Re: Cookbooks (but not about cooking!)

On Fri, 5 Nov 2004 00:04:30 -0800, Arthaey Angosii <arthaey@...>
wrote:

>If "Describing Morphosyntax" is the conlang cookbook, and "Guns,
>Germs, & Steel" is the conculture cookbook, what other cookbooks are
>out there? How about a xenobiology (the next topic I'll be
>researching)?
it occurs to me that no one has responded to this request at any point, so
i'll make an attempt.

for xenobiology, there is _Life Beyond Earth_, by Timothy Ferris, or the
book of similar title (appended: "The Intelligent Earthling's Guide to Life
in the Universe") by Gerald Feinberg and Robert Shapiro is also excellent.
the latter has some very interesting discussions of possible
alternate "biochemistries", including hydrogen-based life in cryogenic
environments.

there are a number of books which discuss astrophysics and planetary
physics, but i don't know which are the best to work with, so i will leave
that response to others. after that, i can't think of anything else that
one might need: language, culture, biology (and ecology), and environment
would seem to me the only areas that offer any really intersting areas of
construction. perhaps technologies, which would obviously be the realm of
_Connections_ and other books by James Burke.

oh, and i will now go back to lurking. thank you all for your great
knowledge and useful discussions.

c. vermeers

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