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Dust
"Dust is merely...the outward and visible sign of death"
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Dust
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By Charles Pellegrino
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Avon Books
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$15.95/$20.95 Canada
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Hardcover, Feb. 1998
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ISBN 0-380-97308-1
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Review by Susan Dunman
 he last Monday of the old world begins like any other for eccentric paleobiologist Richard Sinclair. Leaving early for work, he crosses the bridge out of Long Beach, completely unaware of the black, soot-like substance slowly expanding across the shoreline toward his neighborhood. The piercing screams of beachcombers, policemen and TV reporters are abruptly silenced as the "carnivorous dust" quickly covers and then devours them.
By the time Richard hears of the plague organism, it has already eliminated a large part of the Long Beach population. When the deadly dust turns out to be common bed mites gone amok, Richard joins forces with an elite team of specialists to investigate what is happening to Mother Nature. Observations from around the globe indicate that plenty is happening, and it's all bad. In addition to outbreaks of cannibal mites, vampire bats are taking abnormal migration paths and infecting humans with mad cow disease. Even worse, the disappearance of flies, mosquitoes, bees, lightning bugs, ants, butterflies and frogs point to a severe breakdown in the entire ecological system, heralding dire consequences of biblical proportions.
The demise of whole insect populations removes essential functions such as pollination, fungal control and organic decay. While rivers choke with rotting carcasses, crops wither from lack of pollination and uncontrolled fungal growth. Eventually scientists conclude that humanity's last chance may be to re-introduce insects by cloning the only ones now available--those preserved in amber from prehistoric times. But time is running out, and Homo sapiens may be next on the list of extinct species.
Nature's at war, and we're the enemy
If reading this book brings on a bout of deja vu, readers shouldn't be surprised. The insects encased in amber, the genetic cloning of ancient species, and tidy pronouncements like "Evolution is chaos with feedback" may sound a lot like Michael Crichton's famous book Jurassic Park--that's because it was Pellegrino's dinosaur cloning theory that Crichton used in Jurassic. But that's the only similarity between the two novels, and developments far more frightening than a rampant T-Rex are about to take shape in Pellegrino's book.
The story is based on a deceptively simple question--what would happen if all the insects in the world began to die? After centuries of fighting the pesky critters, humans finally get their wish when bugs mysteriously disappear. But just as with King Midas' gold, there is a horrible curse within the granted wish, and the absence of Earth's lowliest creatures has cataclysmic repercussions for the rest of the food chain.
Dust creates a contagious sense of urgency that builds as various characters try to discover how such a catastrophe could happen and what can be done to correct the problem. Although Pellegrino does ramble occasionally, it's a fault that can easily be forgiven because this is an "idea book" of the first magnitude. (In fact, it is so full of amazing anecdotes that the author includes an "afterword" that verifies facts presented within the story.) Vivid depictions of disaster, along with a nagging feeling that maybe this really could happen, combine to create a powerful and haunting statement about the importance of ecological balance on a very delicate planet.
I promise I'll never use bug spray again!
-- Susan
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War in Heaven
The son of a god must destroy the church that worships his father
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War in Heaven
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By David Zindell
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Bantam Books
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$5.99/$7.99 Canada
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Paperback, Jan. 1998
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ISBN 0-553-28967-5
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Review by Curt Wohleber
 anlo Ringess has a tough act to follow in his father, who is widely believed to have become a god. Worse yet, a fanatical new religion has emerged in the wake of Mallory Ringess' reputed godhood, and the "Ringists" have plunged the Civilized Worlds of the galaxy into a cataclysmic civil war. Fresh from saving the galaxy from a chain reaction of supernovas, Danlo now has to negotiate an end to the civil war. But he's no god, and not much of a diplomat either; he has enough trouble staying alive, much less securing galactic peace.
War in Heaven is the fourth installment in an intricate far-future saga begun in David Zindell's 1988 novel Neverness. This book sees Danlo return to his homeworld of Icefall and to the fabulous frozen city of Neverness, home to the Order of Mystic Mathematicians. The Order is an organization whose overall purpose is never clearly defined, but that appears to have a monopoly on high-tech goodies in a society where even personal telephones ("fones") are banned. But the generally benevolent order has come under the dire influence of the Ringists, headed by Hanuman li Tosh, once Danlo's closest friend and now a sworn enemy.
Danlo's bid for peace fails, of course, and Hanuman imprisons him. Fortunately, a group of dissident Ringists rescue Danlo from Hanuman's dark clutches. Having failed to broker peace through appeals to reason and kindness, Danlo tries Plan B, which requires Danlo to have himself surgically altered to look like a Neanderthal (don't ask; it's a long story).
As Danlo advances his plans to dethrone Hanuman, he struggles with his vow of ahisma, a commitment to never harm another living thing. He also takes the first steps toward a kind of godhood never before seen in a galaxy whose capricious gods are really nebula-sized super computers.
Sometimes less is more
Like the other books in the Neverness saga, War in Heaven is a mixed bag. Zindell crafts a good story and places it against a broad and colorful canvas. Hanuman is a tragic and memorable villain, and readers may find War a more satisfying read than its immediate predecessor, the rambling, picaresque The Wild.
Unfortunately, Zindell's writing too often gets in the way of his story. Oh, the man can write, sometimes beautifully, but he's no John Updike, or even a Gene Wolfe. Yet he seems to think he is. War in Heaven is overwritten, overlong and under-edited. Torrents of adjectives substitute for nuanced description. He repeats key words and phrases throughout the book--an effective device when used judiciously, but here it becomes a narrative stutter.
Zindell is at his best when he portrays people struggling for survival under terrible hardship and suffering: the fugitive Danlo encamped in the depths of a wilderness park, or hunting seals on a frozen ocean; a whole city wracked by hunger, resorting at the fringes to violence and cannibalism. His space battles, in which diamond-hulled warcraft rip holes in space to send their foes into the hearts of stars, evoke the stately carnage of Homer's Iliad. (Zindell's frequent use of extended similes might also be inspired by Homer, but someone should tell him to stop.)
The novel's many flaws would merely be a shame if War in Heaven were simply another bad space opera. But War in Heaven is a good book drowning in a sea of pretentious and ponderous prose. Zindell cripples an exquisitely powerful and moving scene by dragging it out several more pages than necessary. It's more than a shame. It's almost a tragedy.
For me, Zindell's books are sort of like the television series thirtysomething: I would grumble over all the narcissistic excesses, but I kept coming back for more.
-- Curt
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Cosm
Hard science leads to hard questions in Gregory Benford's latest book
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Cosm
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By Gregory Benford
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Avon Eos
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$23.00/$30.00 Canada
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Hardcover, Feb. 1998
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ISBN 0-380-97435-5
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Review by Clinton Lawrence
 licia Butterworth, a young African-American physics professor at the University of California-Irvine, has designed a new high-energy particle physics experiment. When she runs the experiment at Long Island's Brookhaven National Laboratory, however, a small explosion destroys her detectors. As she and her postdoctoral assistant Zak clear away the debris, they discover a strange spherical object. With Brookhaven's staff out of the room, Alicia decides to conceal the object and take it back to Irvine for further study.
Back at her lab, she and Zak discover that the object has some startling properties, including electromagnetic emissions indicative of black body radiation at a very high temperature and the ability to refract light. It appears to be a solid object, however, with a temperature comfortable to touch. Mystified, she decides she needs to find a theorist to help explain the object. No one at UCI seems to fit her needs, so she drives up to Caltech and meets Max Jalon.
It quickly become apparent that in addition to its strange properties, the sphere is undergoing changes. Using Alicia's data and a literature search, Max comes to an astonishing hypothesis. The sphere is a wormhole, but not to another part of our own universe; it's a window into a newly-forming universe. Furthermore, the new universe (or, at least, the way the wormhole displays it) is aging at a rate much faster than our own, and that rate is growing exponentially. Meanwhile, the authorities at Brookhaven have discovered Alicia's "theft" and are beginning legal proceedings to recover the sphere. As word of the incident leaks out, Alicia finds herself facing intense criticism in the press as well as condemnation from religious groups.
Scientific research and its social implications...
In Cosm, Gregory Benford simultaneously gives readers a wonderful scientific mystery and a window into the culture of physics research. Alicia's racial heritage gets some treatment, too, but Benford chooses an interesting perspective--Alicia is aware of it, but tries to ignore it as much as possible, preferring to concentrate on her physics research. In this respect, Benford gives readers an interesting portrait of obsession, one which ultimately threatens Alicia's career.
Benford also makes the science in his story both accessible and fascinating. At the end of the book, he presents a short essay explaining where the ideas came from, but his explanations within the novel are so clear that the essay is almost superfluous (interesting mostly for the descriptions of his contacts with real scientists mentioned within the novel). Cosm is one of the rare novels in which the focus is mostly on the scientific theory, but the personal and social implications of the science are fully explored as well.
While Alicia and Max just want to understand what the object is, Benford does a remarkably good job of presenting serious philosophical and religious issues fairly, while dealing with the more ignorant and outrageous (but realistic) reactions with appropriate dispatch. Overall, Cosm is an exciting, well-conceived novel that provides a fine showcase for Benford's talents. It's what hard science fiction should be, but too often isn't.
This is a thoroughly enjoyable novel, and not just for those who are fascinated by physics.
-- Clint
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