Einstein's Monsters

Ordered for my granddaughter, it was on her list of good books for Christmas.

Some of Martin Amis's most imaginative writing and of course the very convincing essay at the beginning. A must read!

The introduction, which is nearly one third of the slim book, is excellent; the first two stories are compelling and interesting, "Bujak" and "Insight". The attempts at science fiction are embarassing at best and pretentious and patronizing at worst. I'm a fan of all fiction that references our nuclear predicament; just this weekend I visited an abandoned Nike missile base in New Jersey, that was meant to protect against intercontinental bomber attacks, but this book failed to grip me. At ... dollars it's practically an insult. If you must read it, get a used copy.

The synopsis has it wrong - well, not wrong so much as not right. Amis delivers not a caveat, nor a sci-fi pomo romp, but a startlingly clear elucidation of his very justified fear of the end of the story of man. It couldn't be more inevitable, as Amis makes clear in the introductory essay, "Unthinkability." He has identified the source of his nausea for the last 50 years, and it is nuclear weapons. There is no turning back; there is no "winning"; and there is no fixing the mistakes. These burn indelible in his writing, and he makes these points neither to make us all lose sleep nor to educate us. Rather, Amis tells it like it is: there is no tomorrow after a nuclear war, and there is no way a nuclear war is able to be isolated to one bomb dropping. Once the accident happens, we are all screwed, and at this point we are on borrowed time. The stories, if you are unfamiliar with Amis's style, are charming and compelling, and in some cases only abstrusely about nuclear war. The one real notable exception is "The Little Puppy That Could," truly the most horrifying tale I have ever encountered. A slim read, a permanent addition to any bookshelf, Einstein's Monsters reminds us what it is that is catching in our throats nowadays - the very life-force of all human history.

This collection of short stories isn't the best collection of Martin Amis' work, but the book is worth the price purely for the introduction. The short stories are interesting reading, and provide some good discussion points, but the introduction.... The introduction is probably one of the best pieces of writing I have ever read. Period. Chilling, intelligent, and will make you think, and think a bit more.

And here we are in 2011, and not a peep from Mr. Amis on our current troubles with jihadists; the latest chapter of a savage 1400 year conflict between freedom and submission troubles him not at all. And as for the blather about the "Brilliant Introduction," the reason for being of this collection?Well, Ronaldus Magnus got it right, and the Soviets fell, despite Amis' disbelieving bleatings. The major problem today is the Mullahs in Teheran getting the bomb, and on that subject Amis is...silent.