Isabella Tree’s Wilding and Tim Flannery’s Europe

These two books about European natural processes are curiously connected, though I had no suspicion of this when I bought them. I was obviously in the mood for a sustained period of browsing on ancient species ecology and the prospects for reversing the mass extinctions caused by people. Looking for hope in the face of … Continue reading Isabella Tree’s Wilding and Tim Flannery’s Europe →

Ted Chiang’s polymathic story bombs

I haven’t seen Arrival, but I wanted to read the book because the story as told to me by someone who had seen the film interested me greatly. I spotted the book in the bookshop because of the Amy-Adams-in-a-spacesuit cover, and was surprised to see that a whole film had been based on a short … Continue reading Ted Chiang’s polymathic story bombs →

Microbes are out there: Aliens, ed. Jim Al-Khalili

I love it when Jim Al-Khalili communicates science. He’s a physicist, a BBC Radio 4 presenter of science programmes (The Life Scientific is a great podcast, btw) and he’s written, among other books, a fine work on the history of medieval Arabic science. (I have no idea about his academic publications because I can’t read … Continue reading Microbes are out there: Aliens, ed. Jim Al-Khalili →

Male scientists save the world in Fred Hoyle’s The Black Cloud (1957)

There is so much to say about The Black Cloud: let me count the ways. (1) It’s written by one of Britain’s most pioneering, persistent and celebrated maverick physicists, Fred Hoyle. (2) It’s a fine novel in the tradition of British science fiction that speculates what would happen if (the then) present-day society had something … Continue reading Male scientists save the world in Fred Hoyle’s The Black Cloud (1957) →