Scientifically unorthodox

  1. The Sun and Moon Corrupted
  2. by Philip Ball

Philip Ball, an author of popular science non-fiction, perhaps feared that a debut novel about a Hungarian inventor of a perpetual motion machine wouldn't appeal, so he gives us Lena as well, the female journalist who pursues said loose cannon, Karl Neder, from Brixton across cold-war Europe to Chernobyl. The science elements are good, the thriller bits less so, and Lena, despite the "complexities" of her character (her infertility, her bisexuality, her relationship with her father), remains uninteresting. Ball would have done better to focus on his strongest themes - the censoring effect of scientific orthodoxy, the questionable morals behind scientific research - and given the reader more time with Neder, who remains more elusive than perhaps intended.

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