Borderlands of Science (Book)

Borderlands of Science

Written By : Charles Sheffield

The subtitle of this book is ‘How to Think Like a Scientist (and Write Science Fiction)’. I’m not sure that after you finish this book you will be able to do either, but you will have a good working knowledge of the latest concepts in cutting edge science.

Sheffield wrote this book as a reference for would be science fiction writers. It does not contain any information on writing technique or style but instead is a one stop shopping place for new story ideas and concepts. The book contains fourteen chapters, three of which are devoted to physics, one to chemistry and one to biology. There is an introductory chapter, a chapter on planetary studies, two on space flight and one each on computers, chaos theory and future war. A ‘Beyond Science’ chapter covers assorted topics that did not fit any where else and in the final chapter “The End of Science”, Sheffield takes on the belief that we are running out of scientific frontiers.

The book is very well written. Sheffield does a fine job presenting just the right amount of material for the layman without being condescending. He respects our intelligence but doesn’t assume that our backgrounds include a PHD in astrophysics. He uses math only when really necessary and walks us step by step through the relevant equations. After presenting each topic, he gives ideas of how they could be incorporated into a story and often references other works where the concept has already been explored.

This is a fun book. It gives an exciting tour of the current state of science and dabbles with ideas that are just around the corner. I found myself constantly looking ahead to see what the next chapter was going to discuss. If you read “Discover” and “Scientific America” you’ll probably be familiar with most of the subjects he covers but this is the first time that I have seen all of this information in one volume.

This is an excellent book and well worth reading if you plan on writing science fiction or if you just want to learn something about the frontiers of science.

10 out of 10 Stars

Posted by Al on 01/10/10 at 09:55 PM in Books