Reader discussion: The Colors of Space

Public reader discussion about The Colors of Space in the WeRead Catalog by Marion Zimmer Bradley.

Is Extragalactic exploration feasible?

By field-chance8064

Voyager did more than just figure it out—they actually got a slipstream drive working while they were stuck in the Delta Quadrant. They never fully ironed out the problems, but when they get back home it feels like the Federation would be able to take that tech, clean it up, and start using it for real. In “Hope and Fear” they hold slipstream for about an hour and go something like 300 lightyears, so if you use that same kind of speed for a production drive, you can estimate the trips. Andromeda’s about 2,537,497 lightyears away—at 300 lightyears per hour that’s roughly 8,458 hours, or around 354.5 days. Triangulum is a bit farther (2,723,406 lightyears), so that works out to something like 9,078 hours, or about 378 days. So yeah, not a quick jaunt, but it doesn’t feel totally out of range for an exploration mission, especially since Starfleet can do things like suspended animation and make the long trip less of a drain on supplies. Real-time comms might also be doable with something like the MIDAS array, and if they can manage transwarp conduits later, the travel time could drop even more. All that said, I do think it’s within Federation capability to start launching missions to explore the neighboring galaxies. Extra question: what galaxy would be the best first target? Andromeda seems closer, so it makes sense to start there, and it might be smarter before the radiation in that area gets too sketchy if the Kelvans are even close to right. Triangulum had a brief Enterprise-D visit in 2364 too (TNG “Where No One Has Gone Before”), so there’d already be more info to build on, which could make the exploration more productive.

I finished The Color of Magic and I loved it!!

By FallenPencil

It’s my birthday today (25!) so last night my parents took me to Barnes & Noble and just let me wander around. They had the first two Discworld books, and I grabbed them. I finished *Color of Magic* in two sittings last night and then again this morning, and honestly it was really, really good. I’ve heard people say not to start with it because it’s supposed to be the worst one, but if that’s true, I’m still completely in. The second I read that thing about the turtles traveling through space to mate and it being called “The Big Bang theory,” I was like yep, I’m done for. The world building felt awesome, the jokes landed, the gods are weird in a good way, and even the random details like octarine being this yellowish-green purple color—everything just worked.

What are some good Robert Heinlein recs for someone who’s never read him?

By Jar

Lately I’ve been bouncing between a lot of Ursula K. LeGuin and Arthur C. Clarke, and now I want to try some other “classic” sci-fi. I figured Heinlein might be a good pick since his ideas and stuff seem pretty different from LeGuin’s, and I’d kind of like to see how they line up side by side. The only Heinlein books I really know are *Stranger in a Strange Land*, *The Moon is a Harsh Mistress*, and *Starship Troopers*. I honestly don’t know their plots that well either, so I’m stuck on what to start with.

Favorite Sci Fi Books

By blue-eagle

Can’t decide what to read next, so I’m looking for your top sci-fi picks / what you’d recommend for discussion—top 10 if you can. Series are totally fine too. Mine (in no particular “this is definitive forever” order): 1. Book of the New Sun 2. The Stars My Destination 3. A Canticle for Leibowitz 4. Slaughterhouse-Five 5. The Foundation series 6. The Hitchhiker’s Guide 7. 1984 8. The Martian Chronicles 9. Embassytown 10. House of Suns And yeah… I listed them, but they’re all so good that other books keep sneaking in and swapping spots depending on my mood.

Science fiction novel with spaceships which are powered by the "eighth colour"?

By cricketSnow9874

My husband grew up in East Berlin, so it might be some DDR book, and when he was around 10–15 (roughly 1994–1999) he read something we’re still trying to track down. He thinks the title was The Eighth Colour, but we can’t find it anywhere—not even with a bunch of searching online, and ChatGPT couldn’t come up with anything. From what he remembers, it was about Earth after a war that had basically destroyed it, and aliens had landed. The main alien character might have been called Llyril (or something close). The ships used this “eighth colour” for propulsion, and the humans apparently couldn’t handle the space travel at all, so they had to sleep during the flights. Later, a human pretends to be an alien and joins the crew. But when it’s time to fly fast, he gets scared because the book said humans can’t survive it if they’re awake/conscious. That’s all he can remember, sadly. Anyone have any clue what this could be?