the future of fiction?

[Daniel Harper]

On Saturday 21 April 2007 08:37, Monte Davis wrote:
> > In the first hundred pages or so, there is no physics at all.
>
> There's scarcely more in the remainder of the book. The title is a fine
> invention -- it stuck in my mind long enough to make me to borrow the book
> from the library -- but not a good guide to the "contents."
>

Based on what I read, I thought "calamity physics" would refer to some tragedy 
that happened in the life of one of the characters, or to the narrator's 
"bouncing around" in her own life, around the country or whatnot. 

> Possibly amusing sidelight: yesterday at the publishing/gossip weblog
> GalleyCat, an item on Rivka Galchen's first novel "Atmospheric Disturbances
> and Other Meteorological Phenomena" sketches her whiz-kid credentials --
> English degree, medical degree in psychiatry, MFA, acting, etc -- and
> continues:
>
> "..it's both inevitable and sad that Galchen's book will likely garner the
> same backlash that greeted Marisha Pessl last summer. Because lord help you
> if you're young, female and want to write a - gasp! - novel of ideas that
> tries to bridge science and literature..."
>
> Hey, we wouldn't want any casual pigeonholing, would we? Except that the
> last line makes me wonder if the writer has actually *read* Pessl's book,
> or if the two books have anything in common except a sprinkle of science in
> their titles...

At first I got it confused with _A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines_. 
http://www.amazon.com/Madman-Dreams-Turing-Machines/dp/1400040302
Still unread by me, but looks more interesting than Pessl's book.

(If you don't mind responding off-group for the spoiler-averse, what exactly 
is the point of the novel? I am now strongly considering checking it out 
again, but I'd be interested in your perspective before trying it again.)

-- 
No reference to the present day is intended or should be inferred.
--Daniel Harper
countermonkey.blogspot.com