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The Teeming Universe: An Extraterrestrial Field Guide: An Exploration & Journey to Worlds Beyond the Solar System
Humanity has for hundreds of centuries looked to the skies and wondered 'who else is out there?' This alien field guide is here to answer! In this book, you will have the incredible opportunity to explore almost a dozen alien worlds, light years from Earth. Learn about the secrets of biology both on Earth, as well as on a myriad of other worlds. Delve into real-world biology and astronomy as you read on scientifically-inspired and equally artistic worlds. In this book you will be able to find a newfound appreciation for both science and artistic interpretation as you explore over 10 intricately designed, science-inspired worlds.
- GenresScienceSpaceNonfiction
323 pages, Paperback
Published September 5, 2021
7 people are currently reading
205 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
January 11, 2022
I think i'm one of the first people to review this book, so here goes.
I love speculative biology, and this book delivered. My number one soft spot in sci-fi and fantasy worldbuilding is small doses of unapologetic weirdness, and there's so many great little moments in this book that make me want to squee. The surprisingly adorable dog-sized insects, the blue-whale-sized jellyfish with wings (just read the book, it'll make sense), the tidally locked planet with giant tentacled starfish aliens (literally and figuratively) the millions-of-years-old ai that are freaking DISMANTLING AN ENTIRE SOLAR SYSTEM- It's an impressively built universe that's genuinely fun to read about. The style is a bit dry and the author has a tendency to take a bit too long to share information, but overall I'd recommend it to anyone interested in sci-fi worldbuilding or weird creature designs.
I love speculative biology, and this book delivered. My number one soft spot in sci-fi and fantasy worldbuilding is small doses of unapologetic weirdness, and there's so many great little moments in this book that make me want to squee. The surprisingly adorable dog-sized insects, the blue-whale-sized jellyfish with wings (just read the book, it'll make sense), the tidally locked planet with giant tentacled starfish aliens (literally and figuratively) the millions-of-years-old ai that are freaking DISMANTLING AN ENTIRE SOLAR SYSTEM- It's an impressively built universe that's genuinely fun to read about. The style is a bit dry and the author has a tendency to take a bit too long to share information, but overall I'd recommend it to anyone interested in sci-fi worldbuilding or weird creature designs.
June 11, 2023
A lavishly illustrated tour of eleven bizarre alien worlds, The Teeming Universe is speculative evolution in the spirit of Wayne Douglass Barlowe's Expedition and Dougal Dixon's After Man. This is what SF is really about!
March 18, 2024
Exobiology / speculative biology has unofficially existed as a field ever since humans looked upward and wondered. It’s only recently (relatively at least) that we’ve learned enough about conditions on other planets to actually factor scientific reality into our fictioneering. Rather than putting constraints on the imagination, though, this has merely challenged it to do better.
“The Teeming Universe,” by Christian Cline, is proof of this. It features a short introduction on astronomy and biology, their history and cutting edge. Shortly thereafter it begins exploring the universe, the exoplanets and the exotic, sometimes dangerous life that exists there. No explanation of superluminary travel is given, but that’s not a problem, as this book deals with destinations, not the journey.
Each planet featured includes a short introduction of its place in its own galaxy, the kind of star it orbits, whether it possesses moons or protoplanetary satellites. Details about density, core, gravity and atmospheric conditions are also included. Yes, it’s all speculative, but it never veers wholly into the realm of fantasy, even when it’s fantastic.
Then it’s down to the surface, with each organism not only getting its own taxonomic handle, but a good diagramming of its morphology. Cline is more skilled with images than words, but I’m not complaining. The illustrations, while not as good as Wayne Barlow’s seminal and fantastic offerings in the field, are still beautiful.
If forced to choose my personal favorite selection from the book, I’d go with Craelon, a noxious brown orb of a planet that looks a bit like the Death Star. It turns out that this planet has been colonized by a nonhuman intelligence, which is also self-replicating and has intentions of spreading to other star systems. The conception of this race (or viral outgrowth of some race they have either replaced or abandoned) borrows elements from everything from Rendezvous with Rama to the Borg of Star Trek. They also use something like the proposed “Dyson Sphere” (called here a “Dyson Shield”) which is intended to harness the power of solar fusion from main sequence stars, at the source rather than at a distance.
Sometimes people complain that the alien creatures we imagine aren’t alien enough. My personal feeling is that such people don’t understand enough about convergent evolution, and natural selection’s eschewing hyper-complexity, but whatever. In the Craelon (and a couple other races) we get the incomprehensibly alien, the kind of implacable and geometrically perfect and unanswerable intelligence that poor Astronaut Bowman saw on his deathbed in 2001. It'd be nice if the steely creations of Craelon were to eventually merge together into a giant “Star Child” as “Also Sprach Zarathustra” played on the soundtrack, as in A Space Odyssey. More likely, though, it looks like these guys are harbingering our demise, assuming they can borrow the spice to fold space, find a tractable wormhole, master quantum entanglement, or otherwise take a shortcut to the Milky Way to enslave us pathetic meat bags. Couldn’t be much worse than whatever Musk and Bezos and the rest of the “Space Barons” have planned for us.
Really cool book, regardless. Recommended.
“The Teeming Universe,” by Christian Cline, is proof of this. It features a short introduction on astronomy and biology, their history and cutting edge. Shortly thereafter it begins exploring the universe, the exoplanets and the exotic, sometimes dangerous life that exists there. No explanation of superluminary travel is given, but that’s not a problem, as this book deals with destinations, not the journey.
Each planet featured includes a short introduction of its place in its own galaxy, the kind of star it orbits, whether it possesses moons or protoplanetary satellites. Details about density, core, gravity and atmospheric conditions are also included. Yes, it’s all speculative, but it never veers wholly into the realm of fantasy, even when it’s fantastic.
Then it’s down to the surface, with each organism not only getting its own taxonomic handle, but a good diagramming of its morphology. Cline is more skilled with images than words, but I’m not complaining. The illustrations, while not as good as Wayne Barlow’s seminal and fantastic offerings in the field, are still beautiful.
If forced to choose my personal favorite selection from the book, I’d go with Craelon, a noxious brown orb of a planet that looks a bit like the Death Star. It turns out that this planet has been colonized by a nonhuman intelligence, which is also self-replicating and has intentions of spreading to other star systems. The conception of this race (or viral outgrowth of some race they have either replaced or abandoned) borrows elements from everything from Rendezvous with Rama to the Borg of Star Trek. They also use something like the proposed “Dyson Sphere” (called here a “Dyson Shield”) which is intended to harness the power of solar fusion from main sequence stars, at the source rather than at a distance.
Sometimes people complain that the alien creatures we imagine aren’t alien enough. My personal feeling is that such people don’t understand enough about convergent evolution, and natural selection’s eschewing hyper-complexity, but whatever. In the Craelon (and a couple other races) we get the incomprehensibly alien, the kind of implacable and geometrically perfect and unanswerable intelligence that poor Astronaut Bowman saw on his deathbed in 2001. It'd be nice if the steely creations of Craelon were to eventually merge together into a giant “Star Child” as “Also Sprach Zarathustra” played on the soundtrack, as in A Space Odyssey. More likely, though, it looks like these guys are harbingering our demise, assuming they can borrow the spice to fold space, find a tractable wormhole, master quantum entanglement, or otherwise take a shortcut to the Milky Way to enslave us pathetic meat bags. Couldn’t be much worse than whatever Musk and Bezos and the rest of the “Space Barons” have planned for us.
Really cool book, regardless. Recommended.
October 4, 2023
For anyone who enjoys thinking deeply about the kinds of life that could be out there, I cannot recommend this book highly enough! The attention to detail is astounding, and I could feel my imagination soaring as I hopped from planet to moon to planet again. The artwork is phenomenal, and you can tell that this book is a labor of love. It has more than earned a place of honor among previous masterworks of speculative evolution such as Wayne Barlowe's Expedition to Darwin IV, Gerolf Steiner's Snouters, and Dougal Dixon's After Man, to name a few. I look forward to reading Christian Cline's second book, the Yaetuan Sagas, and all of his future books!
February 10, 2022
Aliens are legit, 10/10 would recommend y'all come to Earth
June 20, 2023
The art is passable, everything else is stuff you have already seen in sci fi all over the place.
And as a cherry on top, the author just came out a homophobe.
And as a cherry on top, the author just came out a homophobe.
December 23, 2024
the best book ive ever read ever. i love you christian cline which might seem gay but whatever you get what im saying
March 8, 2023
This is the most expensive book on my shelf and I have no regrets about that. A fascinating and beautifully illustrated imagining of how life may evolve around other stars.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews