Radiance: A Novel

Overview

Born from the threat of nuclear weapons comes a program to build an impenetrable defense against them. The technical obstacles are enormous, the costs exorbitant, and the results dubious. Philip Quine didn't come to the Lab to work on weapons, but his expertise with X-rays leads him to Superbright, in theory an orbital battle-station to shoot down missiles, in reality little more than spotty test data. Superbright is only the beginning, as Quine is drawn further away from the pure physics he set out to do and deeper into the machinations of those who would use the Lab for their own monetary or ideological advantage. Radiance is a brilliant and entertaining exposé of the way in which the bright hopes and fond dreams of talented scientists are turned on the grindstone of political expediency until all that remains are the rough deceptions of self and nation.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780312311360
Publisher:	Picador
Publication date:	02/01/2003
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	400
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.89(d)

About the Author

Carter Scholz is the author of Radiance and co-author of Kafka Americana. He lives in Berkeley, California.

Editorial Reviews

Ingenious...Scholz's extraordinary language—his ear for befuddled dialogue and scientific obfuscation, his resonant, haunted landscapes—cracks the book open and allows its light to blaze forth.” —Salon.com

“Radiance is a tour-de-force of obsessive, microscopic realism and a vibrantly satirical phantasmagoria at once. It gives a terrifying glimpse of a war at the juncture of science and politics, one never fully fought or abandoned, only covered in denial and fatigue. It reads like a de-classified document of the human soul.” —Jonathan Lethem, author of Motherless Brooklyn

From the Publisher

...a great account of paranoia in the workplace.
—San Francisco Chronicle

David Kipen

A thoughtful, knowledgeable expose of half a century of America's nuclear weapons industry that also makes a surprisingly absorbing first novel about a group of scientists competing for ascendancy at a California Bay Area lab.

Kirkus Reviews