Light Reading for a Sunday Afternoon, Vol. I

Here are some recent news pieces worth reading:

• “Science Fiction: the Other God That Failed,” by Jeet Heer, SF Crowsnest.com, Jan. 1, 2008. An essay about religion and science fiction which mentions Robert A. Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land (1961).

• “Life as a Gondolier,” by Kurogane, TheStarOnline.com, Dec. 30, 2007. A review of the graphic novel Aqua, by Kozue Amano, in which Mars has been terraformed, colonized, and is now called Aqua, a water-rich planet.

• “What are You Reading?” LJWorld.com, Dec. 30, 2007. A high school student in Kansas announces that he’s reading Philip K. Dick’s The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (1965), “a sci-fi novel that’s pretty much about sitting around on Mars and testing drugs.”

• “Bionic Parts, Sci-Fi Play Role in Real Life,” by Ronald Hawkins, Times Mail, Dec. 30, 2007. An article from an Indiana newspaper mentions that Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles (1950) inspired NASA’s missions to Mars.

• “Hectic Holidays? You Can Thank the Romans,” by Ben Bova, Naples Daily News, Dec. 29, 2007. A column in which Bova concludes the “possibility that on Mars, some years people will celebrate Christmas twice!"