A City on Mars announced as winner of 2024 Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize

A book examining the complexities, challenges and opportunities of humanity’s quest to settle in space has won the 2024 Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize.

A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through? by American husband and wife team Kelly and Zach Weinersmith, was announced as the winner of the prestigious prize at an award ceremony and dinner at the Royal Society in London this evening. 

An accumulation of thorough research, from “conferences, endless interviews and 27 shelves of books and papers on space settlement and related subjects,” the book, published by Particular Books, takes readers on a journey to clear up misconceptions about the feasibility of space settlement. From space law and lawyers to space farms and the creation of space nations, the Weinersmiths tackle every conceivable question about space with a comedic twist, crucially warning readers that “going to the stars will not make us wise […] we have to become wise if we want to go to the stars.”

The Weinersmiths also co-wrote The New York Times bestselling book, Soonish. Dr Kelly Weinersmith is a part-time lecturer in the BioSciences Department at Rice University. Zach Weinersmith makes the acclaimed webcomic Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal. They are the second married couple to have won the prize in its history, following Alan Walker and Pat Shipman in 1997 for their book, The Wisdom of the Bones.

The five-member panel of judges praised the accessibility of the writing style and the engaging nature of the book’s illustrations, deeming it a timely work which deftly combines robust scientific research and pertinent and complex ethical questions. 

Professor John Hutchinson FRS, chair of the 2024 judging panel, and Professor of Evolutionary Biomechanics at the Royal Veterinary College, said:

“A City on Mars blew me away with its incredibly ambitious cross-disciplinary perspective. It covers questions as broad as: What do we know and not know about human physiology and reproduction in space? How well might our mental health hold up? Are the Moon, a space station, or an asteroid good alternatives to a Mars settlement? And finally, what, if anything, is there regarding international law on space settlement, and how much wiggle room is there? The Weinersmiths manage to answer these questions and point ways forward for overcoming the hurdles involved in finding some way to settle space, someday. They walk a tightrope of maintaining not only scientific rigour and fairness, but also a lot of humour, leveraged by amusing and informative sketches. We finish the book understanding that, while humanity having a city on Mars might yet be centuries away, many good reasons remain to pursue the lofty goal of settling space. Many of those reasons begin with doing more science and developing more technology here on Earth—and in the meantime, trying our best to preserve our precious planet.”

The judges found the book to be a compelling, informative, and humorous read, in which they could distinctly hear both of the authors’ individual voices as they bring the reader along on their fact finding journey. The panel was impressed by how the narrative integrates concepts spanning policy, law, science and technology to explore the wide-ranging implications of a future space society. The judges also acknowledged the authors’ measured navigation between the headline-grabbing promises of corporations and billionaires on the imminence of space settlement, and the stark reality that “leaving a 2°C warmer Earth for Mars would be like leaving a messy room so you can live in a toxic waste dump”. They noted the Weinersmiths’ ability to translate complex scientific questions into the context of our lives here on earth, encouraging readers to foster a new appreciation for the world we live in. 

Alongside Professor John Hutchinson FRS, the 2024 judging panel comprised Booker Prize-winning author and screenwriter Eleanor Catton; New Scientist Comment and Culture Editor Alison Flood;  teacher, broadcaster and writer Bobby Seagull; and lecturer in Functional Materials at Imperial College London, and Royal Society University Research Fellow, Dr Jess Wade.

The Weinersmiths will be presented with a cheque for £25,000, with the other five shortlisted authors due to receive £2,500.

Rhys Blakely from The Times has praised A City on Mars, labelling it an “engaging, wildly informative, insightful and frequently funny book” which “boldly goes where few books have gone before”. W. M. Akers from The New York Times has similarly praised the Weinersmiths’ work, arguing that while being “hilarious… the breezy prose is devoted to fascinating, practical questions of colonization.”

Since its inception in 1988, The Royal Society Science Book Prize has championed non-fiction books that celebrate the collective joy of science writing. Last year's winner, An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us by Ed Yong, examines unique sensory abilities across the animal kingdom, from threads of scent, waves of electromagnetism and pulses of pressure; A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth: 4.6 billion years in 12 chapters by Henry Gee, winner in 2022, zips through the last 4.6 billion years with infectious enthusiasm and intellectual rigour, drawing on the latest scientific understanding; and winner in 2021, Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds and Shape Our Futures by Merlin Sheldrake, showcases the remarkable world of fungi.