So my folks finally got home last night from their nearly-two-week trip to visit relatives out of state.
We all piled in the van today to do some running around, and as usual I just had to go to the bookstore. :V
They didn't have the latest Doctor Who Magazine, yet... >>;
But here's what I did get:
The Science of Doctor Who by Paul Parsons
Almost fifty years after the Doctor first crossed the small screen, he remains a science fiction touchstone. His exploits are thrilling, his world is mind-boggling, and that time travel machine - known as the TARDIS - is almost certainly an old-fashioned police box, once commonly found in London.
Paul Parson's plain-English account of the real science behind the fantastic universe portrayed in the television series answers such burning questions as whether a sonic screwdriver is any use for putting up a shelf, how Cybermen make little Cybermen, where the toilets are in the TARDIS, and much more.
Taking the show as a starting point - episode-by-episode in some cases - Parsons dissects its scientific concepts. In addition to explaining why time travel is possible and just how that blue police box works, Parsons
- discusses who the Time Lords are and how we may one day be able to regenerate just like them
- ponders the ways that the Doctor's two hearts might work and introduces us to a terrestrial animal with five
- details the alien populations and cosmology of the Whovian Universe and relates them to what we currently know about our universe
- compares the robotics of the show with startlingly similar real-world applications
This slender, equation-free discussion is penned by a Ph.D. cosmologist and is ideal beach reading for anyone who loves science and watches the show - no matter what planet the beach is on.
The Summoner (Book One of the Chronicles of the Necromancer) by Gail Z. Martin
The world of Prince Martris Drayke is thrown into sudden chaos when his brother murders their father and seizes the throne. Forced to flee, with only a handful of loyal colleagues to support him, Martris must seek retribution and restore his father's honor. But if the living are arrayed against him, Martris must learn to harness his burgeoning magical powers and call on a different set of allies: the ranks of the dead.
The Summoner is an epic, engrossing tale of loss and revenge, of life and afterlife - and the thin line between them.
