Nick Sagan Quotes

Beyond ‘Contact,’ I think there’s something compelling about ‘District 9.’

I’ve met secular humanists who grew up in evangelical households, for whom ‘Cosmos’ was their first exposure to a scientific way of viewing the world.

‘Life in space is impossible,’ we’re warned, and amidst the hypnotic beauty of these heavens, we become painfully aware of what a hostile environment space is, how unforgiving, how unsympathetic to human desires.

Human divisions would be child‘s play for any reasonably competent alien overlord to exploit – check the masterful ‘Twilight Zone‘ episode ‘The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street‘ for an example of how that might play out.

My father was not only a planetary scientist and a great popularizer of science, but he thought very deeply about the world. He was a scholar, he studied history. He taught a class in critical thinking, and he was very, very aware of the directions we might go.

It goes back to the starfish. That’s when the light bulb really popped over my head. We’d found one on the beach, and I was struck by what astonishing creatures they are, talking with Dad about how they regenerate.

Dad was a difference maker. He reached out to people. He took them by the awe and wonder we feel over the most important questions we can think to imagine. He pulled them away from blind faith, away from pseudoscience, toward a deeper, richer understanding of the universe.

Something my father dearly loved is the scientific method, and it’s founded in this element of humility. The idea is that you pursue the truth wherever it goes; you need to evidence, and you can – you see if it’s repeatable.

We have not been asking the serious questions about the future of our species, questions sci-fi regularly explores by showing us the best and worst of what could be.

Science is a wonderful way of getting out what’s real.

For a genre that’s about looking to the future, science fiction has sure been looking backwards lately. Nostalgia is what sells best, with readers spending their money on movie tie-in novels and sequels to long-running series.

‘Shrapnel’ is based on the idea that we do colonize the solar system, but it’s not clean and optimistic. The haves are putting the screws to the have-nots. The story is about the last stand of the last free colony in the solar system.

There is a danger, increasingly, that we’re in a post-fact society where it seems my ignorance is as good as your facts.

Humans having any kind of sporting chance against hostile alien invaders armed with superior technology – Good luck. If they’re advanced enough to cross the enormous distances of interstellar space, they’re advanced enough to wipe us out without breaking whatever in their physiology passes for a sweat.

I think of ‘Shrapnel’ as the anti-‘Star Trek.’

Dad was a world-famous astronomer; Mom was the artist who drew the iconic Pioneer plaque.

As a science-fiction writer, I feel my responsibility is to look ahead and see the dangers of what might happen and try to warn people of the potential pitfalls.

Astonishingly powerful and poignant, ‘Gravity‘ is the rarest of rares: a space survival film informed by a genuine reverence for the awe-inspiring cosmos we inhabit.