raising godzillas

Muwahahaha!

I just finished reading The Mad Scientist Hall Fame:Muwahahahaha! : a book much enjoyed by my whole family. The book is co-written by Daniel H Wilson, the genius (and I do mean genius) who brought us Where's My Jetpack and How to Survive a Robot Uprising and psychologist Anna C Long; and illustrated by Daniel Heard. The Mad Scientist Hall of fame contains both real and fictional scientists, separated into six categories; Bent on World Domination,Intrepid Explorers of the Great Abyss, Communicated with Space Aliens, Performed Human Experiments, Died in the Name of Science, and Not Mad, Just Angry. Scientists are rated on both madness and genius, on a scale of one to five. Like every book of Wilson's, you get a  mixture of humour and education. I was fascinated to learn of Trofim Lysenko, whose antisocial personality disorder may have set Russian science back a century. Another interesting fact; two fictional characters-Herge's Professor Calculus and Captain Jean -Luc Picard were an homage to real life explorer Auguste Piccard and his twin brother, Jean Felix. Of course no self respecting book about mad scientists would be complete without a quiz to determine one's own mad scientist potential. My score 23 on science and 18 on mad, putting me in the Moderate /Good range for both categories.

Labels: Anna C Long, Daniel H Wilson, Daniel Heard, mad scientists

posted by gojirama @ 3:40 PM