Europa Sci-Fi

August 13, 2009 2:28 PM

Looking for fiction and non-fiction about Jupiter's moon Europa.

I recently read an article in Discover magazine about possible explorations for life on Europa, Jupiter's moon. I'm looking for recommendations on good sci-fi that takes place on or deals with Europa in some way, possible life, humans exploring, etc. Any medium, novels, short stories, movies, whatever. Non-fiction recommendations would be nice as well.

posted by moonroof to media & arts (13 comments total)

Take a look at Isaac Asimov's body of work. He did a bunch of stories which included Europa as a setting (IIRC).
posted by torquemaniac at 2:33 PM on August 13

Arthur C Clarke's "2001" and "2010" would be the canonical examples I think. Not sure how good "2061" or "3001" were.
posted by GuyZero at 2:38 PM on August 13 [1 favorite]

Here's a short film concerned in part with life found on Europa: The Light of Eons.
posted by xo at 2:44 PM on August 13

Edwin Morgan has a poem, 'Europa', one of a series on 'The Moons of Jupiter', in which he imagines miners drilling for core samples:

.. We'd never grade
in years, far less in weeks, the infinite
play and glitter of watery Europa,
waters of crust ice, waters of deep ice,
waters of slush, of warm subcrustal springs,
waters of vapour, waters of water.
One day, and only one, we drilled right down
to something solid and so solid-hard
the drill-head screamed into the microphone
and broke, the film showed streaks of metal shards
whizzing across a band of basalt or
glimmery antediluvian turtle-shell
or cast-off titan miner's helmet or --
it must have been the metal scream that roused
our thought and fear and half desire we might
have had a living scream returned.
posted by verstegan at 3:07 PM on August 13

Arthur C Clarke's "2001" and "2010" would be the canonical examples I think. Not sure how good "2061" or "3001" were.

"2010" deals with Europa, but "2001" does not. I read "2061" when I was younger and enjoyed it. A large part of the story is set on Europa.
posted by PercussivePaul at 3:08 PM on August 13

Slightly off the mark but in Gregory Benford's novel Across The Sea of Suns humans explore a moon they call "Pocks" in the Ross 128 system using the same equipment that had been developed for Europa and other moons of the Sol system. Note that Across The Sea of Suns is the 2nd book in a series that begins with In the Ocean of Night.

In the course of searching for that I found that Googling for "Europan Submarine" brings up some interesting non-fiction hits. There also may be more articles at Discover Magazine than the one you read. And here's a Space.com article from 1999: Life Found Near Sub-Antarctic Lake, Fueling ET Hopes.
posted by XMLicious at 3:26 PM on August 13

Ben Bova's Jupiter.
posted by infinitywaltz at 3:32 PM on August 13

Warren Ellis' Ocean would be a good fit, if it wasn't OOP.
posted by permafrost at 3:54 PM on August 13

that 'across the sea of suns' link from xm appears to be scanned upside down . . . interesting
posted by Think_Long at 5:21 PM on August 13

It's kind of an oblique reference but, despite the bulk of the action taking place on Mars, some of the main characters in Ilium by Dan Simmons are a type of cyborg ("moravecs") from Europa and Io.

I presume the same holds true for the sequel, Olympos, but I haven't read it yet.
posted by JaredSeth at 7:53 PM on August 13

Someone already said it, but the book "2001" takes place amongst the moons of Saturn, specifically Jaepetus.
posted by KokuRyu at 8:28 PM on August 13

Farmer in the Sky takes place on Ganymede.

I think there are some other heinleins that take place on other moons of Jupiter. For some reason I think that the skiing on Titan is supposed to be great.

Blue Mars starts getting peripherally about further colonization of the solar system too.
posted by mearls at 6:49 AM on August 14

Looks like a good list. Thanks all!
posted by moonroof at 2:51 PM on August 15