|
-
Hivemind social net
-
News
- Features
- Blogs
- Events
Calendar
- Editorials
- Monthly
Zine
- Offworld
Report
- Our Daily
RSS Feed
- Google Toolbar scifi
- Movie/TV
Reviews
> Recent movies
> Movies by year
> Movies by title
- Book
Reviews
> Recent books
> Books by year
> Books by title
- Home
- Worlds
- Biography
- Bibliography
- Appearances
- Reviews
- Blog
- Community
- Press
- Links
Become
an Advertiser
- Web
Site Directory
- Search
the Net
- StephenHunt.net
- WoodenRocket.com
- Check
your E-mail
- Non Sci-Fi
News
|
The Periodic Table Of Science Fiction by Michael Swanwick
28/11/2005 . Source: Pauline Morgan 
pub: PS Publishing. 274 page limited edition book. Hardback: Price: £25.00 (UK), $45.00 (US). ISBN: 1-904619-00-2. Deluxe skipcased hardback: Price: £50.00 (UK), $90.00 (US). ISBN: 1-904619-01-0. Buy from Amazon US - Buy from Amazon UK
nb: US titles may only be available from Amazon US, and UK titles from Amazon UK. check out website: www.pspublishing.co.uk
This year is two hundred years since chemists have tried to formulate a law depicting the pattern of elemental properties and the hundredth anniversary of Mendeleev's publication of his Periodic Table. It was a brilliant piece of deduction and extrapolation. There had been a number of attempts to make sense of the elements and group them by their properties but Mendeleev devised the pattern that we are now familiar with. He had remarkable insight as it was only later, with the postulation of the sub-atomic particles proton, neutron and electron that scientists were able to see how his table actually worked. Mendeleev, though, was able to predict the existence of elements that were, at that time, unknown. They were subsequently discovered with exactly the properties he postulated.
In 2000, Michael Swanwick embarked on the mammoth task of writing a short story for each of the elements. They were published at weekly intervals on the SciFiction website. They are all very short, very few making it on to a third page and all of them are brought together in print in this volume. There are 118 pieces, one for each known element and a handful of invented ones at the end. He was obviously having too much fun to want to stop when he ran out of legitimate elementsers cavorite and flies to the moon where he is imprisoned in a selenium mine. Oil of vitriol (sulphuric acid) is distilled from the blood of critics. A teenager makes an atomic bomb from smoke detectors. Time travellers exterminated the dinosaurs. Many of the pieces are humorous, although the humour does not always work.
This is a book that it is best to dip into, rather than read from cover to cover. It would make an ideal stocking filler for Christmas. My biggest quibble is the introduction. Unless chemistry has changed greatly in the last twenty years, there is an error in the first paragraph. From then onwards, any merit the author may have is over-shadowed.
Pauline Morgan
|
|
