The Edge of Chaos [Hardcover]

Pamela McCorduck (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 2007

An internationally renowned scientist who fears she's taken one scientific risk too many; a distinguished archaeologist who's haunted by taking too few; a world famous financier who's lost everything except his money; an art gallery owner with a heartbreaking burden; a fugitive filmmaker; the head of a battered women's shelter--these are some of the people who find themselves at the end of the Old Santa Fe Trail at the end of the 20th century. Chance has brought them from all over to beautiful, legendary Santa Fe, New Mexico, where they shape, illuminate, and even deform each other's lives unexpectedly, as if on the very edge of chaos. This edge of chaos, a scientific term for that slender territory between frozen predictability and hopeless disorder, is a dangerously unstable place. Learning and change can only happen there, but always under threat of sliding back to frozen order--or over into the chaotic abyss. And Santa Fe's sons and daughters, even now, keep a precarious foothold on The Edge of Chaos, bringing their own pasts and their city's rich history into an uncertain but exhilarating future.

Editorial Reviews

Review

''The Edge of Chaos is one of those rare books in which a keen sense of place, fully rounded characters, and the realms of scientific theory and intellect are fused in a seemingly seamless alloy. Pamela McCorduck's passions and sure-handed writing radiate in every direction in this irresistible novel.'' --Jane Hirshfield, author of After, and Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry

''I honestly can't recall another reading experience which touched so many different parts of my mind and emotions. It's absolutely saturated with ideas and brilliant observations...and makes me think that the author has had her eyes very wide open for a very long time. I'll be buying many copies of this book. I can't think of anyone I know who wouldn't like it.'' --Brian Eno, composer, musician, producer

''Pamela McCorduck has created not one, but two memorable characters, whose thoughts and doings absorb and fascinate--a rare thing in fiction at any time. I was astounded by the depth and range of her knowledge across many learned disciplines, but the greatest pleasure reading the book was seeing how things turned out . . .'' --George Newlin, author of Everyone in Dickens, and Everything and Everyone in Trollope --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

About the Author

Pamela McCorduck has published eight other books, translated into most of the major European and Asian languages. She has written for magazines ranging from Redbook and Cosmopolitan to Daedalus, and was a contributing editor to Wired. She was a board member and officer of the American PEN Center in New York, the authors' organization, and an officer of the New Mexico Committee of the National Museum of Women in the Arts. She has appeared on many television shows, including PBS's News Hour and the CBS Evening News. CNN based a two-part documentary on her book The Futures of Women.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 356 pages
• Publisher: Sunstone Press; 1st edition (December 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0865345783
• ISBN-13: 978-0865345782
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,480,159 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Exhilarating Read!, January 4, 2008

By 

Maxine in Brooklyn (Brooklyn, NY, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Edge of Chaos (Hardcover)

I finished The Edge of Chaos on my subway ride home -- and that I took a hardcover book with me on the subway attests to the fact that I couldn't put it down. I love this book! I'm a woman and a mathematician, and this spoke to me on a profound level.

It was a terrific experience for me to read it, and not just because I liked the content. I think I know a lot more about Santa Fe and New Mexico than I ever knew before -- all the images seem very vivid to me and I look forward to visiting there some day to see if what is in my mind's eye matches the reality.

I have stuck post-its throughout the book -- things about which I want to talk to the women in my book group.

I think the most important reason I like this book is that it just happens to strike some resonant chords for me: what is life all about? what is my legacy? will I/it matter? Would age make me resist entering a new relationship? Sophie's death, and Judith's relationship to her. "Jack Molloy is being superseded."

As a mathematician myself I particularly resonated with the quote: "Proving theorems together can be a real aphrodisiac. Discovering something together, knowing it, something nobody else in the world knows."

It was a truly exhilarating read!

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 20th Century Novel of Manners, November 28, 2007

By 

David Kline "Lackbeard" (Boulder CO) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Edge of Chaos (Hardcover)

Imagine a novel with an arc reminiscent of _Pride and Prejudice, also
a novel of manners, and of landscape. Here, the landscape is the desert
environs of Santa Fe, the cultural milieu the literati in the
intellectual neighborhood of the Santa Fe Institute. The science of
complexity pioneered by SFI provides a backdrop, or a mirror really,
reflecting the quests and soul-searching of the characters. The
chapter titles borrow catch-phrases from complexity studies that
describe modes of qualitative behavior of complex systems.

The title, The Edge of Chaos, refers to Goldilocks zone of complex
systems where all the interesting action is. Here, systems are not so
rigid that they cannot change at all, but not so chaotic that they
immediately dissolve into useless disorder. The edge of chaos is the
fertile zone for self-organizing systems to emerge. It describes where
we live, among other things providing a perfect setting for a novel.

The author introduces her readers to all of these concepts and more, and
at the same time serves up a set of engaging, developing characters
powered by all the usual human foibles, led of course by the pursuit of
love. I highly recommend it as a shrewd and entertaining commentary on both contemporary science and contemporary manners.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars insight, life, science, reflection, November 28, 2007

By 

john "John R." (Santa Fe, NM) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Edge of Chaos (Hardcover)

This unique book is a multi-faceted reflection on life, the nature and limits to knowing, the hands of fate, the insights of emerging science, and much more. Its subtle and sweeping descriptions of events and their seeming causes, set in contemporary Santa Fe, New Mexico, depict the lives and relationships of leading characters who become gripping and alive under the author's skillful and discerning eye. Their aspirations, relationships and stories are framed in the context of emerging scientific syntheses and insights rooted in the scientific soil of Santa Fe, subtly and clearly portrayed through the experiences of people who, vividly brought to life by Pamela McCorduck, serve as extraordinary and universal examples of a rich spectrum of penetrating descriptions illustrating the interplay of contingency and necessity that characterizes, and so often governs, our paths through the world. This book, uniquely fascinating, stimulates many further reflections.