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zeroone's review against another edition
funny
inspiring
slow-paced
3.0
Heavy on puns. Started promisingly with space stuff but the ending with precision medicine, bioprinting, and brain-computer interfaces felt too long for my taste. Your preferences and interests may vary.
duparker's review against another edition
3.0
I'm not sure what exactly didn't work, whether the comics or the humor or the extreme science. Nonetheless, this book was ok, not great. It didn't much phase me, and I wanted it to. Unlike a Tyson book, which feels smart and smartly written, this felt smarmy.
shanaqui's review against another edition
informative
lighthearted
medium-paced
3.0
I didn't love Kelly and Zach Weinersmith's Soonish as much as I liked A City on Mars: I think that's partly because the latter is much more of a deep dive, whereas the chapters here are necessarily a bit shallower, since they're looking at multiple different technologies, and don't have the time to get into the nitty gritty as much. There's also some information (and even jokes) that feels repetitive if you've already read A City on Mars already, as well.
That said, they pick an interesting raft of likely technologies and start picking into why we don't have them yet, why they feel within reach, and what we need to figure out to make them reality. The tone is fairly light, but they explain things pretty well.
After a certain point the humour does start to grate a bit, I must admit; I didn't find that in A City on Mars, and of course, your mileage may vary.
That said, they pick an interesting raft of likely technologies and start picking into why we don't have them yet, why they feel within reach, and what we need to figure out to make them reality. The tone is fairly light, but they explain things pretty well.
After a certain point the humour does start to grate a bit, I must admit; I didn't find that in A City on Mars, and of course, your mileage may vary.
hank's review against another edition
3.0
For me, too much humor not enough content. I think I like more in depth types of science books rather than survey types and as always, humor is subjective and it just wasn't my type.
With those negatives out front, Weinersmith really does a good job of giving you/us the current state of a wide variety of science. Just enough information to be coherent discussing them at parties and in my case enough information that I became curious and went to find more.
A good, well thought out book that just didn't hit my sweet spot. I would recommend it to anyone. If you can find a way to read one chapter before buying it, you can tell from that if you will like the rest of the book.
With those negatives out front, Weinersmith really does a good job of giving you/us the current state of a wide variety of science. Just enough information to be coherent discussing them at parties and in my case enough information that I became curious and went to find more.
A good, well thought out book that just didn't hit my sweet spot. I would recommend it to anyone. If you can find a way to read one chapter before buying it, you can tell from that if you will like the rest of the book.
wescovington's review against another edition
3.0
The book starts out well, but I got a little tired of the writing style toward the end. Other people may love it though.
I would read the book fairly soon if you're interested before the technology becomes out of date. Even if the technology is almost all theoretical.
I would read the book fairly soon if you're interested before the technology becomes out of date. Even if the technology is almost all theoretical.