Skip to main content

Split Second (SF) - Douglas Richards ****

I had really mixed feelings about this sci-fi techno thriller by Douglas Richards (or, to give him his full name according to the cover NY TIMES BESTSELLER Douglas E. Richards). The SF premise is very clever and caught my attention in an instant - far better than the slew of fluffy time travel books that are currently filling the shelves. What if you could travel back in time - but only for a fraction of a second?

When I started to read and found myself in a sub-Dan Brown action thriller with no real mention of time travel, I was confused. The action is dramatic, certainly, and the central character, biologist (and fiancé of a genius physicist) Jenna Morrison is put into a situation where her entire world is turned upside down, but she can't go to the authorities. But not a lot of time travel (though we guess this is what the physicist's new discovery involves).

Eventually, though, after some distinctly implausible action when Jenna joins up with super soldier turned PI Aaron Blake, the time travel bit kicks in. Like all time travel fiction we need to allow one McGuffin*, but given that, Richards gives us a plausible argument as to how such a short time jump can occur and how it could have sufficient impact to totally change the world: this results in two separate groups of people, neither likeable but one at least more moral than the other, trying to track down the theory behind the tech.

Richards' clear interest in physics means that we get far more correct science than Dan Brown manages in his impressively bad 'facts' (which almost always prove to be wrong). In fact, if anything he's too interested as we get several lectures from various characters that probably provide too much information for anyone who just wants to get on with the action, plus an appendix with more scientific background. I can hardly complain, though, about a science fiction piling on the science.

For me, the action is a little too implausible, and the writing isn't perhaps of the highest level - the four stars are for the ideas rather than the writing - but let's face it, many of the greats of science fiction's golden age were pulp writers. This is good pulp, with a meaty helping of science and a truly innovative look at time travel - so with those provisos I have to recommend it.

* I'm slightly surprised that the genius physicists in the book haven't spotted that the McGuffin** could also make a warp drive possible.

** I do love that autocorrect keeps trying to turn McGuffin into McMuffin. I realise the more common spelling is MacGuffin, but because of this tendency (and because it feels more accurate), I prefer the shorter version.

Although not out on paper until later, already available on Kindle which is where I read it.

Hardback:   
Kindle:  
Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you
These articles will always be free - but if you'd like to support my online work, consider buying a virtual coffee or taking out a membership:
Review by Brian Clegg - See all Brian's online articles or subscribe to a weekly email free here

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why Nobody Understands Quantum Physics - Frank Verstraete and Céline Broeckaert **

It's with a heavy heart that I have to say that I could not get on with this book. The structure is all over the place, while the content veers from childish remarks to unexplained jargon. Frank Versraete is a highly regarded physicist and knows what he’s talking about - but unfortunately, physics professors are not always the best people to explain physics to a general audience and, possibly contributed to by this being a translation, I thought this book simply doesn’t work. A small issue is that there are few historical inaccuracies, but that’s often the case when scientists write history of science, and that’s not the main part of the book so I would have overlooked it. As an example, we are told that Newton's apple story originated with Voltaire. Yet Newton himself mentioned the apple story to William Stukeley in 1726. He may have made it up - but he certainly originated it, not Voltaire. We are also told that ‘Galileo discovered the counterintuitive law behind a swinging o...
Post a Comment
Read more

How to Keep a Plane in the Sky - Alex Davies ****

If there's one big gap in the science writing sphere, it's popular engineering (you can quibble over whether engineering is science, but where else would you put popular engineering?). Alex Davies does the field a real service with this insightful introduction to the world of test engineering. The concept is simple. If we build something and sell it, we need to test it to make sure that it won't fail in a way that's dangerous to the consumer. The most obvious example is airliners, which feature at some length, but this applies to everything from cuddly toys to hair straighteners: someone needs to predict what could go wrong and to put the product through its paces to see if it will survive under any reasonable circumstances. When Davies is telling a story of test engineering in action, the book is a delight. He opens with the way that real bears are used to test if bears can get into coolers and trash cans - and the impressive ways these animals can  circumvent human in...
Post a Comment
Read more

On the Equality of All Things - Carlo Rovelli ****

There is a wide gulf between the worldviews of physicists and philosophers. Many physicists present a rather sweetly naive, child-like view of the world, where philosophers bring a distinctly more adult, cynical tone. This being the case, it can be a little worrying when a physicist dips a toe into the philosophical mire. Infamously, in The Grand Design , Stephen Hawking and co-author Leonard Mlodinow told us that philosophy was now dead because science could deal with anything it had previously been needed for. Thankfully, Carlo Rovelli is not trying to do away with philosophy, though it has to be said that when he veers into the topic that physicist's naivety can make it feel like the philosophising of an earnest eighteen-year-old. Take the opening paragraph, which tells us 'electrons and minds, stones and laws, judgements and galaxies do not essentially differ in nature from one another. They are notions that illuminate each other'. I almost expected a Pink Floyd soundtr...
Post a Comment
Read more