Year Million: Science at the Far Edge of Knowledge | 
| Creator: Damien Broderick
Publisher: Atlas & Co.
Category: Book
List Price: $16.00
Buy New: $9.26
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Avg. Customer Rating:  3 reviews
Sales Rank: 129391
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 304
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.1 x 1
ISBN: 0977743349
Dewey Decimal Number: 523
EAN: 9780977743346
ASIN: 0977743349
Publication Date: May 26, 2008
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Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Condition: New, unused book.; bkcs
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Product Description
Leading and up-and-coming scientists and science writers cast their minds one million years into the future to imagine the fate of the human and/or extraterrestrial galaxy.
This volume of fifteen new, specially commissioned essays by notable journalists and scholars such as Rudy Rucker, Jim Holt, and Gregory Benford presents a series of speculations on the most radical but well-grounded ideas they can conceive, projecting the universe as it might be in the year 1,000,000 C.E. Their collective effort—first attempted by H. G. Wells in his 1893 essay "The Man of the Year Million"—is an exploration into a barely conceivable distant future, where the authors confront far-flung possibilities, at times bordering on philosophy of science. How would the galaxy look if it were redesigned for optimal energy use and maximized intelligence? What is a universe bereft of stars?
Contributors include Amara D. Angelica, Catherine Asaro, Gregory Benford, Robert Bradbury, Sean M. Carroll, Anne Corwin, Dougal Dixon, Robin Hanson, Steven B. Harris, Jim Holt, Lisa Kaltenegger, Wil McCarthy, Rudy Rucker, Pamela Sargent, and George Zebrowski.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Fascinating Exercises for Your Mind August 4, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book stretches anyone's mind. No matter how much science fiction one has read, or futurist literature --there are new ideas contained within the pages of Year Million. Not all the writers are equal, some are better than others--but a few shine brilliantly. You can read and disagree, formulate your own ideas--or nod your head with the 'hmmm' moments when you agree. It is a fun book, I highly enjoyed it.
Highly Recommend! August 2, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
What an awesome awesome book! I haven't enjoyed a new book that can plausibly be construed as sci-fi for a while. The book is basically a collection of essays by a number of experts in their respective fields. The subjects range from the significance of prime numbers vs. humor, extending human life span, and very very very far off future. The overall claim is that we will basically become aliens with god like abilities (that is unless we do ourselves in first). There are a number of references at the end of the book that are worth looking up.
 Very disappointing July 25, 2008
6 out of 15 found this review helpful
I was very disappointed in this book. The concept is extremely interesting, but the execution was not. Most of the writers in the book tried to extrapolate what the Year 1 Million would be like by looking at current technology and projecting forward. The problem with that is we are talking about the year 1,000,000, not the year 2080. People were not thinking big enough.
Those who did think big often rehashed already-existing ideas about the far future. I believe 4 of the essays talked about Dyson spheres or some version of them. Not exactly that imaginative.
This concept could have worked (could still work) with better, more imaginative writers. I can only guess that the editor did not have enough contacts in the science fiction world, or did not try hard enough to get the best people for the book.
Thumbs down!
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