Subject: REVIEW: "Richter 10", Arthur C. Clarke/Mike McQuay

From: "Rob Slade, doting grandpa of Ryan and Trevor" <[email-masked]>
Date: 13 Aug 1998 14:14:22 -0400

"Richter 10" by Arthur C. Clarke/Mike McQuay
	Review Copyright 1998 Robert M. Slade

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.

%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 [email-masked]
%P   407 p.
%T   "Richter 10"