The author of The Future of the Mind traverses the frontiers of astrophysics, artificial intelligence, and technology to offer a vision of man's future in space, from settling Mars to traveling to distant galaxies.
You would be right to think this sounds like science fiction or to be skeptical that some of it is even possible. (I’m good with terraforming but doubt that we are nothing but our neurons.) But the strength of Kaku’s writing is knowing which science fiction ideas are worth following. Kaku grounds his readers in science happening right now, while throwing open the windows to imagine where it might lead in a thousand years. In this effort he is particularly adept at drawing from the lexicon of popular science fiction. From Marvel’s Iron Man to Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar, he uses ideas from our shared cultural warehouse as launchpads for questions of the deep future.
...[a] deeply fascinating and energetically written book ... Kaku’s writings have garnered a reputation for combining hard science with clever speculation, and his latest book continues that winning trend. A breathtaking voyage through what is almost certainly the next major period in the history of humanity.
With admirable clarity and ease, Mr. Kaku rehearses the history of rocketry and the formation of the planets, and explains how we might colonize not only Mars but some of the rocky moons of the gas giants Jupiter and Saturn ...The book has an infectious, can-do enthusiasm and is occasionally even a little silly. But since the author covers so much ground—appropriately enough for a book about traveling the universe—no subject can be treated in great depth ... What, meanwhile, does a highly speculative work of popular science such as this one do that a well-researched work of science fiction doesn’t? Mr. Kaku understands SF’s attractions—he introduces chapter topics by mentioning movies (such as Interstellar) or novels (such as Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series). But a lot of modern science fiction is richer than Mr. Kaku’s treatments of his subjects in technical detail as well as in emotional heft.
