The Borderlands of Science by Charles Sheffield is another book that is not science fiction, but is written by a science fiction author who actively promotes interest in scientifically accurate science fiction, so again I have no hesitation in recommending it. The purpose of the book is to look at the edges of our current scientific knowledge, with a view towards illustrating the many areas of science in which there are open questions just waiting for new scientists to answer and waiting for new science fiction writers to exploit for story ideas. In the process of getting to the edges of current knowledge, Sheffield provides a lot of basic information about astronomy, chemistry, physics and biology, all in a very clear style; the second edition of the book also includes several short essays on science originally published as newspaper columns.
