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Book Review: Physics of the Impossible by Michio Kaku

Physics of the Impossible by Michio KakuCo-founder of String Field Theory, Doctor Michio Kaku discusses the scientific plausibility of a wide range of popular science fiction devices, abilities, and technologies in his book, Physics of the Impossible.

The topics covered in this engaging analysis include force fields, invisibility cloaks, phasers, laser beams, lightsabers, teleportation, telepathy, time travel, robots, psychokinesis, UFOs, alien races, faster than light travel, and more. Doctor Kaku references many popular SF TV shows and films including Star Trek, Star Wars, Flash Gordon, Back to the Future, Doctor Who, The Fly, Independence Day, E.T., and others.

I was delighted to note that Doctor Kaku also draws from a rich array of SF novels and short stories such as The Man Without a Body by Edward Page Mitchell, The Disintegration Machine by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Slan by A.E. van Vogt, Larry Niven’s Ringworld series, Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series, Douglas Adams’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and the works of Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, Arthur C. Clarke, and Robert Heinlein.

Backed by practical and theoretical physics, chemistry, biology, and a rich history of scientific discoveries, Doctor Kaku offers detailed explanations as to which fictional technologies and abilities might be possible in the future and which are simply impractical—at least based on our current understanding of science.

Physics of the Impossible is by far one of the most enthralling and illuminating scientific discourses I’ve read to date. I equate Doctor Kaku with Doctors Carl Sagan and Neil deGrasse Tyson for his considerable talents as a science communicator.

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Book Review: The Return of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Ever since I purchased and reread my autographed replacement copy of Nicholas Meyer’s Sherlock Holmes novel, The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, and then went on to read Murder at Sorrow’s Crown by Steven Savile and Bob Greenberger, I felt compelled to go back and indulge once again in some of the original tales by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

It had been so long since l last read this collection that I’d forgotten most of them, although I remembered that at least two—”The Adventure of the Six Napoleons” and “The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton”—were used as source material for the BBC series, Sherlock.

So great was the demand for Sherlock Holmes stories that Doyle, The Return of Sherlock Holmestired of penning tales about the master detective by the turn of the 20th century,  was compelled to resurrect Holmes from the dead after what was thought to be his demise in “The Final Problem” wherein Holmes and his arch-rival, the nefarious Professor Moriarty, had together plummeted from Reichenbach Falls in Germany.

Of the 13 marvelous stories detailing some of Holmes and Watson’s continuing investigations, my favorites include…

“The Adventure of the Empty House,” in which Holmes describes to an astounded Watson how he managed to escape death and travel about Europe and Asia for a few years before returning to London, compelled by an intriguing and high-profile murder of the son of an Earl.

In “The Adventure of the Dancing Men,” Holmes and Watson are called into decipher a series of encrypted messages consisting of dancing stick figures. The messages are being left in chalk on the walls of a nobleman’s manor as well as on notes around the property. Could they be a warning… or a threat?

In “The Adventure of the Priory School,” a frantic headmaster calls upon Holmes to investigate the missing son of a local Duke. Did the boy flee the school of his own accord, or was he led away for a fiendish purpose?

In “The Adventure of Black Peter,” Inspector Stanley Hopkins requests Holmes’s assistance on the peculiar murder of Peter Carey, a former ship’s captain and a miserable drunkard, who built a small cabin on his property where he often stole away for days—until one morning when his body is discovered impaled by one of his own harpoons!

Holmes is once again called in by Scotland Yard when a series of cheap plaster Napoleon busts are senselessly and randomly smashed all over England. However, when one of these incidents leads to murder, Holmes suspects that there is something more to the matter than a mere dislike of the legendary emperor in “The Adventure of the Six Napoleons.”

When an elderly professor’s intern is brutally murdered in the professor’s own study, Holmes and Watson are called into investigate. The only clue to the killer’s identity are spectacles clutched in the victim’s hand and one-way footprints in the grass outside a set of french doors. In “The Adventure of the Pince-Nez,” could the killer still be close at hand?

A college athlete from Cambridge implores Holmes to help find his missing teammate, rugby star Godfrey Staunton. Upon receiving a hand delivered note, Staunton simply disappeared on the eve of their match against Oxford. Holmes and Watson track the missing student to a cantankerous and clever physician who manages to elude Holmes for a short time before he and Watson finally discover the tragic truth in “The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter.”

When the brutal and abusive Sir Eustace Brackenstall is murdered in his mansion, Holmes and Watson are once more called in by Scotland Yard. However, by the time they arrive, Inspector Hopkins seems to have the case already classified as a burglary gone wrong. As it happens, a trio of master thieves had already been seen in the area and the Lady Brackenstall identified them as the ones who bound and gagged her before murdering her husband. However, a cursory inspection of the crime scene leaves a nagging doubt in Holmes’s mind in “The Adventure of the Abbey Grange.”

In “The Adventure of the Second Stain,” a former British Prime Minister and the Secretary for European Affairs seek Holmes’s help in recovering a stolen letter from a foreign potentate that, if exposed, could lead to war in Europe. However, Holmes comes to learn that the situation is far more personal to the Secretary than the young man realizes.

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Book Review: The Lost World by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

In an effort to win the heart of a fickle young lady, intrepid newspaper reporter Edward Malone volunteers as a member of an expedition to South America to seek proof or otherwise debunk the wild claims of arrogant and intractable paleontologist Professor George Edward Challenger.

Upon returning from South America many years prior, Challenger claimed to have discovered prehistoric life still thriving atop a plateau deep in the jungles of Brazil. Unfortunately, his camera was damaged during a boating accident, leaving him with scant and inconclusive photographic evidence and only the sketchbook of one Maple White, a poet and artist who died of severe injuries shortly after escaping this supposed land of dinosaurs.

During a contentious interview, Challenger permits Malone to peruse the sketchbook, wherein White had drawn numerous mundane flora and fauna—until the final image of an impossibly large reptilian creature. Malone, however, remains unconvinced.

Despite his unadulterated aversion toward the press, Challenger sees some potential in Malone and invites him to a meeting of the Zoological Society where Professor Challenger, living up to his name, disrupts the guest lecturer when mention is made of the extinction of the dinosaur before the dawning of man.

Challenger’s claims of eyewitness accounts of pterodactyls in Brazil draws ridicule from both the audience and his peers, including one botanist and zoologist Professor Summerlee.  By the end of the raucous evening, a new team of explorers agrees to travel to Brazil and put the matter to rest. In addition to Malone and Summerlee, famed adventurer and big game hunter Sir John Roxton offers his considerable skills.

Shortly thereafter, the trio embark for South America and are surprised by the appearance of Professor Challenger himself once they reach Brazil. Challenger naturally assumes the role of team leader and guide as the adventurers, along with a number of local hired hands, begin their voyage along the Amazon into the realm of the unknown—where they encounter far more than any of them ever imagined possible.

The story is told from the POV of the reporter,The Lost World Book Cover Edward Malone, as he journals the team’s adventures through this unfathomable—and unmistakably treacherous—domain.  It had been at least 30 years since I’d last read The Lost World, yet so many elements remained with me since then, such as the cantankerous and haughty Professor Challenger, the fearsome ape men, the pterodactyl pit, and a few other vivid details. After reading it again this past week, I found myself just as enthralled as I was the first time. This should come as no surprise since much of Doyle’s work, most notably Sherlock Holmes, has soundly withstood the test of time.

 

 

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Book Review: The Seven-Per-Cent Solution by Nicholas Meyer

A lost journal by Doctor John H. Watson—discovered by Nick Meyer’s uncle in the attic of a home in Hampshire, England—tells the tale of Watson’s desperation to permanently exorcise Sherlock Holmes of the demons of cocaine addiction. In seeking advice from a fellow physician, Watson learns of the unorthodox methods of a Viennese psychiatrist.

Meanwhile, Holmes has been spending his days and nights in the dogged pursuit and general stalking of Professor James Moriarty, the “Napoleon of crime!” as the famous detective has come to consider him. Surely, the fiend is up to something and must be stopped.

For his part, Moriarty, a humble math professor, has no idea why Holmes is shadowing him and implores the assistance of Watson who believes the genteel man to be honest. Together with Sherlock’s older brother, Mycroft, Watson convinces a reluctant Moriarty to travel to Vienna hoping that Sherlock will follow.

The plan works perfectly, and Watson “guides” Holmes to the residence of Doctor Sigmund Freud where both physicians attempt to rehabilitate the master detective and cure him of his hideous addiction through hypnosis. Needless to say, Holmes’s withdrawal and convalescence are torturous to both himself and Watson.

At the same time, a young catatonic woman is brought into the local hospital and Freud is summoned to look in on her. Holmes and Watson decide to join him. Freud again employs hypnosis to discover that the woman is actually Nancy Slater, the American widow of the late Baron von Leinsdorf and had spent her honeymoon in an attic!

Holmes, as usual, applies his extraordinary powers of observation to determine, based on her physical condition, that the Baroness had been abducted, bound, and imprisoned in an attic somewhere near the river among closely constructed factories and warehouses.

From here the game is—as Holmes would say—afoot as our intrepid trio attempts to solve this nefarious crime.

I’d first read The Seven Per-Cent Solution over 15 years ago, but no longer had my copy. I was fortunate to meet Nicholas Meyer at the Farpoint convention in February 2017 wherein I purchased a newer edition and had it signed. Meyer is, of course, the directThe Seven-Per-Cent Solution Book Coveror of many excellent films including Time After Time, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. He also co-wrote those Star Trek films along with Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. He also wrote the screenplay based on the novel I am currently discussing.

The Seven Per-Cent Solution is a thoroughly enjoyable read that felt like a solid Sherlock Holmes tale. Narrative, pace, and dialog were mostly faithful to Doyle’s work, and a young Sigmund Freud was represented in a way that honored his reputation and abilities.

 

Phil with Nicholas Meyer Phil with Nicholas Meyer