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Hey, Einstein!
"Poignant and savagely funny… Wanjek has pulled off the impossible, a morality tale wrapped up in a prehensible science lesson with, oh yeah, a war parody thrown in for good measure." — Dan Dunn, author of Living Tales of Sex, Salvation, and the Pursuit of the Never-Ending Happy Hour
Nature versus nurture. What would have become of Albert Einstein had he been raised in any other setting? The CIA didn't think that one through when it set out to clone him... five times. Budget cuts for Project Einstein meant the clones were raised in less-than-ideal environments, from the Bronx to Bartlett, Nebraska. Now, 30 years later, the CIA must round up its lost Einsteins to save the world from an evil genius. The clones, they find, do have one thing in They're no Einstein.
Author Christopher Wanjek, a Harvard-trained science journalist and international health lecturer as well as a contributing joke writer for The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, is uniquely suited to tell this tale of a genetics experiment gone wrong. Hey, Einstein! is funny science fiction with serious overtones about nature versus nurture, politics and war. The novel combines the scientific acumen of Michael Crichton with the irreverent humor of Hunter S. Thompson into a James Bond-style adventure where good triumphs over evil, more or less, and complex phenomena are intertwined with a cleverly crafted plot.
Nature versus nurture. What would have become of Albert Einstein had he been raised in any other setting? The CIA didn't think that one through when it set out to clone him... five times. Budget cuts for Project Einstein meant the clones were raised in less-than-ideal environments, from the Bronx to Bartlett, Nebraska. Now, 30 years later, the CIA must round up its lost Einsteins to save the world from an evil genius. The clones, they find, do have one thing in They're no Einstein.
Author Christopher Wanjek, a Harvard-trained science journalist and international health lecturer as well as a contributing joke writer for The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, is uniquely suited to tell this tale of a genetics experiment gone wrong. Hey, Einstein! is funny science fiction with serious overtones about nature versus nurture, politics and war. The novel combines the scientific acumen of Michael Crichton with the irreverent humor of Hunter S. Thompson into a James Bond-style adventure where good triumphs over evil, more or less, and complex phenomena are intertwined with a cleverly crafted plot.
412 pages, Paperback
First published July 13, 2012
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January 29, 2013
It's hard sci-fi, in case you thought the genre was dead. Biology, developmental psychology, genetics, physics -- it's a pretty good tour of some of the latest thinking in those fields.
Publisher's blurb: "What would have become of Albert Einstein had he been raised in any other setting? The CIA didn't think that one through when it set out to clone him... five times. Budget cuts for Project Einstein meant the clones were raised in less-than-ideal environments, from the Bronx to Bartlett, Nebraska. Now, 30 years later, the CIA must round up its lost Einsteins to save the world from an evil genius."
Plus, it's fun. Funny in spots -- in fact, in most spots. Wry observations on the human condition mix with satire on U.S. jingoism, fascinating scientific conjectures, and extravagant hypotheses (not to mention a truly classic visual for the battle royale near the end.) That scene alone would justify a movie version.
My only complaint is the editing. The punctuation's usually good, but chute! -- I've never scene such a string of homophone arrows in my life! He must have written it with Siri or DragonSpeaking or something. Other than the effort needed to decipher the sound-alikes, it's a fairly easy read (or reed.)
Overall it easily keeps its four stars, and I do recommend it to anyone with a taste for "hard sci-fi."
Publisher's blurb: "What would have become of Albert Einstein had he been raised in any other setting? The CIA didn't think that one through when it set out to clone him... five times. Budget cuts for Project Einstein meant the clones were raised in less-than-ideal environments, from the Bronx to Bartlett, Nebraska. Now, 30 years later, the CIA must round up its lost Einsteins to save the world from an evil genius."
Plus, it's fun. Funny in spots -- in fact, in most spots. Wry observations on the human condition mix with satire on U.S. jingoism, fascinating scientific conjectures, and extravagant hypotheses (not to mention a truly classic visual for the battle royale near the end.) That scene alone would justify a movie version.
My only complaint is the editing. The punctuation's usually good, but chute! -- I've never scene such a string of homophone arrows in my life! He must have written it with Siri or DragonSpeaking or something. Other than the effort needed to decipher the sound-alikes, it's a fairly easy read (or reed.)
Overall it easily keeps its four stars, and I do recommend it to anyone with a taste for "hard sci-fi."
Displaying 1 of 1 review