Hard Science and the Unknowable: reviews by

“Hard Science and the Unknowable” is another extraordinary book from Dennis Littrell. There is nothing quite like it in the literature. What Littrell does is review in depth 117 popular science and pseudoscience books covering a range of topics from aliens and UFOs to cosmology and particle physics. The result is a collection of essays that informs and gives meaning and relevance to our lives against the grandeur of the cosmos. The book is divided into eight chapters beginning with “Aliens, SETI and UFOs” through “Futurists” and ending with “Metaphysical Science.” Tomes by some of the august scientists of our time including Steven Weinberg, Richard Feynman, Stephen Hawking, Carl Sagan, Brian Greene, Sir Martin Rees along with some of our best science journalists including Ben Bova, Marcus Chown, Joel Achenbach, and K.C. Cole are examined with a critical eye. Some of the eye-popping ideas of best-selling futurists such as Ray Kurzweil, Francis Fukuyama, Bruce Sterling and others are explored and critiqued. Littrell introduces the reviews and writes an afterword for each chapter. There is an index of titles and another index of authors reviewed. Littrell writes in a lively, often satirical style that stings his targets and delights his readers, but most significantly, his reviews inform. Don’t miss this book!