Factual, speculative, and mythical ideas about origins—concerning (in four separate parts) the universe, the solar system, the Earth, and humankind—via a peculiar, confusing mix of materials: four scriptural selections, four straightforward science pieces, 17 fantasy/sf stories from 1933-81, a poem, and a recent Asimov essay refuting Creationism. Part I, for instance—the origin of the universe—starts off with Genesis, proceeds to describe the physics of the Big Bang, adds stories about gods, creations, and cosmological phenomena, and winds up with the philosophical ambiguities of the Rg-Veda. Inconsistencies soon appear. Only Judeo-Christian and Hindu creation myths are included; Carl Sagan's look at the solar system (from Broca's Brain) avoids the question of its origin; and—most prominently—there is no scientific account of human evolution. Some pieces nonetheless stand out: the excerpt from Steven Weinberg's admirable The First Three Minutes, in the particle physics department; Brian Aldiss' valiant attempt ("Non-Isotrophic") to wed theology and cosmology with fiction; two golden oldies—Eric Frank Russell's Adam-and-Eve yarn, "First Person Singular," and Asimov's Neanderthal child, "The Ugly Little Boy"; plus lesser efforts from van Vogt, Clarke, Simak, and Wells. A disjointed, artificial assemblage—that still might find favor in a few origin-pondering classrooms, as well as with ardent Asimovians.
Pub Date: Oct. 13, 1983
ISBN: 0517548615
Page Count: -
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Sept. 15, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1983
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
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