Cosmicomics
by Italo Calvino
|
List Price: Our Price: $6.57 You Save: $7.43 (53%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $3.60 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of Cosmicomics
Book Review: cosmic astonishment
Summary: 5 Stars
A perfect exposition of science fiction, Italo Calvino's Cosmicomics is a tender and dreamlike weaving of stories that touch upon the sheer wonder both the universe and consciousness itself. Calvino begins each story with an established scientific conjecture, thereafter placing an anthropomorphic and wildly fictitious annotation of the universe at various stages or for lack of a better word, times. Narrating from entities personified through equations and representations, predominantly through the central character Qfwfq, Calvino wistfully describes the universe through fleeting instances of love, attraction, loss, creation and change.
The stories range from the concrete to the fluid, including a time when reaching the moon is as simple as climbing a ladder, the astronomical paranoia induced from simple messages sent from distant observers and millennia, where a dinosaur ponders the significance, perhaps even the power of its own extinction, to the familial colloid particles, uncertain of their new inertia, being torn apart in the creation of matter and planets. Though all have a human feel, it is a joyous exposition of the unfathomable, alien events we cannot ponder enough.
The sentience that Calvino gives to the entities persisting and changing throughout Cosmicomics is an appreciation not only of the scientific beauty of the universe, but of the beauty of his fiction.
Book Review: A home in Cosmos
Summary: 5 Stars
Ever since our ancestors started looking into the night sky, the saw patterns and connections between the stars, moons and planets, and used stories and myths to imbue those patterns with meaning and structure. With the big hindsight of the scientific worldview, all those ancient stories may seem quaint and naïve. And indeed, the advent of modern astronomy and astrophysics has greatly enriched and deepened our understanding of the Cosmos. But these wonderful new insights should not be taken in opposition to our imagination when we stare in the sky. And this is the starting point of Italo Calvino's wonderful book "Cosmicomics." It is in a sense a variation on the theme of Cosmos. Each one of the chapters in the book takes a certain scientific fact about the Cosmos, its evolution and the present state, and turns it into an imaginative story with a deeply personal theme. The main protagonist, whimsically named Qfwfq, is present in many forms throughout history of the Cosmos and he narrates its main events through very personal eyes. Many of the stories are love stories of the most imaginative kind, which is not surprising since Calvino is known and excels at that genre. Overall this is a wonderful book that tries to reestablish a very human face of the Cosmos. I highly recommend it.Book Review: Mind-blowing...
Summary: 5 Stars
Prepare to read something you are not prepared for. This book will send you into realms of storytelling that seem impossible even as you read them. Cavort with "beings" who are present at the beginning of the universe and the big bang; be present at the moment someone (or something) plays with "a thing" for the first time. A review cannot do this book justice. It is utterly mind-blowing, beautiful, funny, and profound all at the same time. The writing is crystal clear (even in translation), which adds to the book's mystique. One of the best things about this book is the sheer impossibility of making a movie out of it. It exploits the best of what written stories can give us: imagination and the freedom to evoke our own mental imagery. The images floating through my head while I read this defy description. The stories themselves defy description (as I found out when trying to convince others to read it). Why can't more books be like this?Book Review: Very different
Summary: 4 Stars
These are not stories in the typical sense. Plot, character development, motivation, etc. aren't the main points here. Calvino takes certain astronomical ideas or theories and makes a story out of them. For instance, the big bang becomes a story about "people" all crammed together into one tiny point, who then explode outward into the universe, sometimes running into one another and discussing the old times. Some stories, such as "A Sign in Space," are so intellectual and devoid of physical action, that they are disappointing. Others, like "The Distance to the Moon," take a concept that is ludicruous and develop a good story out of it. These are not your regular stories--more like science fiction fairy tales. They are, I would guess, unlike anything you've read before and worth checking out.Book Review: Great literary beauty sabotaged by horrible attempts at pseudoscience
Summary: 1 Stars
This is a collection of short stories ``based on'' scientific theories. However, this attempt to give pseudo-scientific explanations/settings to all the stories, spoils the general fable-like literary beauty and charm of these stories. I don't claim that science-fiction should be held to the same standards of rigour and correctness as science itself, but stories that require suspension of disbelief (Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide or Lem's Cyberiad) should not try to explain things within the realm of ``actual'' science. Such stories can develop their own internal self-consistent logical systems, but if they try to connect to actual science then they merely become inconsistent. It is sad to see good literature being wrecked by bad science.