So I’m restarting my efforts at writing my first novel and I’m pretty excited about it.  I’ve spend some of the last week doing some basic outlining.  Since it’s a hard science fiction novel, there’s a lot of research to do.  For anyone interested, here’s the initial list of books I’ll be reading in preparation for writing the novel.

• This New Ocean: The Story of the First Space Age by William E. Burrows
• The Emotion Machine: Commonsense Thinking, Artificial Intelligence, and the Future of the Human Mind by Marvin Minsky
• The New Worlds: Extrasolar Planets by Fabienne Cosoli and Therese Encrenaz
• Advanced Space Propulsion Systems by Martin Tajmar
• Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration into the Worlds of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleporation, and Time Travel by Michio Kaku
• Centauri Dreams: Imagining and Planning Interstellar Exploration by Paul Gilster
• China’s Space Program: From Conception to Manned Spaceflight by Brian Harvey
• Modern China: The Fall and Rise of a Great Power by Jonathan Fenby

I’ve also got a slew of clippings from NEW SCIENTIST to re-review.  But this should be a good start.

Originally published at From the Desk of Jamie Todd Rubin. You can comment here or there.