Posted by barb on Jul 13, 2004 in
Books by Frederik Pohl
Pohl’s 26th century is a place where death, at least for those with some money, is a temporary state. Charles Forrester wakes up in 2527, having died in a fire in the 1960s. He had been cryogenically frozen in hopes that someday he could be resuscitated. He was finally thawed, not just because the technology was there, but because his bank account had finally earned enough return to pay for his resuscitation. Forrester finds that things are much different than in the 1960s — one can file papers to legally kill someone else, provided they can pay for resuscitation of the victim, for example. Unfortunately, things are also expensive, and those without money, the Forgotten Men (and women) do not have protection against death. Oh! And Earth is at war with an alien race.
I went into this book expecting it to be fairly cheesy, since it was written in the 60s. However, I found it to be quite good, with some of Pohl’s predictions fun to read. The “joymakers” that everyone carries aren’t too far off from today’s Palm Pilots, though our Palms aren’t yet able to dispense happy drugs…
Overall a fun read.
Posted by barb on Jul 11, 2004 in
Books by Ann Benson
Benson weaves together two stories separated by nearly seven hundred years. The first is about Alejandro Caches, a jewish surgeon in Europe during the first outbreak of the plague in the 14th century. Alejandro is chased from his home in Spain to France, and then finds himself shipped off to England to ensure the safety of the royal family. The second story is set in modern times. Janie Crowe, after losing her family to a mysterious outbreak in the US, finds herself starting her life over again. With a third of the population gone, there just isn’t as much call for surgeons anymore. In the course of research for her certification as a forensic archeologist, she goes to London to examine soil samlpes. In the process, a dormant sample of the plague is unleashed.
Benson envisions a present-day Earth that has been overtaken by concern for the transmission of biotoxins and germs after much of the US has been ravaged by random outbreaks. It’s not an unreasonable near-future, and she carries it out qutie well. Her writing style is easy to read, and I enjoyed that she didn’t treat any of her characters as “sacred”.
Posted by barb on Jul 4, 2004 in
Books by Lois H. Gresh and Robert Weinberg
This is a fun main-stream science book. The authors use comic book characters as a jumping-off point to discuss a variety of science topics. The subjects ranged from the possibility of life on other planets (inspired by Superman) to mutants and Darwin’s theory of evolution (from X-men) to the possibility of using a black hole as an endless energy supply (from the Green Lantern). There was a fun discussion about how strength scales with size, the thrust of which was that a 50 foot ant would not have the strength, proportionately, that a 1 inch human would. (The discussion was inspired by Ant Man, but reminded me of Bug Park, a fun book by James P. Hogan from a few years ago.)
It’s not necessary to be a comic book fanatic to enjoy this book. I don’t follow any comics, but the authors give enough description of each character they deal with that I felt very comfortable that I knew enough. The science itself is well-written and understandable (though I did skip much of the black hole discussion, since I’m more than familiar with that subject).
Posted by barb on Jul 1, 2004 in
Books The Hubble Space Telescope site has a page of writing inspired by Hubble images. Weird.
Ooo…and some cool abstract images, too.
And interpretive dance (!).
Posted by barb on Jun 26, 2004 in
Books by Vicki Leon
Another in the series of Uppity Women series. Fun, quick, bite-sized bios of women from the Renaissance.
Posted by barb on Jun 17, 2004 in
Books by J. K. Rowling
Like the movie, this third installment in the Harry Potter book is so far my favorite. The plot is a drastic turn from the you-know-who trying to kill Harry through some minion plot of the first two books. Plus, the characters are really feeling comfortable in their setting, with some romantic tension developing between Hermione and Ron.
In this book, a prisoner has escaped from Azkaban prison — the wizards’ prison. This person is Sirius Black, who betrayed Harry’s parents to you-know-who, causing their deaths. It is believed that Black is back to finish what his master started. All of this is going on with the backdrop of Harry’s third year at Hogwarts.
Posted by barb on Jun 9, 2004 in
Books by Frederik Pohl
This is the third installment in Pohl’s Heechee saga, and even though the cover proclaims it as the “gripping finale”, there is another book in the series, which makes me very happy because I was not ready for it to end (a sure sign of a great book).
We pick up with Robinette Broadhead about 25 years after Beyond the Blue Event Horizon. He is even more sucessful, and Heechee technology has advanced the human race beyond anything anyone could have imagined. Gone are the random trips from Gateway where the prospector has no way of knowing the final destination of their ship, nor whether or not there will be enough power and provisions for the journey.
But Earth is still overly populated, and there are not enough ships carrying pioneers to off-world colonies to alleviate the problem. Terrorists attack with a temporary-insanity illness, and no one can find them. Robin struggles to cure all of the world’s ills while the Heechee come cautiously out from hiding.
This was an excellent book, and Pohl continues his easy writing style. Recommended.
One note: This book was written at a time when astronomers believed that quasars were galactic (i.e. local) sources. So there are a couple passages talking about someone flitting about the galaxy studying quasars (among other sources). However, now there is a general consensus that quasars are indeed extra-galactic sources, and are, in fact, one of the most distant sources in the Universe. So these couple of lines date the book.
Not that many people would notice.
Plus, there is still a small camp of astronomers who believe that quasars are local, so the pendulum may swing back the other way if more evidence mounts for that camp.
Posted by barb on Jun 2, 2004 in
Books by Mary Roach
Roach takes what could be a morbid topic and turns it into an always fascinating, sometimes light-hearted but never irreverent book. Her style was easy with a pinch of humor (presumably out of necessity).
The book covers topics from the mundane (cadavers used for gross anatomy classes) to the gross (the “body farm” behind the University of Tennessee Medical Center used to study how bodies decay to improve foresic science) to the bizarre (experiments transplanting living puppies’ heads onto an adult dog as a pathway to eventually transplant a human head onto another body).
She covers things that I had never dreamed of, though should have been obvious. For example, the need to use cadavers to design crash-test dummies that are able to simulate how a real human body reacts to the trauma of a car wreck. She also covers the ethics of using cadavers to design better weapons (not acceptable) and to design test dummies to test bullet-proof jackets (less clear, though there is an unwritten code against firing bullets into a human cadaver, even to improve live-saving devices like bullet-proof jackets). There is a chapter on how bodies recovered from a plane crash can help reveal the cause of the malfunction when the black box is not found and not enough of the plane wreckage can be retrieved from the site.
The weirdest thing in the book, in my humble opinion, is the Swedish scientist who is developing a technique to turn human bodies into composte. The idea is to dispose of the body in a more environmentally-friendly way, without wasting valuable space. The compost can be used to plant a memorial tree with the organic material as fertilizer. While weird, I really like the idea, and hope that it catches on.
Excellent book; highly recommended.
Posted by barb on May 30, 2004 in
Books by Terry Pratchett
I don’t know if I’ve started getting my sense of humor back (though I wasn’t aware that it had gone anywhere), or if Pratchett vastly improved his style between writing The Color of Money and this novel, but I rather enjoyed this one a lot more than The Color of Money.
Carrot, a human orphaned as a baby and raised by dwarf parents, is sent to the city (Ankh-Morpork) to see the world. Of course, he’s been sent to work with the City Watch, a shabby bunch of guards who are not well respected but for good reason. Carrot, however, has a strong sense of morals and wants to rid the city of crime (even though crime is legal as long as it’s done within the guidelines of the guilds).
Meanwhile, a secret society is illegally using magic to summon a dragon for their own nefarious purposes. Unfortunately, dragons are hard to control once they’ve been unleashed.
Fun, fanciful diversion
Posted by barb on May 23, 2004 in
Books by Mark Kurlansky
Kurlansky follows the history of salt and salt production from ancient times to modern all around the world. From evaporating brine in clay pots to evaporating brine over wood, then coal, fires to mining vast salt mines, this history was interesting.
The best parts for me were seeing how salt influenced history — like the role it played in the American Revolution or the American Civil War. I think that incorporating even a chapter or two of this kind of history into high school history classes might spark an interest that modern text books can’t. I know I would have been more interested…I always found history to be dry and dull, but this is just the sort of thing to spice it up (pardon the pun).