BKRCHT10.RVW   980520

"Richter 10", Arthur C. Clarke/Mike McQuay, 1996, 0-553-57333-0
%A   Arthur C. Clarke
%A   Mike McQuay
%C   666 Fifth Ave., New York, NY   10103
%D   1996
%G   0-553-57333-0
%I   Bantam Books/Doubleday/Dell
%O   800-323-9872 212-765-6500 http://www.bdd.com webmaster@bdd.com
%P   407 p.
%T   "Richter 10"

If reviewers actually like to rip a book apart, this is an
embarrassment of riches.

OK, first of all we have dorph.  Made from endorphins.  Natural. 
Organic.  Therefore non-addictive, right?

Nobody has heard of psychological addiction, eh?  [Sigh.]

Spot welding tectonic plates with hydrogen bombs sounds a little
risky.  H-bombs tend to be better at pushing things apart than holding
them together.

We have a digging machine that can throw dirt a full mile straight
(*dead* straight) up in the air.  Now, even though that is many, many
orders of magnitude better than anything we've got today, what
*really* astounds me is that the dirt, rocks, and other implements of
destruction don't immediately fall right back down that same straight
mile.

With fantastically accurate data based on observations of the current
state of the earth, a super-fantastic-really-good program is unable to
simulate a massively cataclysmic geological event.  However, making
wild guesses on the state of the world before an event that we know
nothing about, the same program is able to accurately work it out.

(And since when have you had to worry about an imaged simulation
shaking itself to pieces?  "Capt'n, we must shut'ter doon!  The
photons canna take any more o' this!")

Oi vei.

copyright Robert M. Slade, 1998   BKRCHT10.RVW   980520