"People like the idea of a hopeful future," Krauss says, later admitting that "the utopian view is harder for me to believe." Generally, the genre grabs his attention when it's smartly done but lost him at Starship Troopers: "The pooping insects, that sort of did it for me."
Otherwise, he says that science, like art, considers our place in the cosmic scheme. "The reason that we're scientists is not because we want to build a better toaster," he contends, "but because we're interested in what's possible in the universe."
Judging from anticipated movie releases, this is what's possible in the universe. Earth might be invaded by alien body snatchers (Invasion). It might face planetary death from a dying sun (Sunshine). It might be torn by global terrorism (Day Zero, upcoming). It might, in the field of engineering, produce super-powered exoskeletal armor (Iron Man, 2008), or it might form intergalactic relations with pointy-eared ET's (Star Trek, 2008). Alternately, a race of tiny aliens might tour the cosmos inside Eddie Murphy, who might then fall in love with an Earth babe (Starship Dave, 2008).
All of this looking forward strikes Houston's John Moore, an "unrepentant geek" and sci-fi/fantasy author (A Fate Worse than Dragons), as old news. "Science fiction is the present. We live in a science-fiction society, and I don't just mean the gadgetization of society." Instead, he means that "projecting into the future, once the province of the science-fiction writer, has become our dominant way of thought."
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