Great Mambo Chicken and the Transhuman Condition. Science Slightly Over the Edge

Regis, Ed

ISBN 10: 0670838551 / ISBN 13: 9780670838554

Published by Viking / Penguin Group, London, 1991

About this Item

First UK edition, first impression with full number line. Some slight edge wear to top and bottom of jacket and spine, corners slightly bruised, not price clipped (£16.99), no inscriptions, internally clean tight and square, overall a vg++ copy. 308pp. This book explores the work of scientists working at the edge of science on projects too ridiculous for science fiction. The 'Deathbusters' at Alcor Extension who will freeze your head for a price, building time machines, hatching plans for dismantling the sun, Evel Knievel and the private astronaut programme and, of course, the mambo chickens who spend their whole lives in intensified gravity and are built like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Here are Dave Criswell, who plans to recycle the stars to increase their energy efficiency, and Bob Forward, designer of time machines, the grey goo problem and a fifth dimensional hypervelocity space drive. A lighthearted look at scientific visionaries planning for a future with 'post-biological' people, space colonization, nanotechnology, and cryonics.

Seller Inventory # 006087

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Great Mambo Chicken and the Transhuman Condition. Science Slightly Over the Edge
• Publisher: Viking / Penguin Group, London
• Publication Date: 1991
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0670838551
• ISBN 13: 9780670838554
• Binding: Hardcover
• Illustrator: Jacket by Kevin O'Keefe
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Printing: 1st Printing
• Condition: Near Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine

About this title

Synopsis

Enter the gray area between overheated imagination and overheated reality, and meet a network of scientists bent on creating artificial life forms, building time machines, hatching plans for dismantling the sun, enclosing the solar system in a cosmic eggshell, and faxing human minds to the far side of the galaxy. With Ed Regis as as your guide, walk the fine line between science fact and fiction this free-wheeling and riotously funny tour through some of the most serious science there is.

Review

Sometimes a book has such a wonderful title that you assume the text could not be any good: but The Great Mambo Chicken is in fact a wonderfully rollicking masterpiece of scientific reportage about some of the wilder ideas being seriously considered by scientists "slightly over the edge" Regis describes the life and ideas of rocket scientists who would like everyone to have their own way into space, cryogenecists who hope to freeze people for revival in the future, nanotechnologists who want to build molecular robots to fix everything, and space colonists who want to build new worlds from the spare parts of the solar system -- and beyond. The most remarkable thing about the stories: Regis reveals that these seemingly disparate communities are all interwoven in unexpected ways. Even Evel Knievel makes a surprise visit in the chapter on personal rocket ships. Very Highly Recommended, and likely to become an Amazon.com Books customer favorite.