This collection of short stories by Stan Rice, who is also the author of nonfiction books of popular science and science novels, takes the reader to the frontier between science and worlds of the impossible. Readers of my science blog will appreciate the creative telling of scientifically impossible stories; readers of my religion blog will appreciate the question of whether, even if these things were possible, would they be good?
The stories in this collection are The Man Who Could Work Miracles, Light Apparel, Flow of Blood (all reviewed earlier in this blog), Wisdom Builds Her House (reviewed here), Rock Bunnies, Entropy, Olga the Science Cat, Doghouse, and Fresh Air.
In Wisdom Builds Her House, Dolores Pector, a very serious molecular biologist, alienated the other scientists at her university. The graduate students, even her own, were terrified of her. But a visiting professor, the happy-go-lucky ecologist Jeremy Duckett, showers her with innocent friendship. When she has a medical crisis, she doesn’t want anybody to know, but Duckett finds out and visits her in the hospital; he actually gets her to laugh. He also explains to her how altruism evolved, and why it is perhaps the most important thing to the human species. Pector tries to shield herself so much from the messy friendship and love that when she has a heart attack in her bomb shelter, nobody knows it.
Rice’s question for his fellow scientists and religious people is, what is science for? Is it a grim search for precise truth, as Dolores sees it, or is it, as Jeremy sees it, part of the human celebration of life? Guess which one Rice, better known as the author of popular science books, believes!
No comments:
Post a Comment