Evolution

DarkJester · May 5, 2007

Kind of an odd request I suppose. Anyone know of any books/novels/websites that offer proposed evolutionary determined worlds? They can be narrative or purely thought exercises,
very sci-fi kind of stuff.

There was a mini-series on the Discovery Channel a while back about creatures on a distant planet and how and why they had evolved. It caught my interest.

GSHamster · May 5, 2007

I'm not sure if this is exactly what you are looking for, but check out the novels of Julie Czernada.

She's a biologist, and so the difference between her aliens and humans tend to be far more biologically driven than the aliens of other authors.

Andre · May 6, 2007

DarkJester said:
Kind of an odd request I suppose. Anyone know of any books/novels/websites that offer proposed evolutionary determined worlds? They can be narrative or purely thought exercises,
very sci-fi kind of stuff.

There was a mini-series on the Discovery Channel a while back about creatures on a distant planet and how and why they had evolved. It caught my interest.

Give Code of the Lifemaker by James Hogan a try. It's a bit of a rant against religion, mysticism, gullibility, etc., but it has an interesting premise for machine evolution that mirrors much of human evolution.

D.Shaffer · May 7, 2007

Try to find After Man: A Zoology of the Future and The New Dinosaurs: An Alternate Evolution by Dougal Dixon. The first is earth after Mankind goes away. The second is a proposed look at the world 'now' if the dinosaurs never went extinct. I've stolen a few of the critters in this for D20 games.

There's also Man After Man: An Anthropology of the Future which deals with mankind in the future, but that one's not very good IMO.

I've also heard recommended Future Evolution by Peter Ward, but I've not read that one.

WayneLigon · May 7, 2007

DarkJester said:
Kind of an odd request I suppose. Anyone know of any books/novels/websites that offer proposed evolutionary determined worlds? They can be narrative or purely thought exercises,
very sci-fi kind of stuff.

I'm not sure exactly what you're asking; most well-developed science fiction novels should have something on the evolution of life on that world so I assume you're looking for something where Evolution is a central component of the story?

"Alien Planet" was the Discovery special. They also did a series on how life on Earth might evolve in the coming millions of years.

You might want to look at "After Man", a speculation on how life on Earth will continue to change after we're dead/left.

"Hothouse World" envisions a future where the Earth is one huge greenhouse covered by jungle, and insects have evolved into massive predators.

"Darwin's Radio" is about the next step of human evolution

"Pandora's Star" by Peter F Hamilton has the evolution of the 'imotile' species as a central plot point; they are immobile brains that create semi-intelligent mobile creatures to do their work, and they constantly tinker with the motiles and themselves since they can also link to one another like hooking PC's together to form a neiral network.

DarkJester · May 8, 2007

I think I'll try to get my hands on After Man: A Zoology of the Future, for a start. Thanks guys, its pretty much what I was looking for (focus on informational rather than story telling).