Cosmos Books

This was Laszlo's attempt to do what no one has done before him -- and, alas, he doesn't come anywhere near to pulling it off. The academic grounding that Laszlo tries here to create makes for too many contorted kinds of arguments. The author points to all the right issues, and he goes at them in ways that might, under another pen, have produced some startling breakthoughs in thought. But Laszlo is not the one to take this on. For those who still hjunger for a grand synthesis of all things -- human and cosmic - I suggest turning instead to someone like Ken Wilber, or -- if you have a few months of non-stop reading time -- to the colletced works of Alice A. Bailey.

I do give him an "A" for effort, however.

Well where do you start when trying to communicate and theorize on something as 'the theory of everything' ? It is a difficult book to read as the concepts are truly mind-boggling, but nevertheless Laszlo draws the reader along to startling conclusions, yes, occasionally going up various side streets, but for a clear purpose, to try and explain, by way of various examples from established scientific principles as well as other emerging ones. If you are searching for the meaning of life, and not quite convinced that it is the number "42" (as per Monty Python), then this book is a must to read. Don't rush it, re-read pages or whole chapters if you are struggling with the concepts. Also think about this: if it were all that easily explainable, then somebody would have explained it a long time ago...yet no-one has been able to, until Laszlo gives it the best try yet. When you finish the book, you will be left with a certain warm cosy feeling that you truly have gained some special insight into creation, the universe, an all. Truly revealing, and a real milestone book - but not for the ordinary Janet or John, that is most of the inhabitants of the USA or England. Not the opium of the masses. Thank goodness for that. Thank Laszlo for that.

We have been taught by Bill Gates and Gordon Moore that newer=better. It's not always true.

This book includes several atricles from Scientific American in the '80s. One of those articles, "Gauge Theories" by nobel laureate Gerard t'Hooft is worth the price of this book all by itself, especially if you get a used copy. This article explains better than any other I've ever seen how quarks and electrons work.

Theoretical Physics has two schools of thought, called "the Standard Model" and "String Theory." While string theory has caught the imagination of the public, in 25 years of research no connection between string theory and experiements in our universe has been made. The standard model is what we have that works. t'Hooft won his nobel prize for showing that electro-weak theory is renormalizable, using his new renormalization technique 'dimensional regularization.' There is no one alive better qualified to explain the standard model, and only a couple equally qualified. His article is, imho, must reading for anyone who wants to understand quarks and leptons at any non-trivial level.

The book also includes several other articles by several other authors.

Material is too old. (That said, I can't imagine that Amazon.com will publish this review.) When it comes to particle physics, Leon Lederman, one of the contributors, not that he had anything to say about it!, an article of his first published in the 70s!, is one of the most outstanding authors of our time. However,Scientific American is not doing the public much good with such old material. They first published this book for $11.95. It seems that W. H. Freeman is trying to cash in on reprints vs current material. Don't waste your money on this one. Rather, take a look at book reviews in magazines like "Science". Good Hunting and Good Reading!

Wayne G. Dengel

This could have been a fascinating book. Jets of matter and the stunning, often intricate bubbles of dying stars and other objects really spark the imagination. Unfortunately, this book doesn't do them justice.

The approach is very cerebral, with no sense of wonder whatsoever. For the most part it focuses on the mechanics behind most types of solar winds, jets, and other ejecta without offering good connections to actual objects we've seen (well, at least in pictures and animations). It would have been great to read a rundown on just why they think Eta Carinae or a powerful jet looks the way it does, written with an appropriate sense of fascination. Sadly, all we get is a dry account of various means by which heat, energy, etc. flow.

If your approach to astrophysics is technically focused enough, you may enjoy this book. It did hold my interest for the first 1/3 and avoids lots of heavy math in the main body of text. If you're a casual, or even ardent, laymen fan of cosmology and the like, you'll probably find it boring.

Try Turn Right at Orion for an outstanding example of how to make science captivating. Although woven through with a fictional voyage (similar to what Carl Sagen did with "Cosmos" on TV), it really grabs you.

As a caption to a photograph early in the book, Parker writes, "A field of stars. Some of them may be chaotic." To term an object "chaotic" is meaningless unless one specifies what behavior (its motion, its fluctuations in brightness) is displaying chaotic characteristics. This ambiguous and imprecise tone permeates the rest of the text, hindering a clear understanding of the sometimes counter-intuitive concepts of chaos.

_Chaos in the Cosmos_ aims to be a layperson's introduction to chaos, with applications to problems in planetary science, astrophysics and cosmology. Despite the careful attention Parker has paid to describing technical concepts in plain language, his explanations are not clearly constructed, and on several occasions include factual errors, contradictions and misunderstandings that lead me to guess he is not well-conversant on the subject himself.

Anyone who has read the fine work of James Gleick in his book, _Chaos_, will be disappointed with _Chaos in the Cosmos_. Readers already familiar with the history of chaos science and its basic concepts may find useful the discussion of recent research, and the particular focus on astronomical applications (though this is brief and confined to the last half of the book). Those who are new to the study of chaos will glean some knowledge from reading the initial chapters, but I do not recommend it as an introduction to the discipline, since the inaccurate and inefficient explanations are misleading to the novice.

I purchased this text after Peacock told me in response to my questioning his notation in Cosmological Physics, that definitions were unnecessary, "as the meanings of these symbols were known to any physics undergraduate."

Alas, Masden isn't much help. Both he and Peacock quickly ascribe alternate meanings to Ù (DC p13 and p 39).

The text has much algebraic manipulation and the simplifying assumptions come thick and fast. Sometimes so fast, that Masden forgets to include the explanation.

On page 37, Masden states, "Then recalling from the solution to equation (3.22) that S(t)~t**2/3." No proof of this exists anywhere in the text.

On pages 44 and 46 are phase diagrams (Figure 5.1, 5.2), but there is no explanation of what phase diagrams are or how they are to be interpreted.

Some of the material seems unnecessary ... in the author's own view! Page 44, for example, contains a slew of algebraic manipulations only to conclude with the statement that the equation he just derived is of little practical use and one is advised to use the equation on the previous page.

This book works as a supportive material. It is very useful for looking into past training questions. It covers many different questions from martial arts training to taoism.

Gives a somewhat detailed history of Saivism but it is littered with the author's varied opinions and many of then seem unfavorable.

Fundamentally Clute is a sci-fan fan with an academic vocabulary. It sounds good until you examine what he's saying.
Then you might just as well review fan-boy reviews for all the
illumination he gives you.

A quiet has fallen on Europe, with Napoleon exiled to Elba. It is not the quiet of a world at rest, but of a world holding its breath, unable to believe that the curtain has indeed dropped on the great Emperor. And, it is into this world walks Cosmo Latham - an Englishman and veteran of the late war, looking to see what he was unable to see earlier, and perhaps even get a glimpse of the Emperor himself. But, when he finds a girl from his youth, formerly Mlle Adele D'Armand, and now Mrs. Helion de Montevesso, he finds that his emotions can get the better of him.

This book was Joseph Conrad's (1857-1924) last work, as a matter of fact, when that talented author died, this book was left unfinished, and has remained so to this day. Conrad is remembered for his best works - Lord Jim, Nostromo, Heart of Darkness, and many others - but, I do not think that this book falls into that category. It takes very long to get going, feeling surprisingly suspended, as Cosmo goes about his business, learning about Adele, and so forth.

No, this book does show that it was written by a master storyteller, but it also shows that it is unfinished. If you are a Joseph Conrad fan, and wish to read every story he wrote, you will want to read this one. But, if that is not the case, then you probably will be disappointed by it - as was I.

Before she went on to write some of the greatest classics in science fiction and fantasy, Marion Zimmer Bradley, believe it or not, wrote some awful novels. This is one.

The "Door through Space" is an unremarkable (and almost unreadable) space-travel novel so like many others written at this time. It is pseudo-hard science fiction -- that is, a technologically-focused book with a little metaphysical nonsense thrown in. Marion Zimmer Bradley, when an editor, once said she would never buy a spaceship story in which "the spaceship was more interesting than the people". This is one of those.

That's not to say this book doesn't have some redeeming qualities. It's thin, pulpy-looking, and a looks good on the bookshelf next to the rest of my Bradleys. I picked my copy up for a quarter at a garage sale. I wouldn't have paid a penny more.

It is interesting just how much of The Door Through Space Bradley cribbed for her Darkover series: The Terran Empire colonizing the universe, a world bound by compact rather than charter to the Terrans, culture clash, Dry Towns, The Ghost Wind, a hint of ESP, chains binding women, the red sun, catmen, and the exclamation of the word "Sharra". These are both superficial as well as deeply thematic similarities to Darkover. In truth, if The Door Through Space was only given minor edits, it could pass as a Darkover novel. This was Bradley's first published novel and Darkover was obviously a work in progress throughout her entire career, but it is interesting to note how much of this novel she used to create an entire series of novels completely unrelated to this one. The world of Wolf could easily be Cottman IV. Had the word "matrix" shown up anywhere in TDTS I would have cried foul.

Race Cargill is a Terran intelligence agent who has been stuck behind a desk because of a bitter dispute with another agent who has "gone native". When Cargill's sister comes to Race because her husband, the former friend and agent who maimed Cargill, has apparently threatened her and her daughter, Cargill goes back into the field instead of leaving the planet for good. Adventure ensues.

Honestly, the book isn't that good. It is a pulpy science fiction and fantasy blend that works less well than any of her later, more developed Darkover novels. Add to the fact that having read the majority of Darkover, The Door Through Space comes off as a cheap copy, no matter that this book came first. It is a weaker Darkover novel without any of the trappings that make Darkover compelling. It is as if Bradley were trying out the ideas which would later mark her as a top talent in the 1970's and 1980's. The novel is short enough, which is good, because 300 pages of this would be rough going. The novel is not all bad and there are positives in her description of the customs and traditions of the cultures she introduces. Her handling of character, however, is less skillful.

Overall, no need to read this. Science fiction has been done far better, and Bradley herself would later re-write this novel into the vastly superior Darkover series.

-Joe Sherry