Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 3, 1994 TAG: 9406190151
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: E-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
As advertising executives always say, timing is everything. The publication of this discussion of black hole theory has almost been rendered moot by the published photographs of a black hole taken from the bespectacled Hubble Space Telescope. The saving graces of this volume written by Kip S. Thorne - one of the preeminent physicists of this era - are the descriptions of the human players involved in the 80 year evolution of black hole theory. Until last month, black holes were the theoretical rifts is space where all matter enters but none is ever released. These giant whirlpools were first theorized by extending Einstein's general theory of relativity. Einstein did not believe black holes could exist in his conception of space, but has been proven wrong\ by succeeding theoreticians and now physical proof from the Hubble.
The humanity of the men and women who pushed this arcane theory is what\ separates the book from the average popular cosmology offering. Among the\ personal glimpses offered is a letter written by Einstein's father begging a\ university to hire his son who has been out of work for the eight months\ following graduation. Another is a grim reminder that much of the theoretical\ work used in black hole research came from the Manhattan Project and the race\ for a viable thermonuclear bomb. Anecdotes and explanations are separated from\ the main text by the use of boxes, and within these boxes jewels of\ understanding and empathy draw the reader in as inexorably as a black hole\ draws matter.
- LARRY SHIELD
Riding with Stuart: Reminiscences of an Aide-de-Camp.
By Theodore Stanford Garnett. White Mane. $19.95.
White Mane is rapidly becoming the supermarket tabloid of Civil War history\ - with one major difference. The stuff White Mane has been digging up adds to\ the truth. In this instance, White Mane and editor Robert Trout bring to light\ a recently discovered journal by a Hanover County native who went on to become\ a Norfolk lawyer. The journal, compiled at various times following the war,\ covers the period of Oct. 1863 to June 1864. It was during this time that\ Confederate hopes began to fade and that Stuart met his mortal wound at Yellow\ Tavern.
Garnett wrote it all well and clearly, blending a mature eye with the\ enthusiasm of youth. His document is also significant in that it represents,\ at least in part, the view of a Confederate enlisted man, albeit a\ well-connected one who was later commissioned. The book is a good addition to\ the literature of the Confederate camp life and serves to buttress and endorse\ other accounts of various Confederate fights, large and small.
- ROBERT HILLDRUP
The Deus Machine.
By Pierrer Ouellette. Villard Books. $22.50.
Pierre Ouellette's first novel might be described as "Day of the Triffids" meets "Max Headroom," but that would not be doing justice to its originality. True, Ouellette's marauding plant life, like that of John Wyndham's 1951 "Triffids," has its genesis in secret biological warfare experimentation, and the self-aware computer program which comes to be known as "Mouthball" but later takes the form of a young boy's imaginary father within the computer screen has similarities to the title character of the too-short-lived "Max" TV series some years ago.
It all ties together because the renegade researchers use the advanced computer program to create what becomes a flowering Frankenstein of sickenly vivid and horrific plants, and it falls to computer expert Michael Riley to bring it all under control. Riley, called in by goverment officials who find the vicious vegetation out of their control, is one of many jobless people in\ Ouellette's grim near-future. He has developed relationships with a lovely\ librarian and a fatherless boy while taking on his new assignment, all of\ which seems set up for the traditional happy ending - but don't count on it,\ at least in the customary form.
The novel is told in present tense, but it is not as hard as you might expect to get used to that because the story moves so fast and is so rich in characters, both human and not. The major villain is a bit two-dimensional - not only is he becoming a key factor in world destruction, his hobby is being a serial killer of young boys - but most of the folks trying to survive all that Ouellette throws at them have more depth than that.
"The Deus Machine" has a high body count but is an excellent debut.
- PAUL DELLINGER
Larry Shield trains dogs and horses in Franklin County
Robert Hilldrup is a Richmond writer and former newspaperman.
Paul Dellinger reports on Pulaski County for the New River bureau of this newspaper.
by CNB