Reviews for AQA Science Essential Revision Workbook (Essentials Series)

The average rating for AQA Science Essential Revision Workbook (Essentials Series) based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2013-12-24 00:00:00 Praveer Mishra The premise at the heart of this collection of short stories was a fascinating one - the book is at attempt to bring together science fiction writers and scientists in producing something entertaining and educational, and consists of a number of short stories on a variety of scientific subjects interspersed with short essays by experts in the fields upon which the fictions are based. Alas though I can't accuse it of failing at this attempt, it did feel slightly inconsistent in places - due partly to variation in the quality of the chapters (some stories didn't float my boat at all, and reminded me why I stopped reading so much sci-fi around twenty-five years ago) and some of the non-fictional bits were a little clunky or oversimplified. A handful of the stories however - moss witches, astrology called into question by planetary motion, nanotechnology in protective suits - were quirky and interesting and stood out.

Review # 2 was written on 2018-08-10 00:00:00 Miguel Mingoa This anthology's USP is that it brings together SF authors with scientists and the resulting book collects the stories that were sparked by the meetings and discussion. It's a good collection, with each story having an afterword by the scientist that the author was in discussions with, although it doesn't start particularly well with Justina Robson's Carbon being a story that completely failed to gel with me. Most of the other ones hit closer to the mark though, with Ken MacLoed's Death Knocks, about a reporter searching for the connection between recent army suicides, and Adam Roberts' Hair, about a genetic scientist who develops a way for humans to photosynthesise through hair, being the most evocative. An interesting experiment in collaborative fiction that has resulted in some great stories, and I'd like to see more of the same.