“Pure fun” is how astrophysicist and science fiction writer Greg Benford describes Paul Hodge’s Higher than Everest (Cambridge, 2001), a guide to the Solar System in terms of climbing and hiking feats.
He’s trekking through Time Travel in Einstein’s Universe by J. Richard Gott (Houghton Mifflin, 2001), “not just because it treats my work! It’s entertaining and fanciful as good theory can be.”
Benford plans to tackle a hot item in physics—extra dimensions—in his fiction, so he’s scrutinising early attempts by other authors, such as The Mathematical Magpie edited by Clifton Fadiman (Simon and Schuster, 1962). He’s also getting stuck…
