Book Review of "The Einstein Prophecy" By Robert Masello

I found it a little odd that Einstein would be used as a character in a supernatural mystery/thriller novel, but here it is. He plays kind of a secondary character, but a key one nonetheless.

The story involves the main protagonist: young army lieutenant Lucas Athan (formerly a college professor) and his accidental discovery of a sarcophagus from an Egyptian tomb. As with many Egyptian stories involving a sarcophagus, this one is no different in that there is a curse of sorts for any unfortunate soul who disturbs it.

The sarcophagus is delivered to Princeton New Jersey (think Raiders of the Lost Ark here), where Lucas is assigned to study it along with archaeologist Simone Rashid (his love interest). Princeton New Jersey of course is where Einstein and his good friend Kurt Godel are working together on the Manhattan Project (the project where the nuclear bomb technology was developed). The reader finds out that there is a supernatural connection between Einstein and this box (ossuary).

I know it sounds kind of far fetched, but somehow I found the story amusing more than thrilling. I liked the descriptions of Einstein and his work and his friendship with Godel. I also liked Lucas and Simone and how their relationship develops. The book was kind of weak on building tension, which is what a good thriller would do.

I liked the plot because it was not completely predictable. Sure the general plot can be guessed at, but the finer details are surprising, yet not too over the top. so, I enjoyed the flow of the book.

This book won't win any awards, but it is still an enjoyable read nonetheless.

Rating (out of 5 stars) ★★★☆☆

Book Review of "Foundation" By Isaac Asimov

After I finished listening to the Robot Series by Isaac Asimov, I thought I would delve into his other well known series "Foundation". The original series is 3 books, but this was later expanded into 5 or 6 books. Anyway, this is an interesting book. I didn't find it as good as the Robot series, because the Robot series deals with a question that seems more present than that problem which Foundation rests upon. In the robot series we are confronted with the question of how we deal with new technology (robots) and how do we deal with artificial intelligence (A.I.).

In any case, the real question (as I see it) posed by Asimov in Foundation is what are the long term prospects for the human race? Will we colonize other planets? Will the human race survive?While Asimov comes from a humanistic point of view he does explore the roles of politics, science and religion in his foundation series. That is the setting of the book. The galaxy has been colonized and organized into a galactic empire.

One scientist (a psycho-historian) named Hari Seldon predicts the end of the empire using the techniques developed in psycho-history; and he predicts how the decline can be reversed by the creation of a quasi-political entity called the Foundation. Each "Seldon crisis" (detailed predictions of what they will be facing (a crisis point that places the foundation in jeopardy) is an opportunity to see if Seldon has predicted correctly the crisis and has predicted a way out of it.

So the book goes like this: crisis, resolution, crisis, resolution, crisis, resolution. It sets the reader up for it's sequel.

Overall, I thought the book was good. But for me it lacked human interest on a character level. There is interest as far as humanity as a whole, but there was no clear interest or crisis in one particular character. There was focus on particular characters for brief periods, but the overall tenor of the book read like a history textbook: somewhat interesting, but certainly not riveting. The drama is created by the various crises, but this is on a very large scale. I did not become invested in any of the characters to any great degree.

I would rate this book 4 out of 5 stars.