Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies That'll Improve And/Or Ruin Everything

The instant New York Times bestseller

A Wall Street Journal Best Science Book of the Year

A Popular Science Best Science Book of the Year

From a top scientist and the creator of the hugely popular web comic Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, a hilariously illustrated investigation into future technologies -- from how to fling a ship into deep space on the cheap to 3D organ printing

What will the world of tomorrow be like? How does progress happen? And why do we not have a lunar colony already? What is the hold-up?

In this smart and funny book, celebrated cartoonist Zach Weinersmith and noted researcher Dr. Kelly Weinersmith give us a snapshot of what's coming next -- from robot swarms to nuclear fusion powered-toasters. By weaving their own research, interviews with the scientists who are making these advances happen, and Zach's trademark comics, the Weinersmiths investigate why these technologies are needed, how they would work, and what is standing in their way.

New technologies are almost never the work of isolated geniuses with a neat idea. A given future technology may need any number of intermediate technologies to develop first, and many of these critical advances may appear to be irrelevant when they are first discovered. The journey to progress is full of strange detours and blind alleys that tell us so much about the human mind and the march of civilization.

To this end, Soonish investigates ten different emerging fields, from programmable matter to augmented reality, from space elevators to robotic construction, to show us the amazing world we will have, you know, soonish.

Soonish is the perfect gift for science lovers for the holidays

Author: Kelly Weinersmith, Zach Weinersmith
Publisher: Penguin Books
Published: 06/04/2019
Pages: 368
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.75lbs
Size: 8.50h x 6.60w x 1.00d
ISBN13: 9780399563843
ISBN10: 0399563849
BISAC Categories:
- Technology & Engineering | Inventions
- Science | Applied Sciences

About the Author
Zach Weinersmith is the cartoonist behind the popular geek webcomic Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal. His work has been featured in The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, Slate, Forbes, Science Friday, Boingboing, the Freakonomics Blog, the RadioLab blog, Entertainment Weekly, Mother Jones, CNN, Discovery Magazine, and more.

Dr. Kelly Weinersmith is Adjunct Faculty in the BioSciences Department at Rice University, where she studies parasites that manipulate the behavior of their hosts. In addition to being a respected researcher, she cohosts Science...Sort Of, which is one of the top 20 natural science podcasts. Kelly spoke at Smithsonian Magazine's The Future is Here 2015, and her work has been featured in The Atlantic, Science, and Nature.