Love at Absolute Zero

the science of skilled storytelling

With some books, you can sense in advance that you are in for a reader's treat, that you will be taken outside your normal reading zone and sent on an involving and entertaining journey through words. "Love at Absolute Zero", by Christopher Meeks, is just such a book. I knew that I would love the hero, Gunnar Gunderson, and that I would be captivated by his adventure of self-enlightenment. What I didn't know, since this was my first read from Chris Meeks, was that the author would blow me away with his skill as a storyteller. Since Gunnar is a physicist, his thought processes center around science and logic. He even uses physics to rationalize human behavior and sexuality. For Gunnar, this is not just his profession, it's the very air he breathes. It is also very much a coping mechanism. Gunnar is not just a brainy geek. He's also a man with a good heart and a longing for love and companionship. We could not really empathize with Gunnar if we didn't understand his physics-patterned psyche, so Chris Meeks makes the science reachable for the reader. When Gunnar lectures his students, gives a speech, or discusses physics with anyone who will listen, the voice you hear is really the author making his hero more accessible to the reader. You cannot read Gunnar's misadventures without finding him endearing, admiring his intelligence, and hoping that he will finally get it right and score his happy ending. When Gunnar reaches a career and life milestone, his university tenure, he decides it's time to bring his personal life up to speed and find his perfect mate. Through scientific rationalization, Gunnar decides that he can make himself over and secure his soul mate in just three days. What he puts himself through to achieve his goal is both alarming and hilarious. I laughed out loud while reading this book, and I truly enjoyed the sense of self-ironic humor which pervaded the story line. While Gunnar was sure of his science, he often stumbled in his personal life. He was a successful man, attractive in his own way, and he was not without sexual experience. However, he was vulnerable, and when he was hurt and acted in ways totally unlike his true persona, then we hurt with him. There is a wonderful underlying wisdom in this book, an understanding of human nature and how it continually shoots itself in the foot when it is already on crutches. I very much look forward to reading more works by Chris Meeks so that I can learn things like this: "Don't dismiss the one-armed librarian." A highly recommended read.

Review Copy Gratis White Whisker Books

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

Tarantula

"Its ok. I understand."

Cedric

Im sorry i cant do this anymore...i dont feel our connection anymore im sorry

Without doubt, Christopher Meeks has done an amazing job with hi

Without doubt, Christopher Meeks has done an amazing job with his book "Love at Absolute Zero".
The story is powerful and magnificent. Mixing humor and love with science, his novel exudes
wonderment and is a joy to read. The author is highly imaginative and writes with a ring of authenticity
that makes for a compelling read. 

Although I’m a person not particularly interested in physics, this book actually made it seem exciting,
and that alone is a magnificent contribution on the part of the author. 

Once I started reading the book, I was not able to put it down until I finished. This is something that has
only happened to me with a handful of books. I loved the book so much I bought five copies to give to
family and friends for Christmas! 

8 out of 10 hearts!

Love At Absolute Zero by Christopher Meeks
Release Date: July 22nd, 2011
Publisher: White Whisker Books
Page Count: 304
Source: From author, via Bewitching Book Tours for review, as part of the Love At Absolute Zero virtual tour

Love At Absolute Zero is the story of Gunnar Gunderson, a 32-year-old physicist at the University of Wisconsin. The moment he's given tenure at the university, he can only think of one thing: finding a wife. This causes his research to falter. With his two partners, Gunnar is in a race against MIT to create new forms of matter called Bose-Einstein condensates, which exist only near absolute zero. To meet his soulmate within three days -- that's what he wants and all time he can carve out -- he and his team are using the scientific method, to riotous results.

What Stephanie Thinks: When it comes to the social scene, particularly the female social scene, Gunnar Gunderson has never had the luck. He likes women, he's sure -- in fact, he likes them a lot -- but having grown up a dorky little science geek, as an adult, his charisma is slightly lacking to say the least.

As a character, I absolutely adore Gunnar! He's perfectly awkward and well-intentioned and adorable. I could definitely relate to some of his mishaps -- how his life never plays out the way he imagines it. Just because he's a physics professor doesn't mean he's not imaginative. And in a sad way, I learned, just because he is thirty-two, a grown man, doesn't mean he's not naïve. One too many times, he's had his heart fooled, which may be the bane of his inability to score. But he needs game, he discovers. Call it a mid-life crisis, but he needs game -- he needs a woman -- and he needs her now.

With the help of supportive (even if ludicrous) fellow-science-nerd friends, and a rock-solid mom and sis, Gunnar learns that the true meaning of love cannot be defined and planned accordingly; that the true meaning of love lies subjectively within the individual, and that it never, especially in the beginning, plays out how you will expect it to.

Meeks's writing, I feel, isn't highly laudable. I admire how he can incorporate humor and physics together into a love story (now that I think about it, that feat itself is pretty impressive), but the style is a little stiff, doesn't flow very well. Nothing that keeps me up at night. The story's very readable, though; I didn't have any trouble getting through it, and didn't have to force myself to keep turning pages.

If you're in for a rather untraditional happily-ever-after love tale with a little bit of science geek innuendo and a whole lot of genuine emotion -- something we rarely see from the male perspective, but what I think Meeks does an incredible job at conveying -- then pick up Love At Absolute Zero to give it a try!

Stephanie Loves: "'The most painful state of being is remembering the future, particularly one you can never have."

Radical Rating: 8 hearts-Would recommend to lots of really good friends.

Love At Absolute Zero

Gunnar Gunderson just wants to find love. Being a physicist, he tries to do it scientifically. Will he find love this way? That's what he hopes to achieve. This is a boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl, boy-finds-hope love story, with a lot of science and laughter thrown in. Gunnar is a likable character and the story is enjoyable with bright moments and some sad ones thrown in. I did chuckle at times, so that means I enjoyed the book.

Love at Absolute Zero

This humorous and eclectic story of a physicist and his pragmatic search for love is Meeks' most involving and enthralling work yet. A deeply resonant read that manages to be funny without sacrificing its gravity. Highly recommended!

Fun With Science and Love

Gunnar Gunderson has a lot going for him. His research is exciting, and he's just gotten tenure. He feels like something is missing though- love. Gunnar decides the best way to find a mate is to take a scientific approach. If it's good enough for physics, surely it will work equally well for love too? From Wisconsin to Denmark though, he learns that love isn't as easy to figure out. Even with some major missteps, will Gunnar be able to find love? Can finding love coincide with good research?

This was a very interesting book. Gunnar was a pretty funny character. Being a somewhat of a scientist myself, I've know lots of guys like Gunnar. Super smart but not so great with social situations. Naturally, once Gunnar decided he needed a wife, he threw himself into the process as readily as he would any experiment. His friends and fellow scientists were also great characters. They seem like they'd be pretty fun to hang around. Gunnar makes rash decisions when it comes to love, but luckily he learns and grows from all his trials.

I found the scientific approach to love to be hilarious. Gunnar was endearing, and I found myself cheering him on. I definitely wanted him to succeed in his attempts at finding love. The book could read as a bit choppy and clinical at times, but I felt like this fit the atmosphere of the book. It helped me get a real feel for Gunnar's character. This book is very fun, and you get a great sense of how science and love can combine to make magic.

Book provided for review.

'Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future' Niels Bohr

The concept of marrying science and passion as the topic for a novel is a challenging one at best. And that is exactly what Christopher Meeks has succeeded in meeting in his latest novel LOVE AT ABSOLUTE ZERO. Meeks seems to mature literarily by leaps and bounds with each new book he pens. This reader became enamored of his short stories but then that little contagious virus mutated into the novel format, and where most writers begin with the big works and then distill to short stories later (if they are able to move into that challenging realm at all), Meeks appears to have gleaned the technical virtuosity of creating characters in a minimum of space and then unfold those characters in response to the movement of the landscape of a large novel with such aplomb that he is likely to continue on his climb to one of America's more important writers this decade.
Gunnar Gunderson is a cerebrally elite physicist who at age 32 has already gained tenure at his University of Wisconsin Madison campus, teaching and immersed in a research project with partners Carl and Harry beginning with the Bose-Einstein condensate and moving toward reaching the ultra cold - Absolute Zero. Gunnar Gunderson is also relationship challenged, hopelessly naïve about affairs of the heart - an unpracticed but very sweet nerd whose preoccupation with physics has subsumed his filling out his life with love. Yet when confronted by his partners, 'He knew the way to find the right person. He should use the same approach that had always served him well: the scientific method. Use the scientific method for love.' His supportive partners disagree; 'Attraction and connection can't be explained anymore than sunspots....It's about chaos'. But Gunnar's hypothesis is that to attract someone he had to emphasize the laws of attraction: sending physical, mental, and genetic healthy signals. And from there the book takes flight on Gunnar's concept that he has three days in which to find the girl of his dreams. He decides to try ScurryDating and in order to physically become everything a girl would want he gets his teeth cleaned, then orthodontia, then hair styling and a wardrobe change and he is off to a social media convocation where he will be paired with potential dates - surely in time for his three day deadline.
But fate enters the picture and he is sidetracked by finding an attraction to one of his students, in seeing an old girlfriend Ursula who though paired at the moment might just be the one - until he meets (steps onto) Kara, a Danish redhead bombshell visiting her old girlfriend. Gunnar experiences passion and in the two weeks that Kara has before her flight back to Denmark they have a passionate affair, fall in love/lust, and make plans for Gunnar to move to Denmark where he will do a sabbatical at the highly touted Physics Institute there. Kara leaves, Ursula returns from a nursing stint in Arizona now free of her prior boyfriend and ready for Gunnar, but Gunnar is committed to his Danish pastry - until of course he flies to Denmark and discovers that Kara has fallen out of love with Gunnar and into love with another. So Gunnar is stuck in Denmark sans Kara and faces more and more alterations to his scientific hypothesis about love. The carousel keeps rotating and Gunnar seems destined to miss that golden ring and when Gunnar returns to Wisconsin he reconnects with Ursula and comes to the realization 'I tell my introductory students about certain laws of physics