The Final Frontier

You wouldn’t think a book about surviving on Mars would begin with Mark Twain, but according to author Robert Zubrin, a hundred years from now, Mars may be very much like the Wild West. “The book that I was reading when I wrote How to Live on Mars was Mark Twain’s Roughing It, about his adventures in the American West in the 1860s,” Zubrin says. During the course of that somewhat chaotic time, a new civilization was built. That’s my vision of Mars. It’s a vision of a future of wide-open possibilities — not all of which are going to work out for everyone — but a place where you’ve got a chance to make it big, a chance to be part of where people will be the makers of their world, and not just inhabitants of one that’s already made.”

Told from the perspective of an “old hat Mars veteran,” this satirical how-to book gives advice on everything from how to get a job that won’t kill you to how to choose a habitat, how to make big money, how to make a big discovery and even how to pick up Mars women (or men). “The narrative voice in the book is a bit of a scamp,” says Zubrin. “He’s willing to bend the rules, and he’s very much a person of the frontier.”

Zubrin will discuss and sign his unique vision of the future starting at 7:30 p.m. at the Boulder Book Store, 1107 Pearl Street; admission is free. For more information, call 303-447-2074 or go to boulderbookstore.booksense.com.
Thu., Jan. 15, 7:30 p.m., 2009