Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, December 5, 1993 TAG: 9312130300
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: D4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: reviewed by Larry Shield
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Since the publication of his popular ``A Brief History of Time,'' Stephen Hawking has become a media darling. He has been interviewed by all the major news magazines. He has consulted on a documentary motion picture based on his life and investigations. He has even played himself in a cameo role on ``Star Trek: The Next Generation.`` Now he offers a book of 13 essays, interviews, and lectures dated from 1976 - before the adulation. The essays and lectures are OK, but not up to the quality of Hawking's earlier books. This book reminds me of the cut-and-paste journalism which follows natural disasters. Sell a few books while the subject is hot. Hawking has more to offer than this anemic collection.
\ One Million. By Hendrik Hertzberg. Times Books. $14. (trade paper).
According to the cover notes, Hendrik Hertzberg is the executive editor of The New Yorker magazine. Little wonder the magazine is in trouble. This book (?) consists of 200 pages, each consisting of 5,000 dots counting from 1 to 1 million. on each page are a few anecdotal entries such as on page 107 - ``534,000 - Members in the Machinists Union in 1991.`` The purpose of the book is to give the reader a graphical representation what 1 million is. I suppose it succeeds, but save the 1,400 pennies and put them to better use. Try buying 14 lottery tickets, a much better way to try to understand 1 million.
The Last Hunt. By Horst Stern. Translated by Deborah Lucas Schneider. Random House. $18.
As this novella is a translation of a German text, when the title is not translated accurately, one can only wonder how the original manuscript read. The actual title is more correctly translated as ``Hunt Novel.'' The alteration to ``The Last Hunt'' and the jacket notes both imply that the book is being marketed as an anti-hunting polemic. More likely it is an allegory on the breakup of the Soviet Union using a hunt of an old, broken down bear by a West German banker.
The bear, located in an Eastern Bloc country, is lured to a hunt blind by baiting a trail with meat - not enough to sate the bear, but just enough to keep it coming. The banker pays $30,000 to the government for the privilege of shooting the bear as a trophy. His natural instincts dulled by hunger and easy access to meat, the bear walks into the sights of the waiting hunter and is shot. The kill is not clean, and the hunter realizes that trophies are no longer valid reasons for him to hunt.
A Russian once said of translations, ``Translations are like women. If they are beautiful they are not faithful, if faithful they are not beautiful.'' Save for the title, I fear this is a faithful translation - all the correct words but no lyricism.
War and Anti-War. By Alvin and Heidi Toffler. Little, Brown. $22.95
Certain authors have developed such reputations that they only have to put their name on a book for it to become quotable and ``important.'' After the publication of ``Future Shock,'' Alvin Toffler became such an author. Unfortunately this book, like others written after ``Future Shock,'' seems to be phoned in. The Tofflers' premise is that war has entered the information age, the ``Third Wave'' as discussed in Alvin Toffler's second book of the same name.
This book only rehashes tired arguments that the ability to wage war has outstripped the ability to control war. These arguments have been voiced since an arrow from a longbow first killed a ironclad knight. Nothing new here, but then there was nothing new in ``Future Shock,'' ``The Third Wave,'' or ``Powershift'' either.
Larry Shield trains dogs and horses in Franklin County.
by CNB