Reading Jag 39
Cosmic Wormholes: The search for Interstellar Shortcuts
by Paul Halpern
Paul Halpern has a PhD in theoretical physics, but you can't tell it from reading the book. Maybe he's just 'dumbing things' down for a mainstream audience, but he oversimplifies things enough that I'm not sure he *gets* the difference...
I was disturbed, early in the book, when he explained the importance of finding wormholes in terms of humanitarian concern for explorers... I was equally perturbed at the end of the book when he asserted that we *will* find ways to create wormholes (which he admits are not well described theoretically). I was greatly bothered when he blithely described positive social effects, as though they were inevitable...
So, I won't be looking for more books by him. The bibliography looks like it's got some worthwhile pointers to good SF, though.
New time sink: Justice Force - a play by forum superhero RPG, looking for more players. The GM is a very nice young man in Adelaide, so play will be erratically asynchronous. Fun so far, but I've only been at it for a couple of days. Minac's a post every day or so, so should be playable even if you've got a life. My PC is Wardriver.