Radiance

New York: Picador, 2003. First printing, Trade paperback, Fine,. David Rotstein. New York: Picador:, 2003. First printing, Trade paperback, Fine, 400 pp. Cover artwork by: David Rotstein Scolz has done some interesting stuff, and I like the way this sounds. "Out of the desire to be safe from nuclear weapons comes a program to build a shield against them. A brilliant and detailed expose of the way in which the bright hopes and dreams of talented scientists are turned on the grindstone of political expediency until all that remains are the rough deceptions of self and nation." Might be a bit too real. Philip Quine, a physicist working on a missile defense project, must legitimize his work. He deals not only with fellow scientists but with government officials and bureaucrats. As a result ". . . he is drawn into a maelstrom of policy meetings, classified documents, petty betrayals, interrupted conversations, missed meetings, unanswered voicemail, stolen data, and pornographic files. Amid all the noise and static of the late twentieth century made manifest in weapons and anti-weapons, human beings have set in motion a malign and inhuman reality, which is now beyond their control."