Igor Clark

oh boy... I think the guy has some really good ideas in there somewhere but this book is not for the novice or the faint-hearted. In fact, the initiated (I've an MA) may find this off-putting. The vast majority of the main section of this book is interminably dull: a catalogue of linguisti minutae which, though put together form something incredibly profound, find my view of the wood obscured by trees.

Basically, he takes a theory which isn't that new, namely that the world's languages are in fact related and share many more characteristics than (he assumes) was previously thought. But Chomsky posited this many moons ago and to drag us through endless comparisons of Welsh and Japanese is a) neither going to be comprehensive enough to convince the skeptical in a book of this genre or size nor b) going to grab the interest of those who already know the field relatively well.

My other criticism is that while he has the audacity to acknowledge that language as a cognitive-cultural product is actually having something of a revival among those in the know, he simply moves on. If he really wants to stick his head in the sand, he should have simply ignored this point. Rather, by mentioning this and not commenting, he risks showing that generative linguistics not only has little to offer the real world of language as a communicative, relational tool but that generative linguists are doing nothing to rid itself of this image. Perhaps the ivory tower gives a commanding view similar to that of Babel.

And for those who are into languages but not linguistics: be warned, this may turn you off!

Just six numbers govern the shape, size and texture of our universe. If their values were only fractionally different, we would not exist; nor, in many cases, would matter have had a chance to form. If the numbers that govern our universe were elegant--1, say, or Pi, or the Golden Mean--we would simply shrug and say that the universe was an elegant mathematical puzzle. But the numbers Martin Rees discusses are far from tidy. Was the universe "tweaked" or is it one of many universes, all run by slightly different but equally messy, rules?

This is familiar ground, though rarely so comprehensively explored. What makes Rees's book exceptional is his conviction that cosmology is as materialistic and as conceptually simple as any of the earth sciences. Indeed, "cosmology is simpler in one important respect: once the starting point is specified, the outcome is in broad terms predictable. All large patches of the universe that start off the same way end up statistically similar. In contrast, if the Earth's history were re-run, it could end up with a quite different biosphere."

Rees demonstrates how the cosmos is full of "fossils" from which we can deduce how our universe developed, as surely as we infer the Earth's past from the relics found in sedimentary rocks. Rees's theme is nothing less than the colossal richness of the universe. It is an ambitious book, if anything, it deserves to be longer. --Simon Ings

I had never encountered the work of Italo Calvino before I read this intriguing collection of interconnected short stories, and I must say they were a revelation. Truly this man is a wordsmith of the highest order. He will have you often hurrying to the dictionary, but, given the sheer beauty of his prose, it will be a joyful task.

The short stories contained in this slim volume are divided into three sections. Within the first two parts, each of the well-crafted miniatures is narrated by an obscure character known to us only as Ofwfq, who seems to take many forms. Essentially they are a series of what ifs (as, I guess, is most fiction); each takes an interesting scientific theory and runs away with it in an imaginative and figurative sense. So, for example, the first tale deals with an Earth where the Moon is not yet her satellite, but a planet in her own right and how our present state of affairs came to be. Similarly, the second tale deals with the origin of birds, the third the development of gemstones, the fourth our evolution from creatures of the sea to land dwellers (where he speculates that the blood that flows inside us is actually the equivalent of the sea that surrounded us before) and so on and so forth. Thus they all deal with themes of change, of order arising from chaos (including speculation about what exactly consitutes order) and the inadequacy of mere words in describing these wondrous things. For, it can be clearly seen, Calvino has never lost his sense of wonder at our world and the way it came to be.

To read each of these stories, then, is to enter another, parallel universe where things are similar to our familiar surroundings and yet wholly different. Calvino's imaginative range is extraordinary - it covers the whole of time and space! Clearly, he is a deep philosopher and an intelligent scientific thinker, for logic and philosophical conjecture feature highly in each of these tales. Especially, perhaps, in tzero. Here, he expertly builds up the tension in that moment between a hunter letting an arrow fly and it possibly hitting its leonine target, while also speculating about parallel universes and whether or not if an event happens in a place often enough it leaves some sort of echo causing déjà vu in those who recreate it. While the philosophy and the science can be difficult, it is certainly worth the perseverance as this volume of stories is a very rewarding reading experience.

In the last part he changes tack slightly. While considering relativity and our concepts of the space that surrounds us, he deftly throws in a story about a thwarted car chase (they are in a traffic jam) where the murderer has to just sit tight until the traffic flows freely once more (with a neat twist at the end) and a retelling of the Count of Monte Cristo. These last two read much more easily than the preceding stories and so provide some form of light relief which you may well require by this point.

I have never read more literate, lyrical, thought provoking science fiction. These stories are quite, quite stunning. Step into the world of Calvino, you will be pleasantly surprised.