Tag Archive: Books

A good story makes the product better

marketersOkay, this isn’t my own, it’s an excerpt from a new book called All Marketers Are Liars by Seth Goldin. The excerpt appeared in the May 2005 issue of Fortune: Small Business, so I’m not sure if it’s exactly what will appear in the final book (to be published this month). But, since it relates to my career, and I liked it, I’m just posting it. By the way, the rest of the excerpt is truly fascinating – look for the book in stores soon!

Georg Riedel is a fibber—an honest spinner of tales. He tells his customers something that isn’t true—his wineglasses make wine taste better—and then the very act of believing it makes the statement true. Because drinkers believe the wine tastes better, it does taste better.

Georg is a tenth-generation glass blower, an artisan pursuing an age-old craft. I’m told he’s a very nice guy. And he’s very good at telling stories. His company makes wineglasses (also whiskey glasses, espresso glasses, and even water glasses). He and his staff fervently believe that there is a perfect (and different) shape for every beverage. According to Riedel’s website, “The delivery of a wine’s ‘message,’ its bouquet and taste, depends on the form of the glass. It is the responsibility of a glass to convey the wine’s messages in the best manner to the human senses.”

Thomas Matthews, the executive editor of Wine Spectator magazine, said, “Everybody who ventures into a Riedel tasting starts as a skeptic. I did.” The skepticism doesn’t last long. Robert Parker Jr., the king of wine reviewers, said, “The finest glasses for both technical and hedonistic purposes are those made by Riedel. The effect of these glasses on fine wine is profound. I cannot emphasize enough what a difference they make.” Parker and Matthews and hundreds of other wine luminaries are now believers (and as a result, they are Riedel’s best word-of-mouth marketers). Millions of wine drinkers around the world have been persuaded that a $200 bottle of Opus One (or a bottle of Two-Buck Chuck) tastes better when served in the proper Riedel glass.

Yet when tests are done scientifically—double-blind tests that eliminate any chance that the subject would know the shape of the glass—there is absolutely zero detectable difference among glasses. A $1 glass and a $20 glass deliver precisely the same impact on the wine: none.

So what’s going on? Why do wine experts insist that the wine tastes better in a Riedel glass at the same time that scientists can easily prove it doesn’t? The flaw in the experiment, as outlined by Daniel Zwerdling in Gourmet magazine, is that the reason the wine tastes better is that people believe it should. This makes sense, of course. Taste is subjective. Riedel sells millions of dollars’ worth of glasses every year. It sells glasses to intelligent, well-off wine lovers, who then proceed to enjoy their wine more than they did before. Marketing, in the form of an expensive glass and the story that goes with it, has more impact on the taste of wine than oak casks or fancy corks or the rain in June. Georg Riedel makes your wine taste better by telling you a story.

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Pop My Cherry

Outlet Radio Network
October 13, 2004

Pop My Cherry

Sorry, that was just to get your attention.

I’m on a bit of a mission. It’s somewhat casual, I can’t say I’m devoting a huge amount of time to it. But nonetheless, it’s a mission. I want to bring back the popularity of Maraschino. The liqueur, not the cherry. In fact, I find no excuse for the cherry.

That’s not entirely true. There is an excuse for the cherry, but that’s all it is, an excuse. Originally, maraschino cherries were made from various wild European sour cherries. They were steeped in Maraschino liqueur for days on end, much like brandied cherries are now. Packed in jars, they were shipped off to the wilds of gay Paree, where, in the late nineteenth century, they were all the rage.

Then came Prohibition. Another example of our country carrying a joke too far, something, as I keep reminding you, we’re quite good at. Somehow these wonderful, wild, sour, European cherries that had spent their days lazily floating about in liqueur were converted into what is, simply, an abomination. Some minion of evil, unknown to me, took sweet cherries, pickled them overnight in salt, sugar and alum to bleach them, then soaked them in red food coloring and a sugar solution to produce the vivid vermillion balls we now find sunken in our drinks. So that’s the excuse.

To finish off with the cherries themselves. Try making your drinks with brandied cherries, which are readily available in fine food shops. You’ll be surprised at how much more interesting they are. Even better, if you’re making drinks at home, make your own. It’s not that hard to put a bunch of cherries in a jar and fill it with brandy… or better yet, the original, Maraschino liqueur, and let them soak for a few weeks.

Which brings us back to my mission. It was a serendipitous find, this liqueur. Well, sort of. You see, I was reading a novel of historical fiction – a fascinating book, Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson. The details of the book are irrelevant, but there was a passage in the book where two of the characters pop open a tin of caviar. A discussion ensues in which one asserts that the typical vodka or champagne accompaniments are just plain wrong, and that the original drink that the czars of Russia imbibed with good caviar, was a good shot of chilled Maraschino.

I had to try it. My friends and I were stunned at how well the two went together. The slightly bitter, slightly sweet, intensely cherry flavored liqueur balanced perfectly against the briny, crunchy sturgeon roe. It was a match made in heaven. Not that I eat much in the way of caviar on my budget, but I doubt I’ll ever have anything else with caviar again.

Which led me to explore this liqueur. Again, once wildly popular, it has for the most part become one of those bottles on the back bar, or even hidden away, or even non-existent, at most drinking establishments. To the best of my knowledge only two brands are currently imported to the United States, though they are by no means the only ones made. Luxardo and Stock. The former is probably the most recognizable – coming in a thin green glass bottle, the lower two-thirds covered in wicker. The Stock is slightly sweeter, and has a less interesting bottle. The Luxardo has a touch more of that bitter note.

Maraschino is a clear liqueur made from marasca cherries. These are grown throughout the Dalmatian coast area, i.e., Croatia and Istria. The liqueur is made from both the juice of the cherries and the essence of the crushed cherry pits, which is where the hint of bitterness comes from.

There are dozens upon dozens of old cocktail recipes (and here and there new ones) that make use of this spirit. Any good bar book will direct you to several, the top bartending websites like Webtender and DrinksMixer list, respectively, 49 and 117 cocktail recipes that make use of it. I recommend it. I urge you to try it. Oh just go out and buy a bottle, throw it in the freezer, buy a tin of good caviar, and serve shots alongside. You won’t be disappointed.

Boomerang

2 ounces of dry gin
½ ounce of dry vermouth
2 dashes of bitters
½ ounce of Maraschino

Shake these ingredients with ice. Strain into a martini glass where you will delight to the beautiful soft peach color. Garnish with a proper cocktail cherry, i.e., either a homemade Maraschino cherry as discussed above, or a brandied cherry.

Wine picks for this column:

Cantina Nalles & Magre Niclara Pinot Bianco, 2003

Pinot Bianco, or Pinot Blanc, is one of my favorite white grapes. In the hands of a skilled winemaker it somehow seems to combine the steeliness and dryness of a good Pinot Grigio with the delicious aromatics of a Pinot Noir. Not surprising, since all three come from the same family of grapes. This is one of those delicious examples. My only disappointment – the wine in former vintages used to come in a bottle with a beautiful label adorned with a Venetian print, and was called “Lucia”. Now it comes with a somewhat ordinary label with a little countryside scene, reminiscent of a dozen other producers’ wines from the Alto Adige area of Italy. Still, the wine is a find. Pair this up with spicy preparations of seafood, vegetarian dishes or lighter meats. From Village Wine Imports, 212-673-1056. Around $10.

El Chaparral de Vega Sindoa, 2002

Spain, and the Navarra area in particular, is the current source of many of the new, hot wines hitting the market these days. It is worth your time and effort to explore as many of these as you can. This particular gem has been a favorite vintage after vintage, and the new release of the 2002 is no exception. Made from old vine Garnacha (Grenache) grapes, this is a concentrated flavors of raspberries and slightly sour cherries, peppery, simply stunning glass of wine. This is a great wine to go with grilled and smoked foods, or just to have on its own. From Jorge Ordonez’ Fine Estates from Spain, 781-461-5767. Around $12.


I started writing food & wine columns for the Outlet Radio Network, an online radio station in December 2003. They went out of business in June 2005.

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Read All About It

Outlet Radio Network
September 29, 2004

Read All About It

I confess. I am a packrat. Not your traditional packrat who collects bits and pieces of everything under the sun and sticks it somewhere. I don’t have piles of old newspapers laying about the house. I have cookbooks. I like to think that I’m a collector, and I may claim that in my stronger moments, but in truth, any cookbook will do. And, I read them. Cover to cover.

Every year a few cookbooks come out that are dedicated to a specific ingredient. Sometimes that ingredient is loosely defined – books on cooking mushrooms, cooking with olive oils, cheese primers, different sorts of eggs, etc. But the most fascinating to me are those that focus in on something specific and, preferably, exotic. One such book arrived from the publisher recently and I thought I’d share it.

The Breadfruit Cookbook : The Ulu Cookbook
Fae Hirayama

It is the rare person in most of our circles who knows what Ulu is. We might perhaps know it as breadfruit, but even there it is likely to be something we’ve only heard about and never tried. Fae Hirayama wants us to know more. She has packed together an amazing collection of recipes that use breadfruit in ways traditional and modern in this spiral-bound softcover. The Breadfruit Cookbook includes 115 recipes and several pages of information on how to prepare ulu.

Fae has also thrown in tidbits about breadfruit, and a bit of history of its use, and the tiniest soupçon of information on her family’s use of this ingredient. Her website (www.ulucookbook.com) does much the same and includes links to scientific and nutritional references on this useful and delicious fruit. In the end, it is a delightful collection of recipes, and useful for that. The few recipes that I tried were well written and produced the promised results.

I do wish it was a more “readable” book. There is little in it about Fae herself, or her family, something that would have made it a more interesting read. All in all, however, it is worth the price ($17.95) for the lover of the unusual and exotic. It appears to be self-published, and for that she must be commended. Copies are available via the website listed above.

The Dancing Gourmet: Recipes to Keep You on Your Toes!
Linda Hymes

There are dancers out there whose bodies I look at and think “wow”! There are others who are so emaciated they could pass for refugees from some famine-wracked region. Linda Hymes, a dancer herself, claims that dancers who are thin are thin because they exercise. Not their diet.

To bolster her point she has written a cookbook based on her own personal menus, and the book, at least, certainly doesn’t reflect a weight loss regimen. Ranging far and wide, The Dancing Gourmet has recipes from snacks to desserts and every course in between, with selections that cover the globe.

Hymes certainly has the quailifications to write this book. She spent fifteen years as a professional dancer and then attended and graduated the culinary program at Le Cordon Bleu in London. She is clearly a talented writer, and I enjoyed reading through passages that cover snippets of a dancer’s life as well as her creative process in the kitchen. The book is also beautifully illustrated with photographs, both food and dance related.

While definitely not a “diet” book, as pointed out, the cuisine is oriented towards the healthy end of the spectrum. The recipes are easy to follow and for the most part simple to prepare. All-in-all this is a winning book, even if the cover price of $26 is a bit steep for the length and content.

The Renaissance Guide to Wine and Food Pairing
Tony DiDio & Amy Zavatto

One of my favorite people in the wine business, not to mention a good friend, is the co-author of a new book just out on my favorite topic, food and wine pairing. I’m always delighted to see people offer good advice on the subject, especially when they do it well. Renaissance Guide to Wine & Food Pairing fits the bill admirably.

Now, I’m not just saying this because I actually rated an entire paragraph in the book (page 63). In fact my billing as some sort of master of the Grrranimals approach to food and wine gave me pause for a moment. But I think it’s a good thing.

This book is a great read for anyone interested in wine, especially if they plan to actually drink it with meals. It is a series of interviews with top chefs and sommeliers from around New York City and some wonderful winemakers. These are interwoven with an in-depth look at the basics of how to approach matching food and wine, how to taste wine, and basic shopping advice for both wine shops and restaurants.

Tony DiDio and Amy Zavatto have written a book that is easy to follow and covers the field without becoming pedantic or serious. It makes the topic fun and interesting, and makes it clear that the entire field is a matter of opinion, and this particular book is one man’s opinion, but welcomes readers to form their own.


I started writing food & wine columns for the Outlet Radio Network, an online radio station in December 2003. They went out of business in June 2005.

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President’s Month Dinner

20040208
An obvious theme here, February, and a quartet of president’s birthdays, albeit only two of which we celebrate in the U.S. as official holidays. I know I have a copy of The First Ladies Cookbook: Favorite Recipes of all the Presidents of the United States in my library, and it’s probably something I picked up at random on a sale table at somewhere like The Strand, and so for three of the presidents was the inspiration behind the choices of dishes (when the book was published, Reagan hadn’t yet been president).

Second Sunday Supper Circle
President’s Month Dinner
The First Ladies Cook Their Husbands’ Favorite Dishes
February 8, 2004

Ronald Reagan (February 6, 1911)

   Onion Wine Soup
   N.V. Mumm Napa Blanc de Noirs

Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809)

   Scalloped Oysters
   2002 J Pinot Gris

William Henry Harrison (February 9, 1773)

   Pan-Roasted Duck Breasts with Applejack Sauce
   Fresh Corn Cakes
   1978 Green & Red Zinfandel “Chiles Canyon”

George Washington (February 22, 1732)

   Trifle
   1997 Macari “Essencia”

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A Chilly Dinner

20040111
An odd sort of dinner, I can’t look at it and see any real theme to it, not even particularly related to the season, or being the start of the new year, or even a coherence to the menu. Perhaps the choice of caviar as a starting course was a celebratory one. I have for years maintained that the choice to pair the fish eggs with the iced Maraschino (not the disgusting, vermilion sweet cherries, but the slightly bitter, intense liqueur) was a page out of, one of my favorite sci-fi authors, Neal Stephenson’s Quicksilver, where one of his characters is describing it as a far better match than caviar and champagne. The timing fits, the book was published in mid to late 2003, so I’d likely just read it, but I’ve just done a word search through my ebook version of the tome and not found it. There is a caviar eating scene in his book Cryptonomicon, but no Maraschino mentioned. So I’m at a loss now to recall where I read the scene. Nonetheless, at the time, I decided to give it a try, and it’s actually quite true – it’s an amazing combination. Where whomever wrote it got the idea from, I have no idea, it’s not something that I’ve encountered anywhere else in gastronomic literature (or any other literature for that matter).

Second Sunday Supper Circle
January 11, 2004

Beluga Caviar
Iced Maraschino

Nectarine & Fennel Salad; Rose Dressing
Edi Kante Chardonnay, 1996

Chicken Giblet & Root Vegetable Ragout; Wild Rice
Villa di Capezzana Carmignano Riserva, 1990

Cheese Plate:
Mountain Gorgonzola; Dark Chocolate
Oka; Chestnut Confiture
Aged Manchego; Fig Jam
Mayacamas Cabernet Sauvignon, 1973

Indian Pudding
Pineapple Guava White Tea

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Dot, Dot, Dot

Space Frontier News
Space Frontier Society
A Chapter of the National Space Society
April 1995
Vol. 6, No. 4
Page 2

The View From Missive Control
by Dan Perlman, Editor

Pale Blue Dot:
A Vision of The Human Future in Space
By Carl Sagan
Random House
429 pages, $35.00

The “Pale Blue Dot”, of course, is our own planet Earth. Viewed, as the text points out, by Voyager 2 from beyond the orbit of Neptune. Actually Mr. Sagan repeats this theme in various guises throughout the book. I suppose without us each having the opportunity to head into space and look back for the visceral effect, he hoped to drive home the point through repetition. We’re a really small planet in the back end of nowhere. Oh, and we’re pale blue.

This, however, may be the only true negative of the entire book. The text is easy to read and will probably be fascinating for any reasonably intelligent human interested in space exploration. It focuses primarily on the Voyager missions, but doesn’t neglect other forays throughout our solar system. This may be the best “lay” book on the outer planets to have yet been published.

Neatly arranged, he starts us from the early days of civilization and the wonder of the stars. After making sure a couple of times that we’re clear on our place in the scheme of things, he moves us through the basics of space exploration and the detection of life, sentient and otherwise. Then Mr. Sagan leads us on a breathtaking tour of Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune, their associated moons, the asteroids, swoops back in for a detailed look at Venus and Mars, explores the possibilities of terraforming, colonization, mining, asteroid deflection, and a few dozen other things. Then he winds up with a philosophical look at our future in space, reminds us once again that we’re on a a pale blue dot in the middle of the backwoods, and refers us on to other books to read.

Most impressive, however, is the illustration work. Mr. Sagan has collected together some of the most beautiful photos and paintings of our neighboring planets and galaxies to have ever been put in one public place. At least that didn’t require driving or flying somewhere and paying an admission charge. If for nothing else, this book is worth the cover price on the basis of the sheer pleasure of flipping through the pages. This is a book no noe should be embarrassed to say, “I just look at the pictures.”

The book is printed on glossy stock, so it’s hefty to hold. But somehow, this gave me a feeling that I was reading something solid and worthwhile. Not to mention the added class it gave to the artwork. One may or may not agree with Carl Sagan’s opinions, arguments and conclusions, but he does a damned fine job of presenting them.

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Do You Know the Way to Cygni A?

Space Frontier News
Space Frontier Society
A Chapter of the National Space Society
November 1994
Vol. 5, No. 9
Page 7

Do You Know the Way to Cygni A?
by Dan Perlman, Editor

The Millennial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps
by Marshall T. Savage
Little, Brown and Company
$16.95 softcover, 508 pages

Colonizing the galaxy in eight easy steps sounds like the sort of book that Time-Life would issue in the middle of a twenty-three volume series. You now, fixing your pipes, building bookshelves, wiring your VCR, colonizing the galaxy. And in some ways, this book lives up to that how-to genre. Except that it is, for the most part, completely speculative.

I should start by saying, I liked this book. I really liked this book. Like Arthur C. Clarke, who wrote the book’s introduction, I am awed by Marshal Savage’s depth of knowledge in the worlds of engineering, astronomy and physics. But, even more, I am awed that someone sat down and came up with a plan this big. Like, really, really, really big.

In nine easy to read chapters, Mr. Savage takes us through colonizing the oceans, building workable launch facilities, creating habitable space ecospheres, constructing moon colonies, terraforming Mars, colonizing the solar system, and moving on to the stars. Then he takes us right back to right now and the establishment of a foundation to make it all possible. Three hundred and eighty four pages of text, plus appendices, and I enjoyed every minute of reading it.

Now, that said, I’m going to tell you waht I didn’t like about the book. First, a pet peeve. I hate endnotes. Seven hundred and twenty seven times I was prompted by superscript numbers to flip to the back of the book and read through forty nine pages of endnotes. Needless to say, I shortly gave up and just waited till I was done with the text to go read the notes. Endnotes should be saved for information that is useful only for those who want to delve deeper into a given subject. Unfortunately, many of the notes here give details that are important to understanding the text. Then again, many do not, such as note 22, which, I quote, “Including seaweed.” This, couldn’t have just been put in the main body of the book?

Second, we all know the old adage about statistics. I’m not an engineer, I’m not a scientist, I’m and editor and chef. But I did take several courses in statistics and numerous courses in mathematics while in college. Mr. Savage is a master at using statistics to prove his point at any given moment. My favorite is his proof that there is no life anywhere else in the universe besides here on Earth. He may be right, he may be wrong. But (reducing the numbers here to something usable in this column), something which has a chance of 1 in 100 of occurring does not mean that you have to go through 100 trials before it happens. This is “you always find your keys in the last place you look” taken to extremes.

There is also the controversy over the existence of alien life itself. This is neither a positive nor negative of the book, but much as the argument used by someone like Carl Sagan (x number of planets around y number fo stars with z number of chances of life.. etc.) is easily shown to be, shall we say, overly optimistic; the converse, or, there’s no other life because we haven’t seen it yet, is equally specious.

Mr. Savage argues, after first asserting throughout this book that we humans are somehow the pinnacle of sentient development, that if life existed on other planets it would be so far ahead of us that we’d either see it in the transformation of galaxies, or been contacted by now. Who says? We could be ahead of the game, we could be even with the pack. Or, he could be right.

Last, is purely stylistic again. There are more bad puns, ludicrous plays on words, and silly jokes in this book than in a Xanth novel. Not to mention the constant use of works of fiction, television shows, movies and mythology as illustrations of either the way it is or the way it will be. Sure it helps for speculation to use other folks’ speculations, but many of his reference materials were never intended to be considered seriously – e.g., The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy!? Speaking of which, Marshall, for those of us who consider this work on a spiritual level with the Bhagavad Gita, the character’s name is Zaphod Bebblebrox, not Zeyphod Beebelbrox. And, he’s the President of the Universe. Okay?

Now, back to what I really liked about this book. There are no illusions here about what it’s going to take to accomplish this Brobdingnagian task. Mr. Savage presents everything laid out ina potentially reasonable timeline (though I think it will take longer to really get started than he does, once the project is truly underway, he’s probably right on track). He gives step by step instructions through currently existing technology, which gets us through a good chunk of the first two stages of the project, and then uses what appears to be sound reasoning as to what it will take to proceed beyond. He is also clear that life in space, the pioneering of new worlds, the initially artificial environments, and the changes in humanity itself that will be necessary, are not for everyone.

The illustrations and artwork make much of the text come clear. Beyond that, his descriptions of each phase of the project, while often sounding like a Madison Avenue pitch for condominium timeshares, are clear, concise, and either in spite of, or perhaps because of this style, exciting and enticing to read. Mr. Savage has an excellent command of the English language, and more than once I found myself building a better vocabulary through reading, and turning to the dictionary.

But most important is his vision. Mr. Savage is a dreamer. Not a dreamer in the everyday sense of the word. His is no dream of what somebody might do someday if it all goes somehow right. Instead, it is a dream of hope for humanity, and a plan of action for taking us to the starts. I may just apply for the chef’s job in Anlagen – after all, even pioneers need to eat.

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Hyperspace

Space Frontier News
Space Frontier Society
A Chapter of the National Space Society
May 1994
Vol. 5, No. 3
Page 8

Hyperspace
by Dan Perlman, Editor

“listen, there’s a hell of a good universe next door; lets go.” – e.e. cummings

I was going to claim that I now completely understand the theories of general and special relativity, quantum mechanics and superstrings and am now ready to formulate The Theory of Everything. It isn’t, however, quite true. On the other hand, after reading and thoroughly enjoying Michio Kaku’s book Hyperspace, I can at least claim to have a better understanding than what my college physics professors left me with. (To be fair, nobody was really talking about superstrings then, so I can’t really blame them for that part.)

The book is subtitled “A Scientific Odyssey Through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and the 10th Dimension.”With all the news stories about black holes, wormholes, and holes in the fabric of space-time, I thought it was about time to find out just what the (w)hole hype was about. Kaku, who is a professor of Theoretical Physics at the City College of City University of New York, manages to take this intriguing and complex set of subjects and somehow make it all seem quite reasonable, really.

The book is clearly written for lay folk. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist, figuratively or literally, in order to follow him through fields of wavering quarks. Kaku has a warped sense of humor that he brings not only to his descriptions and demonstrations, but also swings around point-blank on the history, egos, secretiveness and pomposity that surrounds much of the work of theoretical physics.

Using a medium that is, for all practical purposes, two-dimensional, a sheet of paper and ink, he unfolds first one and then another dimension of space-time and lays it out for our inspection. By the time I finished the first section, “Entering the Fifth Dimension,” I not only felt I had a clear grasp, for the first time in my life, on the theories of relativity, but I was also using terms like “blue-shift,” “hyperdougnut” and “scalar particle”in polite conversation.

The one negative I found in the book was in the second section, “Unification in Ten Dimensions,”where Kaku slipped a bit on the layperson approach. For some of the quantum brambles that he wanders through, he seems to assume that the reader has a basic working knowledge of leptons, mu-neutrinos and just exactly what SU(N) symmetry is. I found myself a bit bogged down in flipping back and forth to short explanations in the endnotes (an anathema to any reader – footnotes are so much easier to refer to), and having to reread passages. If one were psychologically inclined, one might assume that Kaku doesn’t really like a lot of quantum theory….

Luckily, he jumps back in with both feet, a smile and a “how-de-do” when he gets to superstrings, black holes and the possibility of other universes in “Wormholes: Gateway to Another Universe?” Whether he’s talking time travel, the existence of God, wrinkles in space, or wave functions of creation, he’s back on solid ground, and so is the reader – which, given the subject matter, is a pretty impressive feat.

In the final section of the book, “Masters of Hyperspace,” Kaku looks at what our future might be. He takes us through Type 0 through Type II civilizations, and pegs us squarely in mid-0 position. He also takes the opportunity to philosophize and climb onto a well-reasoned soapbox about where we’re going to get if we stay on our current heading.

It’s hard to say that the book ends on a positive note, especially given that basically, he leaves us drifting within the boundaries of the universe, with only minimal theoretical hope for some sort of existence as it either expands and cools to absolute zero or collapses as one big multi-billion year flash-in-the-pan. Kaku leaves us a faint glimmer at the end of the hyperspace tunnel, that maybe, perhaps, we might just find our escape into another dimension. Rod Serling would like this guy.

Hyperspace, by Michio Kaku, published by Oxford University Press, 1994, $25.00, ISBN# 0-19-508514-0.

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