Wednesday, March 25, 2009
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Reformed views of a nuclear physicist
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Reviews:
• This is a rare novel that looks realistically at modern scientific life, a much better way to break the wall between the "two cultures" than the usual methods of research memoir or popular-science explainer.
Here, Eyeball This! tells the tale of a physics graduate student who wrestles with issues familiar to all scientists, such as coping with culture clash in the melting-pot of modern research; facing the competitive pecking order amid very smart people; and dealing with the qualifier exam, which in difficulty and life-altering significance makes the SAT look like tic-tac-toe.
It alternates between crass humor and high-level theorizing, just like real science, and thrives on coffee and unhealthy food at strange hours, just like real post-grad life. It's fun, irreverent, interesting and rings true.
-- David Brooks, the Nashua (New Hampshire). Telegraph.• I was curious about this novel. First I assumed it was a college thriller, after having read "The Rule Of Four" by Caldwell and Thomason for which they got $400,000 in advance. Heddle could have been stimulated to write likewise. Then I thought of Grisham. I had never expected that such boring profession would lead to this heap of lawyer-related books, but Grisham showed otherwise.
A novel about math and physics? What does that lead to? Exciting quadratic equations? But Heddle proved me wrong. He didn’t produce another thriller, he wrote a great campus story and he wrote it from an insider's angle, and his truthful account made me laugh and cry and upset. Heddle is a born writer, he brings his characters to life; we can picture them and sympathize with them.
He tells us about what’s going on in this secluded world of science and his remarks on Intelligent Design made me think. This is a novel that stands like a rock and I’ll be reading it over again.
Walter G. Willaert, author of The Mecca Connection• A stunning novel that brilliantly evokes modern Christian challenges. It's a full-bodied, humorous novel sure to be savored by many. -- Joshua Claybourn, InTheAgora
• How much did I like Here Eyeball This!? Well, it occurred to me that if J.D. Salinger had continued to follow the experiences of dear Holden Caulfield into later adolescence and early youth, and Holden had become a physics major at CMU, Salinger could have written this book. But he didn't and you did, so congratulations. It is a beautiful book. I love it.-- Jean Goldstrom, publisher, Whortleberry Press.
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