How a planet became a character in my new novel

My new novel The Terraformers explores what you might include – and leave out – if you were building an Earth-like planet. I spoke to some scientists to see what might work, says Annalee Newitz

By Annalee Newitz

IF YOU could build an Earth-like planet, what would you leave out of the design specs? That is the question I asked a handful of mildly amused scientists as I began to write my latest novel, The Terraformers.

It is the story of a group of construction experts who are working for a shady interplanetary real estate development company. Their mandate is to create a branded Pleistocene experience like that on palaeolithic Earth 15,000 years ago, for people in Homo sapiens bodies who crave that authentic Earth je ne sais quoi.

The thing is, if you are …