The Science of Avatar
Hardcover | Paperback | Kindle Edition
By Stephen Baxter
Orbit Books
Released May 29, 2012

Prolific science fiction author Stephen Baxter invites us to explore with him both real life science and space fiction in The Science of Avatar. There are lots of details sprawling in every direction, from speculation to established facts, in an almost scene-by-scene recount of the entire movie. He posits what our real world might be like in the year 2154, the year Avatar takes place.

We begin with Jake Sully leaving an ecologically devastated Earth, which we get the barest glimpse of in the film. Baxter explains to us what might have happened in an all too real account of ecocide, wherein Earth’s resources are depleted and space exploration offers the only hope of finding the resources we need to stay alive here. In the movie, this is the reason for the journey to Pandora.