I enjoyed watching J. J. Abrams' first take on "Star Trek", and, in many respects, "Star Trek Into Darkness" is a much better film. It is a much better film simply for the excellent acting exhibited by Chris Pine (Kirk), Zachary Quinto (Spock), Karl Urban (McCoy), Simon Pegg (Scotty) and especialy, Benedict Cumberbatch (John Harrison/Khan Noonian Singh); Cumberbatch offers a far more cerebral, far more calculating, Khan than Ricardo Montalban's in the original series television episode "Space Speed" and in the film "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" and for no other reason, Cumberbatch's portrayal is the best reason to see this film not just once, but even twice. However, I fault screenwriters Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci for stealing lines and scenes from Nicholas Meyer's brilliant "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan", especially the pivotal scene at the end of "The Wrath of Khan" between Kirk and Spock that is a bittersweet, poignant, and emotionally riveting reaffirmation of their decades-old friendship. I also fault them for having too many scenes of exploding ship bulkheads exposed to vacuum and bodies being sucked into space, and a rather pedestrian chase between Spock and Khan high above the streets of San Francisco. What results is a visually watchable, quite compelling action-oriented space opera science fiction film, but still one that isn't quite true to the vision of a hopeful future stated repeatedly by "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry as his rationale for creating "Star Trek". But Abrams's version isn't the "Star Trek" that I recall fondly and I say good riddance to him, and hopefully, Kurtzman and Orci too.

Directed by Shane Black, "Iron Man Three" is a worthy sequel in the ongoing Marvel cinematic franchise, and one intelligent enough to raise the question as to whether the character of Iron Man will return in the future, or will he be replaced by the Iron Patriot, the superhero alter ego of Colonel James Rhodes (Don Cheadle). This is a fast-paced, action-packed film that will remain one of the Summer of 2013's biggest hits, not only due to the special effects and Robert Downey Jr.'s emotionally complex portrayal of playboy billionaire inventor Tony Stark, but also from Gwyneth Paltrow's Pepper Potts - who has a lot more screen time in this sequel than in the prior "Iron Man" films - and Guy Pearce's diabolical nanotechnology entrepreneur Aldrich Killian, with Ben Kingsley's character stealing almost every scene he appears. Haunted by the recent alien invasion of Earth and the climactic battle in the streets of - and the sky above - New York City ("The Avengers") Tony Stark opts to confront the mysterious terrorist "The Mandarin" (Ben Kingsley) with disastrous results for himself and Pepper Potts, forcing him to go on a personal manhunt - without relying on his "Iron Man" suits for most of the film - for "The Mandarin" and Aldrich Killian, whom he encountered - and snubbed - during a 1999 New Year's Eve party in Switzerland. This time Killian is seeking much more than obtaining Stark's financial help in his then start-up nanotechnology firm; he's going after the President of the United States (William Sadler). Black does a fine job paying homage to Jon Favreau's directing of the two previous "Iron Man" films - with Favreau himself returning in a memorable cameo role - but it would be a stretch to say that this is the best "Iron Man" film so far. However, as I have noted, it is a worthy sequel and a thrilling action-packed film that should captivate huge audiences for most of this summer.

Written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, "The Master" is a compelling fictionalized look at a troubled young man's search for salvation in a new religious movement. Inspired by the early history of Scientology and its founder, the writer L. Ron Hubbard, "The Master" introduces us to World War II naval veteran Freddie Quell (Joaquin Phoenix) who returns home emotionally scarred, remaining a drifter until he encounters the charismatic Lancaster Dodds (Philip Seymour Hoffman) - "The Master" - the founder and leader of the religious movement known as "The Cause" and Dodds' wife Peggy (Amy Adams). Will Quell find salvation as a devoted follower of The Master and The Cause, or will he fall prey to his innermost demons, yielding a most grim destiny for his future. Nominated for three Academy Awards for in the categories of Best Actor (Phoenix), Best Supporting Actor (Hoffman) and Best Supporting Actress (Adams) and recipient of numerous awards bestowed by film critics in several major American cities, "The Master" was one of 2012's best films and represents yet another notable cinematic achievement from director Paul Thomas Anderson.

Back in 1986 K. Eric Drexler coined the term "Nanotechnology" in his first book, "Engines of Creation". He defined nanotechnology as a potential technology with these features: "manufacturing using machinery based on nanoscale devices, and products built with atomic precision". Here in his sequel, "Radical Abundance: How A Revolution in Nanotechnology Will Change Civilization", Drexler expands on his prior thinking, as well as correcting much of the misconceptions regarding the exact nature of nanotechnology, dismissing fears of a dystopian future replete with nanobots and other evil outcomes associated with nanotechnology. Instead, Drexler offers readers a most compelling, optimistic vision as to how nanotechnology can be used to benefit humanity, in grappling with issues as vexing as dealing with pollution and climate change and in making tremendous strides in improving medicine so it can benefit much of humanity. Drexler begins by offering us a brief history of technology and its relationship with science, emphasizing the importance of Karl Popper's philosophy of science as a means for influencing the future direction of nanotechnology. In his advocacy of atomically precise manufacturing, Drexler notes how engineers should adhere to common sense solutions to engineering problems, by crafting solutions that are both consistent and efficient with regards to science and engineering and yield truly useful products, not prototypes destined to languish almost forgotten in the technological research centers that conceived of them. Much to his credit, Drexler is a fine writer who has written compelling, quite readable, prose that remains crisp and clear from the first page to the last, despite relying on seemingly arcane terms of science and technology that may be unfamiliar to most of his potential readership. "Radical Abundance' is one of the most thoughtful ruminations on the future of technology I have read, and a book that should be viewed as among the best published in science and technology this year; it is most certainly a book that should be as well received as his prior "Engines of Creation".

How did Aung San Suu Kyi become one of the world's most admired figures, an advocate of Gandhian-style nonviolent opposition to the radical Socialist tyrannical military dictatorship that has ruled Burma for decades? In Peter Popham's definitive biography of her, "The Lady and The Peacock: The Life of Aung San Suu Kyi", he describes how a shy, academically-oriented daughter ("The Lady") of Burma's "George Washington" or "Simon Bolivar", Aung San, would become a living symbol of the democratic aspirations of her fellow Burmans. He takes us on a compelling, riveting journey spanning decades, from her birth to the present, noting how Aung San Suu Kyi was greatly influenced by the British-oriented education she received in India and in Great Britain - the latter at one of Oxford University's newer colleges - and realizing that she had an obligation to her late father and her mother - who was Burma's ambassador to India during much of Suu Kyi's youth - in affirming the democratic aspirations of her people, even as she spent years away from Burma residing in India, Great Britain and the United States. Popham's book is also an excellent account of the rise and fall of "The Peacock", the National League of Democracy - the political party created by Suu Kyi and several other notable Burmese dissidents - in which many of its leading figures have been imprisoned or forced into exile by the Burmese government. In other words, Popham has written an important, quite insightful, account of modern Burmese history as seen through the eyes of Suu Kyi and her colleagues in the National League of Democracy. I salute Popham for giving us a most comprehensive account on the life and career of a person whose nonviolent opposition towards her government continues to inspire many across the globe.

In a literary style that may remind some readers of a hilarious blend between Paul Theroux with Susan Gilman, Dina Bennett chronicles her unusual automotive odyssey across most of Eurasia in "Peking to Paris: Life and Love on a Short Drive Around Half the World". I found her memoir as funny as Gilman's "Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven", not merely because it, like Gilman's memoir, is set partly in China. Bennett describes herself as a less than courageous navigator, guiding her husband Bernard as he drives them in a vintage 1940 Cadillac LaSalle dubbed by her "Roxanne"; a car so fraught with mechanical difficulties that it almost seems miraculous that they complete the entire course of their Peking to Paris automobile rally. Much like Theroux, Bennett captivates readers with her vivid descriptions of the lands and peoples she encounters in her journey, though with far less solemnity than what I have read from Theroux in both his fiction and nonfiction. Some of the most memorable scenes occur in Mongolia, where she endures a sandstorm "facial treatment" and oppressively hot days and cold nights. Equally memorable is the leg of the journey through Russia, which strikes a very strong emotional chord with Bennett, as a descendant of Russian Jewish emigrants who arrived in the United States early in the 20th Century. Without question, "Peking to Paris: Life and Love on a Short Drive Around Half the World" is a fine example of travel writing merged into memoir.

Humanity has the potential of surviving calamities as dire as the next mass extinction. That is the hopeful message lurking behind science journalist - and founding editor of the science/science fiction website io9 - Annalee Newitz's book "Scatter, Adapt and Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction". Hers is a lively, rather engaging, look at mass extinctions and other notorious agents of mass mortality like famines and disease pandemics, on how survivors have coped with them and on the potential of human engineering for preventing humanity's extinction. However, it is an examination that some may view as superficial with regards to its depth, in stark comparison with, for example, some of the best science writing from the likes of David Quammen, Carl Zimmer, and invertebrate paleobiologist Peter Ward - who was interviewed for this book - that delves deeper into the science behind disease pandemics and mass extinctions. While I admire Newitz's literary style and the vast scope of topics and issues she discusses, I've noted some glaring editorial errors which detract from the book's overall quality; these include incorrectly referring to synapsid mammal-like reptiles as mammal-reptile hybrids (Page 37), gray whales as among the oldest cetaceans since they evolved 2.5 million years ago (Page 137) when their phylogenetic (in plain English, genealogical) history probably dates back at least 25 million years ago if not before, or identifying paleobiologists (a newer, more accurate, version of the term paleontologist) Peter Ward and Jessica Whiteside solely as geologists when their primary research specialties are respectively, invertebrate paleobiology (Ward), and vertebrate paleobiology and paleoclimatology (Whiteside).

As much as I enjoyed reading her chapter devoted to the terminal Ordovician mass extinction ("Two Ways To Go Extinct"), as a former invertebrate paleobiologist I wish she had mentioned the Great Ordovician Diversification Event that occurred for much of the Ordovician, yielding substantial - and far more rapid - increases in metazoan (multicellular animal) taxonomic diversity on a scale far greater than the so-called "Cambrian Explosion"; a discussion of this might have emphasized why the terminal Ordovician mass extinction should be viewed, along with the terminal Permian mass extinction, as the worst in the history of life on Earth. Moreover, there is no substantial discussion on how the biosphere recovers from mass extinctions as devastating as the terminal Ordovician, terminal Permian and terminal Cretaceous extinctions - which would have been appropriate for this book - especially when paleobiologists and ecologists have been statistically analyzing the fossil record in studying the timing and severity of mass extinctions and the recovery times for restoring Earth's biodiversity to pre-mass extinction levels for decades. Nor do I concur with her less than favorable assessment of the "Out of Africa" theory for spreading modern Homo sapiens across the globe in favor of the earlier multiregional theory suggesting that Homo sapiens evolved separately - but simultaneously - in Europe and Asia in the chapter "Meeting the Neanderthals", when mitochondrial DNA evidence still strongly supports the "Out of Africa" theory, according to what I have seen at websites like those of the American Museum of Natural History and the University of California, Berkeley's "Understanding Evolution". Relying solely on anthropologist and science blogger John Hawks' genetic evidence in support of the multiregional theory should not have led Newitz to conclude that it may be a better scientific alternative than the currently accepted "Out of Africa" theory. These are not the only instances where Newitz strays from the high journalistic standards practiced consistently by the likes of Natalie Angier, Cornelia Dean, David Quammen, Jonathan Weiner and Carl Zimmer, but they are among the most notable insofar that she tends to voice her own opinions instead of relying upon the words of scientists or in failing to emphasize scientific consensus in support of both the asteroid impact theory for the terminal Cretaceous mass extinction and the "Out of Africa" theory for Homo sapiens' dispersal around the globe.

Newitz is at her best in describing how prior human technology saved some populations from the ravages of disease and conquest in her chapter "Cities That Hide" or in making cities "death-proof" (especially the chapters "The Mutating Metropolis", "Using Math to Stop a Pandemic", and "Every Surface a Farm"). She also excels in taking in Part V - the concluding section - "A Million Year View"; her accounts of geoengineering ("Terraforming Earth"), asteroid detection and preventing an asteroid collision with Earth ("Not in Our Planetary Backyard") and building space elevators ("Take a Ride in the Space Elevator") are worth the purchase price of this book. I also highly recommend her excellent overview of Jewish history over the millennia as one which resonates strongly with the book's title in the chapter "Scatter: Footprints of the Diaspora" and her terse, but insightful, look at optimism for humanity's future that is a reoccurring theme in Octavia Butler's acclaimed science fiction ("Pragmatic Optimism, or Stories of Survival"). That these are the best sections of Newitz's book isn't surprising given her longstanding interest in science fiction as io9's science editor. Though there are other, better, books which explore in greater depth the themes discussed here, none have the vast scope or the emotional resonance that is displayed abundantly, and for these reasons "Scatter, Adapt, and Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction" is still a work of popular science journalism worthy of a wide readership.

(EDITORIAL NOTE 5/15/13: As a book on mass extinctions, it seems to ignore important research done by the "Chicago School" of invertebrate paleobiologists - the late Jack Sepkoski, David Raup, David Jablonski and Michael Foote (all of whom were or are currently members of the Department of the Geophysical Sciences, University of Chicago) - in looking at the severity, timing and ecosystems recovery in the aftermath of mass extinctions that they and their colleagues have done since the late 1970s/early 1980s. Nor does the author acknowledge the overwhelming paleobiological and molecular genetic data in support of the "Out of Africa" theory accounting for Homo sapiens' dispersal around the globe. IMHO these are two of several glaring defects in this book which reduces its importance as a good work of popular scientific literature devoted to the themes alluded to in its title.)

With Maya Vidal, the protagonist of Isabel Allende's new novel, "Maya's Notebook", Allende takes us on a most searing personal odyssey of self discovery as seen through the eyes of her likable, but emotionally scarred, protagonist, who literally falls into a psychological abyss of her own making; an abyss fraught with ample physical as well as psychological terror. Readers will find themselves rooting for Maya, hoping that she will prevail despite ample obstacles in her path. A personal odyssey in which Maya learns some cold, hard, difficult, truths about herself and uncovers decades-held secrets about her family and its tragic history, especially in the bloody aftermath of the military coup that killed Chile's elected president, Salvador Allende and created a harsh military dictatorship persisting for years under the leadership of the coup's leader, General Augusto Pinochet. Told compellingly through Maya's own eyes, "Maya's Notebook" displays once more Allende's tremendous gifts for storytelling and creating characters as memorable as Maya Vidal, her grandmother Nidia - affectionately known as Nini - and Manuel Arias, the aging anthropologist who offers her sanctuary on a remote island off the coast of Chile with a past nearly as enigmatic as her grandmother's. When her kindly, almost saintly, grandfather, Popo, a distinguished Berkeley astronomer, dies, Maya embarks on a self destructive journey of drinking, drug addiction and thievery, escaping to Las Vegas where she becomes the target of drug dealing assassins, corrupt local police, and even the FBI. Barely escaping numerous scrapes with death, Maya finds her one chance of survival in her beloved Nini, who sends her to the remote Chilean island as a guest of Manuel Arias. There Maya begins unraveling the strange secrets of her family's history, tries making sense of her own descent into alcoholism, drug addiction and thievery, and takes a most perilous emotional quest in trying to understand her own soul. "Maya's Notebook" is destined to be remembered as one of this year's achievements in mainstream literary fiction, as well as yet another memorable tale from Isabel Allende herself; one that will be cherished by her many devoted fans.

David Stockman admits that his "The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America" is a polemic, and it is a polemic that will not endear him to many across the political spectrum. He has written an exhaustive account tracing the roots of our current economic problems to the solutions implemented by then President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his Keynesian economists in their unsuccessful efforts in shortening the "Great Depression", which truly ended only after the United States entered World War II. Stockman's book is one long argument not only against Keynesian economics, but more importantly, the crony capitalism practiced by presidential administrations of both major American political parties - Democratic and Republican - resulting in "The Great Deformation", in which Wall Street financiers have finely tuned the art and craft of financial speculation transforming Wall Street into one vast financial "casino". Stockman salutes President Dwight D. Eisenhower for being the only president since the Great Depression to reduce the size of the Federal Government by judiciously employing both tax increases and substantial budget cuts. While readers will not be surprised by Stockman's harsh condemnations of Johnson, Clinton and Obama, they may be shocked to read that much of the seeds of financial destruction were sowed by Nixon as an act of political expediency designed to ensure his reelection in 1972. He condemns the relatively recent bailout of General Motors, and the Obama administration's support of now bankrupt firms like Solyndra as sterling examples of the crony capitalism which has insinuated itself in American economic and political life since the 1970s if not before. Stockman also takes aim at Neo-Conservatives ("neocons") who have promoted substantial increases in defense spending at a time when the United States remains the sole superpower capable of projecting its military might across the globe; his is a view that has garnered ample support from Libertarian-oriented politicians like former United States Representative Ron Paul, and his son, current United States Senator Rand Paul, reflecting a long-term theme of isolationism that dominated American foreign policy for much of the 19th and early 20th centuries. "The Great Deformation" should be viewed as a clarion call for greatly transforming America's ongoing economic morass into one that he believes will be cured only by a drastic return to truly genuine free market economics; otherwise, Stockman thinks we are witnessing the twilight of the United States as a democratic republic, to be replaced by a more repressive, more Socialist-oriented, form of government. Given the substantial financial data and history which he uses extensively in supporting his arguments, those who remain skeptical may not be able to dismiss easily, Stockman's polemical account on the origins and probable future of the "Great Deformation". Without question this is a timely, important book on the intersection between economic policy, business and politics in the United States that warrants a wide readership.

"The World Without You" is a brilliant fictional evocation of a family torn asunder by the unexpected death of its only son and brother, set exactly one year - a July 4th - after his funeral. In the town of Lenox the Frankel clan reunites to hold a memorial service for the son and brother imprisoned and then murdered by Islamic terrorists while he was covering the American war in Iraq. Henkin has written an emotionally riveting, quite engrossing, look at family dynamics, giving us three memorable female characters in the sisters, Clarissa, Lily and Noelle Frankel; the eldest, Clarissa, is trying to have a child with her husband at the age of thirty-nine; Lily is a mercurial lawyer willing to rage about everything; the youngest, Noelle, a born-again Orthodox Jew, returns with her family from Israel and feels entirely out of place. And then there is the widow of their younger brother Leo, Thisbe, who arrives with their young son Calder, troubled by a secret she harbors which she doesn't wish to divulge to the entire Frankel clan. Both Frankel parents, David and Marilyn, possess a secret that will have an adverse impact on the family. This is a novel that, in the words of the writer Gary Shteyngart, is "Witty and wise, poignant and heartfelt. The Fourth of July will never be the same for me, or for my fellow Americans". It is one of the finest recent novels I have read regarding love, loss and memory as seen through the eyes of the Frankel family struggling to put behind the tragic death of Leo Frankel. Without question, Henkin is a genuine literary treasure and "The World Without You" will be remembered as an important literary landmark in his career.