Give this to a reader who yearns to expand the limits of what is possible. Every story … masterfully demonstrates how powerful science fiction can be.
—BookPage
Tasting Light: Ten Science Fiction Stories to Rewire Your Perceptions
In a mind-bending MITeen anthology, ten top YA authors use emerging technologies to explore startling new realities.
What does the future hold? Ten speculative short stories by leading young-adult authors imagine what the world could be through the lens of technologies emerging today. When the modification industry transforms how humans look, sound, and interact, a nonbinary teen braves the “reinvention room” to accept a gift from the dead. In an accidental city in space, a young apprentice holds neighborhoods together with braided carbon filaments until distraction and inspiration arrive in the wake of a visitor. Entitlement-fueled drug use alters the landscape of white privilege, robots remember the Earth, and corporate “walkers” stroll for unknown subscribers—until one hacks the system. In tales buzzing with possibility, hope, innovation, anger, and tenderness, Tasting Light offers a dazzling challenge to connect with open minds, hearts, and senses in a fast-changing world.
Chosen by Kirkus Reviews as a YA Best of the Year book, by the American Library Association for The Hal Clement Notable Young Adult Books List, and by the Bulletin of the Center of Children’s Books for its 2022 Blue Ribbon list.
With stories by:
William Alexander
K. Ancrum
Elizabeth Bear
A. R. Capetta
Charlotte Nicole Davis
Nasugraq Rainey Hopson
A.S. King
E.C. Myers
Junauda Petrus-Nasah
Wendy Xu
MITeen Press, an imprint of Candlewick Press and the MIT Press | Paperback
$19.95 | ISBN: 9781536219388 272 pp. | October 11, 2022
Press coverage and reviews for Tasting Light: Ten Science Fiction Stories to Rewire Your Perceptions
Revealing Tasting Light, An SF Anthology Edited by A. R. Capetta and Wade Roush, Tor.com, February 2, 2022
The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Coming Out This Fall, Buzzfeed
New Young Adult Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror for September & October 2022, Tor.com
Tasting Light: Ten Science Fiction Stories to Rewire Your Perceptions, Publishers Weekly (starred review)
New and Forthcoming 2022-2023 YA Anthologies to TBR, Bookriot
A Top-Notch Hard Science Fiction Collection | Tasting Light: Ten Science Fiction Stories to Rewire Your Perceptions, Kirkus (starred review)
Bonus Episode: TASTING LIGHT Publication Day, Soonish, October 11, 2022
56 great books to give as holiday gifts—or keep for yourself, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, 2022
4 YA Anthologies for teens who love powerful stories in small packages, BookPage, December 2022
An exceptionally robust, nuanced—though entirely approachable—primer on the history and near future of humanity's search for alien life…The book left me sipping the most delicious cocktail of awe, ambiguity, and wonder that I've tasted in a while.
—Joel Roston
Extraterrestrials
Are we alone in the universe? If not, where is everybody? An engaging exploration of one of the most important unsolved problems in science.
Everything we know about how planets form and how life arises suggests that human civilization on Earth should not be unique. We ought to see abundant evidence of extraterrestrial activity—but we don't. Where is everybody? In this volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, science and technology writer Wade Roush examines one of the great unsolved problems in science: is there life, intelligent or otherwise, on other planets?
This paradox (they're bound to be out there; but where are they?), first formulated by the famed physicist Enrico Fermi, has fueled decades of debate, speculation, and, lately, some actual science. Roush lays out the problem in its historical and modern-day context and summarizes the latest thinking among astronomers and astrobiologists. He describes the long history of speculation about aliens (we've been debating the idea for thousands of years); the emergence of SETI (the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) as a scientific discipline in the 1960s, and scientists' use of radio and optical techniques to scan for signals; and developments in astrobiology (the study of how life might arise in non-Earth like environments) and exoplanet research (the discovery of planets outside our solar system). Finally, he discusses possible solutions to the Fermi Paradox and suggests way to refocus SETI work that might increase the chances of resolving the paradox—and finding extraterrestrials.
The MIT Press Essential Knowledge Series | Paperback
$15.95 T | £12.99 ISBN: 9780262538435 240 pp. | 5 in x 7 in | April 2020
English, Spanish, Arabic, and simplified Chinese editions available
Press coverage and reviews for Extraterrestrials
MIT Press Live! Author Talk, June 1, 2020
New Books in Science Podcast, April 27, 2020
PopularScience, April 26, 2020
Starburst Magazine, April 20, 2020
The MIT Press Podcast, April 10, 2020
Scientific American, April 7, 2020
The Space Review of Space News, April 6, 2020
Wow! Signal Podcast, April 6, 2020
BBC Sky at Night Magazine, April 3, 2020
Co.Scienza Podcast, March 30, 2020
Big Think, May 10, 2022
Occasionally you feel like you're holding something special. The stories in Twelve Tomorrows edited by Wade Roush were inspiring, thought provoking and shockingly moving.
—Joshua Bradley
Twelve Tomorrows
Twelve visions of the future—by turns hilarious, frightening, and relevant—from new and established voices in science fiction.
In this book, new and established voices in science fiction come together to offer original stories of the future. Ken Liu writes about a virtual currency that hijacks our empathy; Elizabeth Bear shows us a smart home tricked into kidnapping its owner; Clifford V. Johnson presents, in a graphic novella, the story of a computer scientist seeing a new side of the AIs she has invented; and J. M. Ledgard describes a 28,000-year-old AI who meditates on the nature of loneliness. We encounter metal-melting viruses, vegetable-based heart transplants, search-and-rescue drones, and semi-automated sailing ships. Sometimes hilarious, sometimes frightening, and always relevant, Twelve Tomorrows offers compelling visions of potential futures.
Originally launched in 2011 by MIT Technology Review, the Twelve Tomorrows series explores the future implications of emerging technologies through the lens of fiction. Featuring a diverse collection of authors, characters, and stories rooted in contemporary real-world science, each volume in the series offers conceivable and inclusive stories of the future, celebrating and continuing the genre of “hard” science fiction pioneered by authors such as Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, and Robert Heinlein. Twelve Tomorrows is the first volume of the series to be published in partnership with the MIT Press.
Contributors: Elizabeth Bear, SL Huang, Clifford V. Johnson, J. M. Ledgard, Liu Cixin, Ken Liu, Paul McAuley, Nnedi Okorafor, Malka Older, Sarah Pinsker, Alastair Reynolds
The MIT Press | Paperback
$19.95 T | £15.99 ISBN: 9780262535427 276 pp. | 7 in x 10 in 20 color illus., 2 b&w illus. | May 2018