"Scatter, Adapt, and Remember"

Scatter, Adapt, and Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction (Annalee Newitz)

I was really looking forward to reading this, and it starts out pretty well - the first half explores the history of Earth, and later the human race, with an eye towards various disasters over the years, and how species succeeded or failed to adapt and survive. I found this quite interesting, and I guess a little bit reassuring, in that the cataclysm that destroys 90% of life on Earth has already happened and paved the way for us. It'd be easy to recommend this book based just on the first half, but unfortunately once Newitz catches up to the modern day, the second half of the book starts and it's a complete mess.
First we hear about Newitz' favorite science fiction author for no reason I could see (unless Newitz really think that tentacle aliens from another dimension are going to come to Earth, I really don't see the point of including this part); then Newitz travels around from place to place, meeting with people who are working on future technology like a living city you can grow. This is frustrating because Newitz just scratches the surface on these ideas, never digging deep into what, for example, a living city would look like, instead telling us how the scientists who are working on these concepts dress or what they drink in the break room. I would also advise taking this entire section with a grain of salt - it all looked plausible enough to me when Newitz was recounting subjects I don't know much about, but when she got to the space elevator, which I have a little knowledge of, she comes off as wildly over-optimistic about the chances of it ever being built (there's a reason that the material at the core of the space elevator is often referred to as "Unobtainium"). Even if you can overlook this issue, none of these ideas are tied together; some of them are mutually exclusive, and they aren't shaped into a coherent whole, instead reading more like a list of all the places Newitz was able to get an interview.
So all in all, you've got half a stinker and half a good (not great) book; I'd recommend getting it out of your local library, reading the first half, and then returning it.

Grade: C-