The killing star
by Charles R. Pellegrino · first published 1995
50% recommend50% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Hard science fiction about an alien attack on Earth, with a grim, uncompromising take on contact with aliens; praised for vivid, physically grounded scenes like hypervelocity impacts and a fast opening.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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…painfully. We choose to do this simply because it's more convenient. Why would aliens treat humans any differently? Intentionally signaling to aliens is one of the stupidest ideas I can think of. The Killing Star by Charles Pellegrino and George Zebrowski has a good analogy (longer quote here: http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/aliencontact.ph... ), describing a thought experiment of surviving the night…
on “Existing laser tech could be used for “porch light” to attract alien astronomers” ↗Another book in this vein, although distinctly more uncompromising in its conclusion, is The Killing Star, by Charles R. Pellegrino and George Zebrowski.
on “Alone in a Crowded Milky Way” ↗The Killing Star by Charles R. Pellegrino makes a very compelling argument that if aliens do exist, we are probably royally screwed. Can we honestly say that evaluated from the outside as a species, we are not pretty…
on “Stephen Hawking: Aliens Exist, but Talking to them is too Dangerous” ↗There's a great description of hypervelocity atmospheric impact in The Killing Star by Charles R. Pellegrino and George Zebrowski.
on “The Tunguska Event” ↗You should read The Killing Star: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Killing_Star Spoiler Alert! In the late 21st century, Earth is at peace, sending fleets of Valerie spacecraft to the stars. Without warning, relativistic kill vehicle…
on “What future space combat would really look like” ↗"The Killing Star" is a good one. https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/190678
on “The US military has decommissioned another “object” over Lake Huron” ↗Cixin straight up borrowed this from The Killing Star. You should read that. It's also pretty fun but goes 0-100 in chapter 1.
on “Doubts grow about the biosignature approach to alien-hunting” ↗For an exploration of the dark forest theory at least, I recommend The Killing Star. Fair warning though, it’s extremely bleak.
on “Liu Cixin's War of the Worlds (2019)” ↗I won't argue the prose or characterization is great, but then that's extremely true of the 3BP as well. In every other sense I found the Killing Star to be a better book.
on “Liu Cixin's War of the Worlds (2019)” ↗…evolved on worlds like this will be very freaked by the discovery of stuff above the ice. Seeing planets and stars, we humans have always had some sense that there's more to the Universe than Earth. 0) The Killing Star by George Zebrowski and Charles Pellegrino
on “Chances of E.T. Living Subsurface Ocean of Enceladus Given Major Boost” ↗Charles Pellegrino/George Zebrowski covers this in _The Killing Star_ (1995). They reason as follows: 1. Any species will place its own survival before that of a different species. 2. Any species that has made it to the top on its planet of origin will be intelligent,…
on “Where are they? Why I hope the search for extraterrestrial life finds nothing.” ↗I think he's thinking along the lines of Charles Pellegrino in _The Killing Star_. When we can command the technology and the vast energies it would take to travel to other stars, wiping out planetary or solar-system wide civilizations in a single bombardment becomes relatively easy.…
on “Don’t talk to aliens, warns Stephen Hawking” ↗The words might be, but the context and approach goes back to at the very least to The Killing Star by Charles R. Pellegrino and George Zebrowski published in 1995, who wrote: We ask that you try just one more thought experiment. Imagine yourself taking a stroll through Manhattan, somewhere north of…
on “DarkForestSim: A Netlogo Simulation of the Dark Forest Hypothesis” ↗Velocity matters too. E ~ mv^2 after all. I'm reminded of Killing Star by Charles R. Pellegrino and George Zebrowski. Even without aggressive aliens, stuff falling toward the galaxy's central black hole may get ejected at relativistic velocity. Very unlikely. But we wouldn't…
on “The Tunguska Event” ↗In The Killing Star by Charles Pellegrino and George Zebrowski, one group of survivors orbits a ship around the Sun, just below the chromosphere. There's also a story about "distilling antihydrogen" near the Sun, in Vernor…
on “Electronics robust enough for Venus” ↗