Stephen White, Remote Control (Signet, 1997)

Remote Control is very much one of _those_ mysteries, the kind that makes you read a couple of paragraphs at every stoplight. (Please control the urge to read while driving.) By now, we should all be familiar with White's cast of characters (Remote Control is the fourth Alan Gregory, psychiatrist-turned-don't-wanna-be-detective, novel) and his method of dropping loads of bricks on us when we're not looking, and slipping the clues in while we're still rubbing our head and cursing the building contractors. This time around, White gives us a self-absorbed technowhiz entrepreneur, a law-student intern with a recently-dead Senator father who falls head over heels for him, his abrasive partner, and a parallel thread running through the novel at the end of everything, where Alan's wife Lauren is being interrogated for the shooting of an unidentified man. Problem is, no one, including Lauren, is sure she actually shot the guy.

Yes, it all comes together perfectly (think Memento, except that both threads are moving forward-- one just moves more slowly than the other). White is one of those guys who writes good, clean, fun mysteries that are on the level of the big guns, but never gets the press they do. If you haven't yet picked up a Stephen White novel, give him a shot next time the New York Times Bestseller types are between books. *** 1/2

I got a prerelease copy of this book, and read it in two nights. It was very suspenseful, and a very god read. After reading it, I went and found all of the other Stephen White books and read them. The only unfortunate thing is that he has only written five books. But, they are very good. They remind me of my favorite series, the Dismas Hardy books of John Lescroart. Very good, highly recommended

I have read all of Stephen White's books, and this is the best one yet. I could hardly believe it when I reached the end. I began reading the book and then "boom" it was over and I don't think I had taken a breath during the whole thing. The main characters were all familiar from his previous books, but this time they were like old friends and not just names on a page. The plot of the book, which involves high tech use of computer and the abuse heaped by the press on celebrities, is timely and intriguingly combined. Hats off to White and I hope that he hurries his next Allen Gregory book along.

An astonishingly successfull attempt to take a one-page idea and repeat it enough to create an entire book. The author's premise is valid: Human beings who have looked at the earth from space return with a different view of of our planet not only literally, but philosophically as well. However, rather than expand on this idea, he simply repeats it. Page, after page, after page. I stuck with the book hoping the last section containing interviews with space travelers would redeem the work, but each interview was merely a copy of the first, which went something like this: "When I first glimpsed the earth from space, I was overwhelmed with its beauty. I gained a sense of how everything on earth was interconnected, and I knew I would never look at life the same way again". Save your money, and read this review a couple of hundred times for the same "Overview Effect" as you would receive from the book.

A must read for any aspiring space hero.
Get inspired. Get in action.

Edition 2 features interviews with Female space explorers as well.

Primarily a history of an impressive project to analyse the layers of snow fall on the Greenland ice cap, the book suffers from lack of focus and from unfortunate efforts at being easily approachable and topical. It is strongest at revealing the influence of variation in earth's orbit on local Greenland (and nearby North American) climate, but even here the information is presented hurriedly and one comes away knowing little more of the various climaticaly significant orbital changes the data reveals.

At it's weakest point however, there is a sad attempt to relate the ice core data to global warming. This could be parodied as "there is no evidence of recent dramatic global warming in the ice core data, therefore global warming exists." To be kinder, the author feels "since I know global warming exists from other sources, the lack of data supporting global warming in my ice cores means this must be an entirely new sort of warming." There clearly is an easier explanation.

If you're interested in global warming and climate change, you're probably aware of how politicized the area has become, and how much hot air has been spewed by proponents and opponents of the idea that we humans are changing the climate, perhaps to a dangerous or catastrophic degree. In The Ice Chronicles, climatologist and arctic explorer Paul Mayewski and author Frank White bring cooler heads and cold, hard facts to the controversy.

The book, published in the fall of 2002, centers on the findings from the two-mile long ice core that Mayewski's team pulled from the center of the Greenland Ice Cap. This ice core, labeled GISP2, allowed scientists to track a wide range of climate variables in exquisite detail over the past 100,000 years. It produced many important findings that can help clarify the highly politicized climate controversy. The core reveals that Earth's climate is far from steady. Even without any contributions from manmade greenhouse gasses, ozone-depleting chemicals or particulates, regional and global conditions have swung from hot to cold and wet to dry many times, often with dramatic suddenness. Mayewski repeatedly makes the point that the climatologically calm, benign Holocene--the time period during which human civilization appeared and has developed--is a myth. The ten millennia or so since the end of the most recent ice age have been marked by two large global climate shifts, the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warm Period, and many less drastic but still potent changes. He also presents intriguing evidence that some of these changes contributed to the downfall of several ancient civilizations, including the Mesopotamian Empire around 1200 BC, the Mayan Civilization around 900 AD, and the Norse colonies in Greenland around 1400 AD.

My only real criticism of the book is that it may present more of the nitty gritty history and findings of the GISP2 project than most readers want or need. Still, most of this is put into boxes which readers can dive into or skip as they choose.

While the research findings and their implications are fascinating, perhaps the most important contribution the authors make is their perspective. The data Mayewksi himself uncovered show that the climate is a complicated and sensitive system, pushed from regime to regime by a variety of natural forces. But Mayewski is equally clear that human activities, most notably the marked and well-documented increases in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses, have joined the party, and must be considered in order to understand current conditions or predict future climate change. And he is clear that unless we take sensible steps to reduce our impacts on the system, we risk not just global warming and whatever changes that would bring, but increased climactic instability and unpredictability. To the authors' credit, they attempt to bring some calm into the climate debates by propounding ten realistic, commonsense principles. The reflect that, "No matter what we do, the climate will change." But they also admonish, "We should strive more for climate predictability than control," and "If we cannot have global control of climate policy, we must at least have global cooperation."

The Ice Chronicles is well worth reading, both for the hard-won scientific facts it presents and explains so clearly, and for the constructive, down-to-earth perspective it provides.

Robert Adler, author of Science Firsts: From the Creation of Science to the Science of Creation. (John Wiley & Sons, September 2002).

Too bad about this book....Great topic, some good pics, but the author just ran the subject into the ground. I don't think he could connect two thoughts if his life depended on it, so to make up for it, he simply spilled out every mundane detail he could dig out about Frank Kurtis and/or his cars. There is a lot of good primary stuff here, but the author did a lousy job of historiography in distilling it into a concise, engaging story.

The pictures COULD have been awesome, but they are not. Many look like they were photocopies or bad digitals that were reproduced. I am surprised the publisher even considered them...in any case, it contributed to the overall fact that the book is a pile. It really is too bad. This is a very cool period of racing and an interesting, albeit, not crucial, part of the history. The neatest thing about the book is the cover. It will look darn nice on your shelf if you end up with a copy. You will like the pictures, but don't try to decipher the author's ramblings. It will only turn you against Frank Kurtis and his very cool cars.

This is book full of cool pictures of cool cars. I really like these early roadsters, so I buy everything I can about them. I have to agree with the other review, though, the writing in this really is bad. There are so many cool pictures, though, that they make up for the writing. If you like roadsters and already know a good deal about them, buy the book. If you are a first timer looking for an introduction to the history, this one probably isn't for you.

I was not impressed with this book. As I read through the book the first thing I noticed was the lack of creativity in the usuage of the word "said." On one page there were five lines of dialogue each with: said Frank or said Louey. As I was reading, the word "said" seemed too repetitive. As a middle school grade teacher I could use this book to teach that a variety of words makes the story less monotonous. It would be a challenge to see how many ways we could replace the word "said" and still mantain the story line. Also, the line, "Save me," said Frank. "Water's in my nose. I can't see.", caused some concern for me. What does water in the nose have to do with seeing. I am sure the author meant, "I have water in my nose and also, I can not see."
There are a lot of "great" books out there, and I didn't feel The Adventures of Louey and Frank was one of them.