I read an interesting book this month, the sort of hard science fiction story I don’t get to read as much as I used to. Taming the Perilous Skies, by Phil Marshall, is set in the year 2076. The novel explores a world transformed by anti-gravity technology—until that technology catastrophically fails, plunging the globe into chaos. At the heart of the story is Jack Woods, a national security official grappling with personal loss, and Brian Medlock, the aging physicist behind the breakthrough theory known as Persistence. Their intertwined journeys navigate grief, responsibility, and the metaphysical implications of a technology that…