, the lessons the climate movement should learn from this loss and what the next wave of climate politics may look like.

Books recommended:

• 📕  Frontiers of Illusion: Science, Technology, and the Politics of Progress by Daniel Sarewitz
• 📘  Why Nothing Works: Who Killed Progress―and How to Bring It Back by Marc J. Dunkelman
• 📗  Energy: A Human History by Richard Rhodes
• 📙  Red Mars (Mars Trilogy) by Kim Stanley Robinson
• 📕  Mating: A Novel (National Book Award Winner) by Norman Rush
• 📘  An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial Models Shape Markets (Inside Technology) by Donald MacKenzie

Jesse Jenkins , Jane Flegal July 25, 2025 6 books recommended

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