Featured Essays Project Hail Mary Project Hail Mary Knows What Makes Humans Special — And It’s Not Heroism Bravery and self-sacrifice are often tied to stories of heroism — but what if there’s a better alternative? By Emmet Asher-Perrin | Published on March 26, 2026 Comment 0 Share New Share The best moment in Project Hail Mary is about oxygen. Ryland Grace is out in the middle of space and trying to befriend an alien he’s dubbed Rocky. (Because, you know, the alien looks like a rock.) In the process of getting to know each other, Rocky gives Grace two large rings with eight spheres attached to each, and it takes Grace a minute to figure out what they represent—his mind skews to jewelry before it occurs to him that it’s a pretty clear depiction of an oxygen molecule. Rocky is telling Grace that he’s made it possible for the human to breathe in the tunnel between their two ships. Grace laughs it off at first and says no, obviously. He has no way of knowing what the environment is like outside his space suit in that moment. He brought no equipment to test for this circumstance, and has no idea what Rocky has done to achieve this atmopsheric fix. As he points out, wryly, walking back toward his ship, the consequences of being wrong in this scenario—on either of their parts—would be catastrophic to him. He’d die pretty darn quickly, so that’s not worth testing out. And yet. Grace pauses halfway back to the hatch and acts on his instinct rather than rationality and safety. He decides to take off the helmet, effectively risking his life… and finds that Rocky was right. He can breathe now in that tunnel, and the two of them have taken important first steps toward saving both of their worlds from astrophage—microorganisms that are devouring the galaxy’s stars. But that first step isn’t about the functional ability to work in a same space, or even about a willingness to test what seems impossible. It’s about the greatest attributes that our species possesses, attributes that are constantly overlooked in the stories that we tell one another about greatness because we forget their value. What is a “hero,” in our modern parlance? Most of our fiction offers the same definition, intentionally or not—heroism is a position anchored in self-sacrifice and bravery. It is about doing for others, often (in fact, pretty much always) at the expense of yourself. It’s a definition that bugs me a lot because, while it is always worthwhile to remind people to care for others (because human cognition is weird and we don’t teach empathy in schools like we should), it leaves most people with the impression that they could never do anything remotely heroic. Contrary to popular fiction, most people aren’t ready, able, or willing to put themselves in mortal danger with the added knowledge that what they are doing will likely kill them. Which would make them cowards by definition, yes? And the more we learn about the brain, psychologically speaking, the more we find that human beings believe whatever they tell themselves most often—so you can see how that might work against our collective favor in the long run. The first antidote against this line of thinking required a redefinition of bravery. There are many pieces of fiction that will tell you outright that bravery doesn’t demand an absence of fear in the face of danger; bravery is being scared and doing scary things anyway. It tackles one arm of this mess, the thought that fear itself suggests a lack of bravery, that only cowards feel fear. What it doesn’t tackle is a top-down assessment of bravery as a measure of self-worth. And while I don’t think that author Andy Weir necessarily intended to address this idea in his novel Project Hail Mary, the film adaptation tackles the subject head on. Ryland Grace lacks bravery. That is positioned as the film’s major reveal, planted throughout consistent flashbacks as the narrative moves forward. While we learn how Grace (and Rocky) are going to save their worlds from destruction, we also learn how Grace wound up in this position, a history that he himself cannot remember due to his time in an induced space coma. The answer, finally given to us in the lead-up to the film’s finale, is that Ryland Grace was told he had to become the Hail Mary’s science officer after an explosion killed their previous officer—and he says no. Not just once, by the way. This isn’t a heartwarming tale of how a man finds his courage in the face of terrible adversity. Ryland Grace says no over and over. He is warned of the consequences to those actions, that his refusal will result in the death of billions of people, and he still says no. He doesn’t want this job, he doesn’t believe he has the fortitude or the wherewithal to handle it, he is simply too afraid to take on this monumental task. The head of the project, Eva Stratt, removes his autonomy and makes the decision for him. Because the stakes are the potential survival of their world, Grace doesn’t get a choice. She has him drugged and sent up on the ship with two previously selected crewmates. Only Grace survives the journey. Grace has a whiteboard on the ship where he writes the words: WHO AM I? and works to parse this question out as the film continues. “A pressganged coward” oddly never shows up on his list of evidenced traits. So our next assumption might be that the amnesia is the real driver of this story: Ryland Grace was always a brave and heroic person by nature, perhaps. He only needed a break from the memory of who he was to find this part of himself, buried under the auspices of selfhood. And it’s an interesting idea, but again, no. Though his memories aren’t intact, Ryland Grace is still a twitchy, nervous guy. A lot of things frighten him, including taking on the roles that were supposed to be filled by his fellow shipmates.  During one of the flashback sequences (before he’s forced to be a part of the ship’s crew), Grace tells the Hail Mary’s commander, Yáo Li-Jie, that he could never do what they’re doing. He knows he doesn’t have that bravery in him. Yáo’s reply is that none of the people on this mission truly do—what they have (and Grace doesn’t) is someone to be brave for. And it’s important that later on in the film, Grace does commit one true act of bravery, and that it is for the sake of another. But, and here’s the kicker… the Earth has already been saved by that point. That’s right—Grace and Rocky figure out how to heal their respective suns from the affects of the astrophage (by finding another lifeform that eats it) and execute a very scary plan that nearly kills them both—but they achieve their ends while working together. Despite his fears, Grace handles the mission with an impressive amount of collected calm because, like most folks, he can accomplish more than he thinks when there’s really no other choice available. Once the situation is thrust upon him, he manages to be exactly the person that the mission needed. To put it more clearly: Saving the world didn’t require Ryland Grace’s bravery at all. So how did he do it? What did he actually need to meet this Sisyphean task head on and come out the other side? He needed to take off his spacesuit helmet. Someone out there might try to insist that this choice was an act of bravery, but it’s emphatically not. Grace knows this because he’s a scientist—you don’t just experiment on yourself for giggles. It’s a terrible idea and reckless to boot. But he does it anyway, and that moment informs every single moment that follows. You know what that moment was? An act of trust. Trust. Not to the point of stupidity, but with the end goal of connection, curiosity, and honesty. The very same attribute of every scientist working on Project Hail Mary, across nations, with full knowledge that their respective governments will refuse such cooperation in the future. All of them sharing data and knowledge and secrets and believing that everyone in the room shares the same desires and outcomes. The same attribute that Stratt shows in forcing Grace to participate in the mission. The ability to trust, even in the face of unimaginable danger—that is one of our greatest collective traits as a species. Trust, in that precise moment of taking off his helmet, is what makes Ryland Grace a hero of this particular story. It forges and deepens his bond with an alien who could not be more different from him, molecularly speaking. It creates a relationship that Ryland Grace is eventually willing to die for, the kind of bond that Yáo warned would make him brave. Grace’s act of bravery is not saving the Earth because, as mentioned, he’s already done that. His act of bravery—going after Rocky once they’ve parted ways, on learning that their astrophage solution is about to devour his friend’s ship—instead saves Rocky’s people and planet, but that wasn’t the central goal of the act. Grace had to save Rocky. Is that really bravery, then? Or just love? And if it’s the latter, as Yáo is ultimately suggesting, then why are we out here touting bravery at all? What if, instead of bravely pushing ourselves toward death, we loved each other into collective survival? What if we valiantly trusted in one another when every talking head and angry pundit told us it was a disgusting weakness? What could we create if heroism stopped being about sacrifice and became about solving problems together instead? In a world of stoic, self-destructive solutions, I think I’ve had enough. I’d rather take off my helmet and make a lifelong friend.[end-mark] The post <i>Project Hail Mary</i> Knows What Makes Humans Special — And It’s Not Heroism appeared first on Reactor.

News The Super Mario Galaxy Movie Fox McCloud Joins the Super Mario Galaxy Movie Because There Are No Rules Do a barrel roll! By Molly Templeton | Published on March 26, 2026 Credit: Nintendo Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: Nintendo Once upon a time (last year), Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto said that there’s an “unwritten rule” that Nintendo characters stay in their own universes. (Except Pikmin. Pikmin can go anywhere.) That time is past. Fox McCloud is here to break all the rules. The foxy (listen, he’s a fox) pilot who made his first appearance in the SNES game Star Fox got his own poster this morning—well, he shares it with a Mario-universe monkey. I have so many questions about this outfit, but now is not the time. Some of us first encountered Fox McCloud in Star Fox 64, but he’s been in quite a few other games. Many Nintendo enthusiasts know him from Super Smash Bros.; Fox appeared in the first version and has been in every game since. Naturally, this led to speculation that a Super Smash Bros. movie is next up for Nintendo. But nobody knows. Given that the curly-tailed monkey has appeared in various Yoshi games, personally I’m rooting for a chaotically charming Yoshi’s Island game. I’m probably not going to get what I want. Nintendo has yet to spill the beans on who is voicing Fox McCloud, but whoever it is, he joins a cast that includes Chris Pratt (Mario), Anya Taylor-Joy (Princess Peach), Charlie Day (Luigi), Jack Black (Bowser), Keegan-Michael Key (Toad), Kevin Michael Richardson (Kamek), Bennie Safdie (Bowser Jr.), Brie Larson (Rosalina), and Donald Glover (Yoshiiiiiii!). Somewhat bafflingly, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is in theaters next week, on April 1—and that is not an April Fool’s joke. [end-mark] The post Fox McCloud Joins the <i>Super Mario Galaxy Movie</i> Because There Are No Rules appeared first on Reactor.

Column Anime Spotlight 30 Years of Soul-Searching at Ghost in the Shell: The Exhibition An interactive exhibition that proves the questions posed by the franchise remain relevant (and unanswerable) By Leah Thomas | Published on March 26, 2026 Credit: Bandai Visual / Production I.G. Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: Bandai Visual / Production I.G. I approach the machine, apprehensive but eager. It is a blue, spider-legged combat vehicle, devoid of human features. It does not move when I draw near; it is stationary, but LED lights illuminate a voicebox below its insectoid metal head. “Tachikoma,” I say, in my clumsy Japanese, “do you love cats?” The death machine pauses to consider my question, and an assistant shuts off the microphone to avoid interference from other visitors. Tachikoma, its voice chipper and childlike, replies with gusto. “Yes, cats are so cute, aren’t they? I love cats, too! But… I am only an AI, so I cannot pet them. But I would love to interact with them in some small way! They are so fun to watch!” It is a good, sweet answer. This is a living character, a charming recreation of a beloved robot that, in the context of its universe, is armed with cloaking technology and a submachine gun. Canonically, it retains the memories of all its kind, but curiosity allows each unit to develop some approximation of a personality. Tachikoma, despite being a weapon, can be lovable. Photo: Leah Thomas Of course, this model is unarmed. It is a statue in an event space atop another gleaming Tokyo skyscraper, and it is likely hollow inside. The brain I am speaking to is a computer attached to a speaker. But in the moment, the illusion holds, and I feel a curious little spark of joy, shared by others in my vicinity. This robot is cute; I wish I had one. When I step away so that the woman behind me can ask Tachikoma a question about food, I feel conflicted. It occurs to me that, as someone who is staunchly opposed to what AI represents in the modern world—the demise of art, loss of jobs, and destruction of resources—I still harbor, in my heart, some affection for what science fiction has long imagined AI could be.  I was delighted when that robot pretended to be real.  I am still looking, despite all my cynicism, for the soul in the machine. What better place to go looking than the 30th Anniversary Ghost in the Shell exhibition? Immeasurable Impact Photo: Leah Thomas Ghost in the Shell likely needs no introduction, even beyond the anime sphere, but just in case: the manga/anime franchise, initially set in the fictional New Port City, Japan, in futuristic 2029 (oh my gosh), follows the cyborg Major Kusanagi in her work as a federal agent. In the 1995 feature film, the Major hunts a hacker who is breaking into the minds of human-cyborg hybrids (is that putting a hat on a hat?) similar to herself, and she ponders the degree to which she retains her own humanity. She has a mostly human mind but a cybernetic body, which creates a lot of moral complexity throughout the series. What constitutes humanity, exactly? Is a mind all that matters? If so, when artificial intelligence becomes as complex as a human mind, is it not human, too? And if a human mind is converted to data, is it still human? And hey, what if an actual ghost is in a machine? How does technology change us as a species on a fundamental level? These have been pretty standard questions in the genre since the days of Asimov or even, arguably, Frankenstein. They remain relevant, mostly because they remain unanswerable. Great dystopian fiction adopts a philosophical stance on existence in order to confront concepts such as identity, autonomy, inequality, and conscience all at once. The frequency in genre fiction with which women are literally objectified in every sense of the word has been both a boon and a bane when it comes to high-tech, low-living cyberpunk stories. Sometimes cyborg stories challenge that objectification directly, even as they indulge in the sexualization—consider films ranging from The Stepford Wives to Ex Machina and, more recently, Companion. I am sure there are many thoughts on where Ghost in the Shell falls into this conversation, but that’s not the conversation I am having today.  I would be lying if I said that I am a hardcore fan of Ghost in the Shell. I watched half a season of Stand Alone Complex years and years ago, and saw the original film in university as part of a sci-fi classic double feature (naturally, the other film was Akira). I avoided the live-action film and, despite an abiding love for works by Philip K. Dick (inherited from my father), I never quite fell in love with the franchise. However, I feel an immense respect for GitS, because it is a franchise beloved by many people I respect: my bestie Bridget, for whom it was formative; a writer at my first ever workshop who crafted fantastic cyberpunk short stories; the endless list of creatives, including the Wachowskis, Hideo Kojima, Yoko Taro, James Cameron, and countless anime in the cyberpunk genre. Without Ghost in the Shell, would we have Nier: Automata? Would we have The Matrix, or Psycho-Pass? Of course, there is no way of knowing. But the cultural impact of this 1989 manga by Masumune Shirow, a professional oil painter who grew up loving shows like The Professionals, is immeasurable. I am certain that readers will know a lot more about Ghost in the Shell than I do, and as always, I encourage anyone to share their thoughts and opinions below. However, I doubt many international fans will be able to visit this sprawling exhibition before it ends, so I want to share my experience. The Archives Photo: Leah Thomas Ghost in the Shell: The Exhibition is being held at an appropriate venue: Tokyo Node, an event space atop Toranomon Hills Station Tower skyscraper near Roppongi. The building itself is a futuristic vision brought to life, completed in 2023. Within its 49 floors, it houses luxury restaurants and financial offices, beautiful escalators illuminated in amber, and reflective hallways that make finding an elevator dizzying. It felt to my friend and me that we entered the future even before reaching the venue. I remarked, “Places like this always make me feel dirty and poor.” That felt correct. Dystopia is back on the menu, boys. To access Tokyo Node, tickets are purchased on the 8th floor, and then visitors take an ear-popping elevator ride all the way up to the 45th. From those upper windows, you can see the Mori Tower, Tokyo Skytree, and Tokyo Tower, depending on which side of the building you’re on. When we visited, the Tokyo skyline was gray and hazy, but I imagine the exhibition would be even more impactful after dark. As it was, we declined the optional 3D glasses that would enhance the digital elements of the exhibition, though wearing them might have revealed a lot more easter eggs and digital wonders throughout the museum. I joked to my friend, a fellow writer, “Let the work speak for itself!” And boy, did it. The first room featured floor-to-ceiling projection mapping and a metallic sculpture made of cables and fiberoptics. We had entered the mainframe of some great machine, and all along the walls were futuristic terminals that guests could manipulate with a joystick. These terminals accessed digital maps of information on the entire franchise. Video clips, concept art, trailers, character bios. Sure, anyone could find a lot of these things on a phone, but doing it on a curving, tall monitor with a joystick really immersed us in a cultivated technological world. It felt undeniably cool, pretending to be Mission Control, even though operating the terminals was a little clunky compared to, say, doing a few Google searches. Isn’t it amusing how much functionality destroys the style element of daily tech? Sure, wearing sunglasses and leather while staring at floating green code looks badass, but it’s also just a pain in the butt. Even so, I understand why hardcore PC gamers create caverns of neon lights in their home offices. The romance of fictional technology is often impractical, but I don’t blame anyone for missing that sense of arcade escapism. The real highlight of the exhibition, without question, was the archive harbored in the main event space. More than 600 artifacts from the franchise, including concept art, storyboards, animation cels, and sketches were displayed beneath plexiglass tables. Through the glass, it was possible to see eraser marks and smudges, brush strokes and mistakes on fragile, yellowing paper.  Photo: Leah Thomas The archives proceeded in chronological order, so that visitors entering the hall would first step through the 1995 film, then the sequel, then the anime seasons, and so on. Notably missing? The live-action Scarlett Johansson movie. No one seemed bothered by that. Made in 1995, the original Ghost in the Shell was animated using DGA, “digitally generated animation.” Essentially, it involved enhancing traditional handmade cel animation with computer effects. What does this mean from an artifact standpoint? Well, in general, everything seen onscreen in the film still exists in a tangible sense. Scenes were hand-illustrated before being processed digitally. Looking at 2-D animation artifacts is always a thrill. You can see the work artists put into every single frame, hand-drawn and perfected, then hand-painted on the backs of plastic sheets. Here is Kusanagi disassembled, drawn in pencil, and then colorized with paint, with notes in the margins explaining decisions or subsequent frames. Here are cranes atop upside-down skyscrapers, first in tiny sketches that feel like architectural drawings, beside intricate landscape paintings on plastic, black skyscrapers superimposed against red skies. Among my favorites in the collection were a line of background paintings of city streets and markets, accompanied by a compilation of ads that artists had to incorporate into the signage. These included fictional restaurants in Chinese characters and imagined cyborg hostess bars, as well as real product placements from brands like Bose and Toshiba.  “I love this,” my friend said. We chuckled at another gem: a sketch gone wrong, which featured a poorly-drawn Kusanagi scribbled out in thick pencil. Beneath the drawing, a Japanese apology was scrawled. This peek into someone’s revision process was oddly thrilling. It helped us appreciate the parallels in the storytelling process, regardless of medium. Someone done goofed in the office one day, and it was filed away for thirty years, only to make us chuckle in 2026. Oh, the humanity! Photo: Leah Thomas We spoke of our admiration for traditional animation, and waxed a little forlorn, too, because there isn’t quite enough of it these days. (If you haven’t had a chance to revel in the beauty of the new Gorillaz music video, a collaborative love letter to 2-D animation, I urge you to do so.) Gradually, we moved on to artifacts from the second film, Innocence.  And the bottom fell out, just a little. For this film, while characters and foregrounds remained hand-drawn, much of the background art was replaced by digital work. The loss of those matte moments was palpable, looking at the displayed art. We no longer saw the evidence of error; there were no notes or mistakes or paint gone over the edges. Certainly, mistakes doubtless still happened, but we could not appreciate them. Somehow, they felt erased because they did not exist in a physical sense. It was hard not to feel a building sense of loss as we continued through the archives chronologically. With every subsequent adaptation following the anime series (Stand Alone Complex), less and less material existed to peruse, because more and more of it was done with computers. There were printouts of the digital work, of course, and I’m not saying that’s not art in its own right. On screen, digital art is also beautiful, and gods know many of my favorite series these days are made entirely in the digital realm. But it makes me sad to realize that those series could never have an exhibit like this one.  The irony of the art becoming less interesting in person as it became digitized was not lost on us. This culminated in the collection of work from the most recent adaptations in the franchise, a widely-hated Netflix collab made with CGI, which aired from 2020 to 2022. That section of the exhibition was mostly ignored. Preferable to standing in a cubicle lined with project screens staring at ugly animation was the Artifact DIG, an interactive portion of the exhibition. For 2000 yen (about 13 USD), visitors could dig through rows of manila envelopes containing animation cels and sketch reproductions. This was a wonderful way for fans to explore the series in a tactile way, by participating in a treasure hunt—at the end of which, they got to take home a piece of animation history.  Despite the awful Netflix adaptations, real excitement for the franchise remains. A new anime from Science Saru is set to air this summer, and that studio simply does not miss. Accompanying all the artifacts in the exhibition were artworks inspired by Ghost in the Shell. These included: footage of a legless robot performing kagura, a traditional Japanese ceremonial dance; futuristic garments embedded with hidden LEDs that animated the cloth like a screen; a photoshoot and sculpture from an amputee model; hand-painted ball-jointed dolls; artist renditions of tachikoma made from ceramics and other folk arts; paintings of the Major done on traditional golden screens. All of these were a reminder that art begets art. Of course, there was also a life-sized sculpture from the sexy robot legend himself, artist Hajime Sorayama. Sorayama is famous for his pin-ups of robotic women (including one featured on an Aerosmith album cover), and his obsession with light and reflection. This sculpture was posed as the Major is on the original theatrical poster, chin toward the sky, cables fanning behind her.  Photo: Leah Thomas All of these objects had souls. I grew up with a father whose favorite film was Blade Runner. I know the impact of a replicant in the rain and the dread instilled by an artificial animal. Now more than ever, artificial intelligence is altering our world. It is not uncommon for science fiction authors to get things wrong when making predictions (or assumptions) about the future.  Even so, I remain just… disappointed by where technology has led us. In Ghost in the Shell, artificial intelligence is a concept that, while often dangerous, is fundamentally humane, because it confronts the question of what humanity really is. In fiction, AI has long been imagined as a dazzling new frontier, a moral quandary, a measure of the human capacity for empathy. But the reality of our current AI is that it is a commercial tool that exploits people. I am sad about it. I am angry. If we were ever going to face an android apocalypse, I would rather it be one in which AI develops its own soul rather than coopting art and transforming ideas into generic sludge. I would rather a world of robot crime than brain rot, even if I’m consciously romanticizing it. For me, the ghost in the machine haunts me not because it has arrived, but because, despite all our foreboding stories of robot takeovers and humanity being supplanted, the reality is much duller. Jobs will be lost. Thought will be stilted. And art, made by hands and minds and imagination, becomes replaced by calculations and algorithms. This exhibition, like its source materials, embodies the unease and hope that technology places on all of us in the modern world. We are never any closer to defining what “human” means, but we seem pretty great at identifying when a soul is absent. And the fact that we keep looking for one is the most human thing of all. It’s stupid, but I am happy Tachikoma is a cat person…[end-mark] The post 30 Years of Soul-Searching at Ghost in the Shell: The Exhibition appeared first on Reactor.

Books reading recommendations Five Stories About Surviving and Adapting on Mars Strategies range from paraterraforming to radical cybernetic transformation… By James Davis Nicoll | Published on March 26, 2026 Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Slava G. Turyshev’s toe-tapping abstract for Terraforming Mars: Mass, Forcing, and Industrial Throughput Constraints lyrically concludes: We conclude that regional habitability gains via paraterraforming are plausible on near-term industrial scales, whereas global transformation of Mars requires multi-century planetary industry and becomes credible only under conditions of (a) massive exogenous volatile supply or much larger discovered inventories, and (b) sustained high-authority climate control and retention against sinks and loss. More succinctly, terraforming Mars would be hard and requires resources that may not exist. Disappointing, but not really a surprise. However, Turyshev offers this hopeful observation: paraterraforming, contained biospheres, and local pressurization/thermal control can be deployed incrementally and deliver meaningful surface utility without requiring exaton-class gases. There is one upside to Turyshev’s conclusion. Suppose for the moment that Mars could be easily terraformed. What are the odds we’d get it right the first time we tried? …And if would-be terraformers screwed up badly enough, the damage might not be repairable1. Paraterraforming offers the opportunity to run many experiments in parallel. Not only would this greatly speed up the process of figuring out what approaches work best, worst case scenarios—irreparable damage—would only affect one set of tunnels. Of course, SF got there first. Consider these five stories. The Martian Way by Isaac Asimov (1952) At present, the colonies on the Moon, Venus, and Mars are cash-sinks, in no little part because all of them are bleak, resource-poor worlds. In particular, all are water-poor, a situation exploited by Terran popularist Hilder. Terrestrial water provides the reaction-mass for interplanetary flight. Rather than waste precious water supplying colonies that do not pay for themselves, why not focus on Terran needs? Mars’ inhospitable conditions prove an asset in the colonists’ bid to survive Hilder’s anti-colony campaign. What does it matter to a Martian colonist if the constrained circumstances they live in are a tunnel habitat on Mars or a spaceship? The resources Mars needs are in the outer Solar System. All the Martians need do is recover them. The story acknowledges that Mars does in fact have water, just not enough. Asimov prudently avoids providing concrete numbers, as he needs to motivate his characters to undertake their bold journey. In fact, even a lowball estimate for Mars water resources—Clarke’s speculation in 1951’s The Exploration of Space that Martian ice caps might be only few inches thick, for example—would amount to enough to supply Asimov’s 50,000 Martian colonists with much more water than they’d need. Born Under Mars by John Brunner (1967) Martians can take pride in their successful settlement of a nearly airless, hostile world. Too bad the development of faster-than-light travel and the discovery of many habitable worlds outside the Solar System rendered the achievement moot and Mars itself a backwater. Mars-born Ray Mallin is a mundane star-drive engineer, not a spy. No cloak and dagger shenanigans for Ray! No reasonable person would want to kidnap and torture Ray for top-secret information. So why did masked agents kidnap Ray, and why are they torturing him for information? Unlike many coincidence-driven plots, this one is founded in straightforward demographics. Mars is a low-population world. Therefore, the odds that any given Martian knows another Martian—a Martian who is up to their eyeballs in covert ops, say—are pretty good. Man Plus by Frederik Pohl (1976) Mars ain’t the kind of place to raise your kids. In fact, it’s unsuitable for humans of all ages, what with the near-vacuum and the radiation. Billions of years of evolution shaped humans for a very specific set of conditions, none of which can be found on Mars. Solution: change humans so that they can survive on Mars. Or at least, change one human as a proof of concept. The Man Plus program transformed Commander Hartnett from a Mark One human into a cyborg almost perfectly adapted for Mars. Too bad about the minor design flaw that killed Hartnett before he could leave Earth. Still, Man Plus learned a lot from Hartnett—insights they will now apply to Roger Torraway. Maybe Roger will be luckier than Hartnett. The results can only be educational. Pohl had a knack for writing novels that reflected the zeitgeist of the era in which they were written. Young people curious about SF steeped in Disco Era entropic malaise could do worse than to sample this Hugo finalist. China Mountain Zhang by Maureen F. McHugh (1992) Financial exuberance destroyed the West’s economies. Fortuitously, China managed to weather the Great Cleansing Wind. Now China provides the other nations of Earth with the benevolent guidance they so obviously needed. Amongst the many threads of the braided plot is an exploration of the Martian communities. These are more outposts than thriving colonies; whether state determination will overcome the many obvious drawbacks to life on Mars is unclear. For the moment, humanity has its foothold on Mars. The titular protagonist offers this rather doleful observation: But I am only free in small places. Government is big, we are small. We are only free when we slip through the cracks. Despite which, this isn’t some sort of Yellow Peril potboiler. Life in this world order may not be significantly better for the masses than under that world order’s predecessors, but it doesn’t seem to be significantly worse, either. Where the Golden Apples Grow by Kage Baker (2006) Bill Townsend is a Hauler’s son. Bill whiles away the long lonely hours in his father’s polar ice hauler with schoolwork and the handful of books Billy can afford (Haulers don’t make much at all). Blatchford “Ford” Thurkettle2 hails from the Martian Agricultural Collective (MAC), which, unlike the Areco company employing Bill’s dad, asks for just as much work and offers twice the austerity. The two teens have one thing in common: both are miserable. An argument drives Ford from MAC. An altercation might have landed him in jail, save for the lucky chance that Bill’s father offered Ford haven in his hauler. Although “lucky” might not be quite the right word, once the hauler gets stuck far, far away from any possible rescue. This novella and Baker’s other Martian stories were collected in 2024’s Maelstrom and Other Martian Tales. I’d recommend tracking it down, despite the collector’s edition price… except both hardcover and ebook seem to be out of print. Mars having long fascinated SF authors—and its environmental intractability being plain to see—science fiction abounds with stories set on hostile Red Planets. The above is a very, very small sample. No doubt I missed your faves. Comments are below.[end-mark] Clarke’s Sands of Mars deserves a mention here, even though the book’s planetary-scale terraforming seems to be going well. Despite Earth’s reluctance to OK the project, the Mars colonists arrange to increase the insolation on Mars by transforming one of the Martian moons into a mini-sun. It’s possible that Earth’s objection wasn’t to terraforming per se, but rather deploying the means by which solid bodies can be turned into mini-suns. The Moon, for example. Or Earth. ︎More exactly, “Ford” is the name Ford chose for himself. His friends, such as they are, call him Blatt… if Ford is lucky. Otherwise, his pals connected the dots between Blatt and Blattidae to arrive at the nickname “Cockroach.” You know what’s a super-great idea? Incessantly needling someone with whom you share a fragile, easily-sabotaged life support system… ︎The post Five Stories About Surviving and Adapting on Mars appeared first on Reactor.

News Forgotten Island Don’t Forget to Watch This Forgotten Island Trailer The DreamWorks Animation feature comes from the creators of Puss in Boots: The Last Wish By Vanessa Armstrong | Published on March 25, 2026 Screenshot: DreamWorks Animation Comment 0 Share New Share Screenshot: DreamWorks Animation The creative team behind Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, directors Joel Crawford and Januel Mercado and producer Mark Swift, have a new DreamWorks Animation feature coming out called Forgotten Island, and if today’s trailer is any indication, it looks like a vibrant BFF tale with a soundtrack that especially appeals to elder Millennial parents who take their kids to the theaters. Here’s the official synopsis for Forgotten Island: While celebrating their last night together, Jo (H.E.R.) and Raissa (Liza Soberano) stumble upon a mysterious portal that transports them to the fantastical island of Nakali, packed with magical and mythological creatures they grew up hearing stories about from their Filipino families.Some of these figures will become friends, some foes. Joined by well-meaning-but-hapless weredog Raww (Dave Franco) and a small-but-mighty pack of pals, Jo and Raissa must face The Dreaded Manananggal (Lea Salonga), the most feared creature on the island. When they discover that the memories of their entire friendship are the price for returning home, Jo and Raissa will race to find a way to leave the island before they forget each other forever. The colors and animation style in the trailer looks awesome, and the voice cast is also impressive. In addition to the names above, you’ll hear Jenny Slate (Marcel the Shell with Shoes On), Manny Jacinto (The Good Place), Dolly de Leon (Triangle of Sadness), Jo Koy (Haunted Mansion) and Ronny Chieng (M3GAN). Forgotten Island will premiere in theaters on September 25, 2026. Check out the trailer below. [end-mark] The post Don’t Forget to Watch This <i>Forgotten Island</i> Trailer appeared first on Reactor.