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One of Newman's top five books about asteroids and their uses, as shared at Tor.com:
The Sparrow by Mary Doria RussellRead about the other entries on the list.
The Sparrow is a beautiful and heart rending novel which tells a first contact tale in flashbacks as we follow the slow, painful recovery of a Jesuit priest who is the only person to return from a mission to a planet called Rakhat. After detecting a form of music coming from the planet via the SETI project, a crew is formed to go and make contact. Their craft is made from an asteroid mostly hollowed out already by a mining company extracting minerals. I love the idea of using what is considered waste material, sticking an engine on it and hurtling across space inside it.
Also see: The 10 coolest fictional asteroids of all time.
--Marshal Zeringue