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Beyond the blue
For example, in the Completely Catswoman, an actress goes for designer genes to become physically more attractive, with tragic results. Then there’s the amusing A Good Breed wherein two boys try to make easy money by smuggling opium made from genetically modified poppy plants. The mystery thriller Beautiful and Armed revolves around the death of a wheeler-dealer that turns Lucky Shome into Sherlock Holmes.
Inspirational literature sells like, well, hot coffee in winter; and for a good reason too. No matter what one’s circumstance is doubt and dissatisfaction keep nagging the mind. We are always in search of perfect happiness — which can neither be defined nor identified but presumably exists. Enter the new era guru with his skein of silver-tongued verbiage and he prods you towards the conviction that you are indeed unhappy and that you need help for attaining happiness. And this can be done only if you follow the path mapped out by the guru. But Walsch does not want you to be merely happy. He wants you to be happier than God! So the benchmark of expectations has been raised. But does his path lead to this new goal? You may like to read this book for the answer, or indulge in conjecture. Global warming
This results in coastal flooding, and possible major climatic changes in the not too distant future. Bhattacharya gives a brief account of the various factors contributing to this phenomenon. Then he goes on to enumerate various efforts being made to monitor and tackle the problem. The Kyoto Protocol and subsequent efforts attract his special attention. The chapter on changing climate is worth reading as it describes the effect of global warming on various parts of the world. You may find his suggestions in the chapter on reviving of villages a trifle impracticable; but you will find these earnest and thought provoking. Statistical tables and illustrations add to the book’s worth.
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THE
very term "science fiction" conjures up images of
mind-boggling action involving inter-galactic conflicts, futuristic
gizmos, and super-intelligent aliens with Achilles’ heels, which our
impossibly smart heroes/heroines are able to exploit in order to ward
off impending perils. Actually, this ‘action-fiction’ belongs to
sci-fi’s cyberpunk stream popularised by William Gibson. Writers in
this genre like HG Wells, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and Aldous Huxley et al
have become household names. Right from Lucian of Samosata’s True
History (approx 160 AD, that narrated a trip to the moon) the genre
has spawned a corpus of variegated tales, viz., Thomas More’s Utopia,
Jonathan Swift’s satirical Gulliver’s Travels, and in the
post-industrial revolution scenario Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s Frankenstein
(1818) explored the potential of science for good or evil. One detects
shades of the last mentioned in Datta’s collection of 14 short
stories.
Happier
than God
From
being merely an NGO issue, global warming has become a serious concern
all over the world in the past few decades. And there’re good reasons
for this. The Earth’s temperature is increasing due to the build-up of
greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere,
thus preventing infrared radiation from escaping into space and raising
the earth’s temperature.