First it was The Intelligent Man's Guide to Science (1960), revised in 1965 to become The New IMGTS. By 1972 "man" was gone, and the particular man was in—giving us Asimov's Guide to Science. Now, twelve years later, comes an update appearing shortly before the author's 65th birthday (January '85), "by which time he will be the author of 300 published works." Whatever one's reaction, Asimov is right in bringing out a new edition. Twelve years translates to orders of magnitude in some fields: neuroscience, astronomy, computer-robotics, particle physics. How does 1984 read in those areas? For a start, not so good on the nervous system: traditional anatomy, 19th- and early-20th-century physiology; no new biochemistry, disease findings, or theories on cognitive processes. Mostly pre-1965 material, in toto, giving surprising prominence to conditioning in human behavior. Astronomy? Here one expects strength; and there are indeed fat chapters, with gobs of data, tracing knowledge from ancient to modern times, up to recent space probes. Completing the physical sciences are chapters on the elements and on particles that spell out how these fields were organized, then disordered—and are now undergoing rebirth with new tables of particles or attempts at unifying field theories. Part I ends with a survey of physical science applications ranging from electricity, the internal combustion engine and television to reactors, fission, and fusion. Part II, on the biological sciences, takes microcosms as its base—and proceeds from organic molecules, proteins, and the cell (with sections on DNA and heredity) to larger structures: microorganisms (including cancer and the immune system), the body, species, and evolution. One must remember that Asimov earned his Ph.D. in chemistry and taught biochemistry to understand his concentration on food constituents—vitamins, minerals—and enzymes and hormones. Part II ends on the mind and behavior, computers and artificial intelligence. Asimov repeats his well-known rules of robotic behavior and waxes philosophical. He predicts an uncomfortable time as jobs are automated out of existence, but does not see a real threat. Computer-robots should march with us as friends and allies "—if we do not destroy ourselves before the march can begin." As a one-volume condensation of an Asimovian lifetime of science writing, something other than the sum of its parts—and as an information source, surely a bargain.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1984
ISBN: 0140172130
Page Count: -
Publisher: Basic Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 15, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1984
Yes: it's high time for a de-romanticized, de-mythified, close-up retelling of the U.S. Space Program's launching—the inside story of those first seven astronauts.
But no: jazzy, jivey, exclamation-pointed, italicized Tom Wolfe "Mr. Overkill" hasn't really got the fight stuff for the job. Admittedly, he covers all the ground. He begins with the competitive, macho world of test pilots from which the astronauts came (thus being grossly overqualified to just sit in a controlled capsule); he follows the choosing of the Seven, the preparations for space flight, the flights themselves, the feelings of the wives; and he presents the breathless press coverage, the sudden celebrity, the glorification. He even throws in some of the technology. But instead of replacing the heroic standard version with the ring of truth, Wolfe merely offers an alternative myth: a surreal, satiric, often cartoony Wolfe-arama that, especially since there isn't a bit of documentation along the way, has one constantly wondering if anything really happened the way Wolfe tells it. His astronauts (referred to as "the brethren" or "The True Brothers") are obsessed with having the "right stuff" that certain blend of guts and smarts that spells pilot success. The Press is a ravenous fool, always referred to as "the eternal Victorian Gent": when Walter Cronkite's voice breaks while reporting a possible astronaut death, "There was the Press the Genteel Gent, coming up with the appropriate emotion. . . live. . . with no prompting whatsoever!" And, most off-puttingly, Wolfe presumes to enter the minds of one and all: he's with near-drowing Gus Grissom ("Cox. . . That face up there!—it's Cox. . . Cox knew how to get people out of here! . . . Cox! . . ."); he's with Betty Grissom angry about not staying at Holiday Inn ("Now. . . they truly owed her"); and, in a crude hatchet-job, he's with John Glenn furious at Al Shepard's being chosen for the first flight, pontificating to the others about their licentious behavior, or holding onto his self-image during his flight ("Oh, yes! I've been here before! And I am immune! I don't get into corners I can't get out of! . . . The Presbyterian Pilot was not about to foul up. His pipeline to dear Lord could not be clearer"). Certainly there's much here that Wolfe is quite right about, much that people will be interested in hearing: the P-R whitewash of Grissom's foul-up, the Life magazine excesses, the inter-astronaut tensions. And, for those who want to give Wolfe the benefit of the doubt throughout, there are emotional reconstructions that are juicily shrill.
But most readers outside the slick urban Wolfe orbit will find credibility fatally undermined by the self-indulgent digressions, the stylistic excesses, and the broadly satiric, anti-All-American stance; and, though The Right Stuff has enough energy, sass, and dirt to attract an audience, it mostly suggests that until Wolfe can put his subject first and his preening writing-persona second, he probably won't be a convincing chronicler of anything much weightier than radical chic.
Pub Date: Sept. 24, 1979
ISBN: 0312427565
Page Count: 370
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1979
BOOK TO SCREEN
A quirky wonder of a book.
A Peabody Award–winning NPR science reporter chronicles the life of a turn-of-the-century scientist and how her quest led to significant revelations about the meaning of order, chaos, and her own existence.
Miller began doing research on David Starr Jordan (1851-1931) to understand how he had managed to carry on after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake destroyed his work. A taxonomist who is credited with discovering “a full fifth of fish known to man in his day,” Jordan had amassed an unparalleled collection of ichthyological specimens. Gathering up all the fish he could save, Jordan sewed the nameplates that had been on the destroyed jars directly onto the fish. His perseverance intrigued the author, who also discusses the struggles she underwent after her affair with a woman ended a heterosexual relationship. Born into an upstate New York farm family, Jordan attended Cornell and then became an itinerant scholar and field researcher until he landed at Indiana University, where his first ichthyological collection was destroyed by lightning. In between this catastrophe and others involving family members’ deaths, he reconstructed his collection. Later, he was appointed as the founding president of Stanford, where he evolved into a Machiavellian figure who trampled on colleagues and sang the praises of eugenics. Miller concludes that Jordan displayed the characteristics of someone who relied on “positive illusions” to rebound from disaster and that his stand on eugenics came from a belief in “a divine hierarchy from bacteria to humans that point[ed]…toward better.” Considering recent research that negates biological hierarchies, the author then suggests that Jordan’s beloved taxonomic category—fish—does not exist. Part biography, part science report, and part meditation on how the chaos that caused Miller’s existential misery could also bring self-acceptance and a loving wife, this unique book is an ingenious celebration of diversity and the mysterious order that underlies all existence.
A quirky wonder of a book.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5011-6027-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
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