Customer Reviews

The Invention of Everything Else

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This book is primarily about Nikola Tesla, the eccentric scientist and inventor from Smiljan, who invented AC electricity and wireless communication and belatedly received recognition as the inventor of radio. For the most part, it is a fictionalized account of the latter part of his life while living in New York, especially the time he spent at the New Yorker Hotel, and his interactions with his few friends and acquaintances.

It's also about a fictional chambermaid named Louisa, who is inclined towards being insatiably curious about the lives of the guests of the hotel. Louisa becomes obsessed with Tesla, his life and his inventions, and the two are drawn into a platonic friendship after discovering a mutual interest in homing pigeons. Louisa is also a part of another sub-story involving her widowed father, a family friend who claims to have invented a time machine, and a mysterious young man who may have come from the future.

Even though it's a relatively small book, it includes a detailed account of the life of Tesla, his triumphs, his failures, his phobias and inventions, and the many times he snatched defeat from the jaws of success. The writing style is largely conversational, and it doesn't get so bogged down in science that your eyes glaze over, but the overall structure of the story is sometimes hard to follow (and swallow).

The fact and the fiction don't quite fit together in this historical work, but the rich descriptions of the architecture, social structure and ambience of early twentieth century New York make for interesting reading.

Recommended for inventors, science buffs and historians



Amanda Richards, April 10, 2008

Samantha Hunt's novel is an historical fiction surrounding the last months of the life of Nikola Tesla, the inventor of alternating current electricity. His life was much obscured by the better known Thomas Edison; however, as this book well illuminates, Edison was more rigid, conforming, capitalistic. It is a story about creativity, artistic inspiration, and imagining the unimaginable. What happens if the spirit can transcend into reality? What if a powerful intuition can link us to something infinite and previously unexplainable? This novel is a novel of ideas as much as it is a fictional biography on the life of a genius.

Magical realism blends with scientific query and knowledge. It is 1943 at the New Yorker hotel, where Tesla lives in isolation and penury with his pigeons and his journal and his thoughts. He is fascinated by the mystery of homing pigeons, the fact that they consistently find their way home. He meets Louisa, an educated young chambermaid there, who shares his fascination with pigeons and has a coop she keeps at her home. They develop a fragile, compassionate, and intellectual relationship.

As the story unfolds, mysteries open to even larger mysteries, and time as a theme seems to have a current as charged as electricity. Louisa has an admirer, Arthur, who may be from the future. Her father, a melancholy and also isolated man still grieving for his dead wife, desires to enter a time machine (built by a friend of his) and reunite with his dead wife.

Hunt's writing is sensuous and full of inner dialogue, blending aspects of psychology, philosophy, science, and science fiction. The characters are supple and vivid, but at times seem remote and stilted in relation to each other, even while their individual story lines overlap well and draw out the plot to its interesting conclusion.

The novel celebrates the luminous magic of science and nature and the inexplicable aspects of Time. The spirit of invention, in The Invention of Everything else, especially honors the life force itself. It does so with a bulging, beating heart.

I would definitely have to recommend this book to people. The writing is amazing, & you can tell the amount of research that went into it because of the amount of rich detail Hunt has carefully crafted into the novel. The only thing is that it is very, very sad, especially as it begins to near its climax. But overall, it is an amazing book to read, & it flows together wonderfully. I am glad that I bought it.

The fact that Nikola Tesla--one of the great, neglected scientific geniuses--is a major character in this novel is what first brought me to it. That, and the fact that it is comparatively brief. Not knowing anything of Ms. Hunt, I wasn't sure what I would be getting myself into and this seemed like a relatively minor risk. Turns out, this novel greatly exceeded my expectations.

This is a novel of great characters and even better atmosphere. Besides Tesla, who comes to life as a suitably mysterious elderly man pushing forward and looking back even as the end nears, there is Louisa, a curious chambermaid at the New Yorker hotel who works her way into Tesla's life. The tendrils of the past, people lost, hold on to both of these characters tightly and we see some of that through various dips into history in addition to getting the sense of where both their lives are now. This introduces us to a host of fascinating secondary characters that hover over our main characters like ghosts.

But I think it is the atmosphere of the novel that will stay with me forever. New York of the 1940's and the New Yorker hotel in particular, provide a setting for this novel that, though solid, seems to be shrouded in mist. This creates a world of reality constantly infiltrated by visions and dreams--of the past, of time machines, of bringing the dead to life--that are periodically pushed away by the ugly face of reality. It is very cleverly done.

Overall, I was tremendously impressed by this novel. Taking risks and occasionally coming close to hitting a sour note, it never did. This is one of the best novels I've read recently.

The author is able to blend enchantment with realism and history in a book that is a pure delight to read. The story provides a rare, fascinating and highly entertaining glimpse into the life and times of someone who is perhaps the most misunderstood genius of all time. What more can I say? Hunt seems to be talented and wise beyond her years. I can only add a resounding 'Bravo' for such a small gem of a book.

"The Invention of Everything Else" is the second novel from award-winning author Samantha Hunt. Set primarily in New York in 1943, it follows the story of Louisa Dewell, 24 years old and a chambermaid working at the New Yorker Hotel. After she is caught snooping around the rooms of Nikola Tesla - one-time inventor and the man responsible for creating alternating current, now eighty-six years old and practically penniless - a bond develops between the two. As Louisa begins to discover, his public image as the eccentric scientist belies a man torn apart inside, searching for redemption near the end of his life.

The idea of alternating currents forms a prominent theme in this book, and is reflected in the structure of the novel, comprising as it does several interlinking narrative threads. The first of these, in 1943, concerns the development of friendship between Louisa and Tesla; another explores Tesla's career as he relates it to his friend 'Sam'; another follows Louisa's father, Walter, and his own history. Such an interlacing of past and present is a deliberate ploy, throwing the reader off-balance and helping to build the surreal atmosphere that pervades the writing, in which questions over the relationship of fact and fiction, the existence of an afterlife, the nature of memory - and of time itself - are ever-present.

It is disappointing, then, that this surreal quality is not mirrored in the prose, which, though it has a few flashes of brilliance, remains on the whole rather flat and unexpressive. Too concerned with pushing the plot forward, the narrative rarely dwells for long in any given scene, at the expense, unfortunately, of the kind of descriptive detail which would really bring the settings to life and allow the reader to experience the true vibrancy of New York in the 1940s.

Also lacking is the emotional depth which could allow the reader to identify closely with the characters, and in particular the main protagonist, Louisa. This is a shame, as the book is filled with a number of interesting figures - for example, the enigmatic and handsome Arthur Vaughn, who may or may not be from the future; and the charismatic inventor Azor, who claims to have built a time machine - who sadly we see too little of. Indeed, of all the characters only the central player - Tesla himself - is rendered in full detail. Unloved except for by his pigeons, still full of ideas but unable to realise them, he is by 1943 a man defeated. But as Hunt's brilliant and sympathetic portrayal demonstrates, despite his manifold quirks and faults, he was a man driven above all by the desire to make the world a better place.

A curious blend of historical and science fiction, "The Invention of Everything Else" is a novel full of ideas and imagination, and rich with characters and settings. Somehow, however, these ingredients never gel completely together, and thus while it remains an enjoyable read, in the long term it tends to frustrate rather than engage the reader.

Incredible as it may seem, much of "The Invention of Everything Else" happens to be true. There is so much about the storytelling and invention in Samantha Hunt's second novel that appears to be whimsical fiction or magical realism. However, it's not. Nikola Tesla was a real person, and he really did experience all (all right, maybe 99%) of the things the novel credits him with.

Set in 1943, so flush in the middle of Manhattan's radio days that you keep expecting Woody Allen to show up, "The Invention of Everything Else" chronicles the last lonely week in the life of Tesla. Now an octogenarian inventor whose best days and best ideas were nearly a half century behind him, Tesla leads a lonely existence high up in the new Hotel New Yorker. Alternating chapters are told first-person by Tesla to an unseen figure, who we later come to realize is the ghost of one of America's great 19th century voices. Even more amusing than the conceit of "Sam" ghostwriting Tesla's biography, is the fact that in real life, these two were actually fast friends. The inventions and incidents Tesla describes, both in the book's present day (January 1943) and in its distant past, are mostly verifiable fact -- either devices Tesla actually created (alternating current, wireless communication), or that he'd claimed to have created (contact with Martians, the "death ray").

The balance of the book is devoted to the similarly lonely life of Louisa Dewell, a radio-obsessed chambermaid at the New Yorker. Louisa's world gradually opens up, thanks to the emergency of three unlikely strangers: a handsome stranger from her past of whom she has no memory; an eccentric friend of her father who claims to have invented time travel; and Tesla himself. Louisa's world opens at the same time that Tesla's is shutting down. Much like the radio programs she loves, her own sheltered life comes to feature chases, escapes, fantastical inventions, personal tragedy, and redeeming love.

Hunt's writing style is engaging. Like a Michael Chabon or a Jonathan Lethem, her novel seamlessly blends genres. We're never quite sure what's meant to be science fiction and what isn't. This cross-cutting is entirely appropriate, given that Tesla's own life blended reality with the fantastic and impossible (the man really did come to think he communicated with pigeons). The prose style is direct, and only occasionally gets confusing -- the first and last chapters required a little more attention and rereading than the rest of the book, I found.

Another important character in the novel is New York City itself. Institutions we now take for granted -- the subway, the Hotel New Yorker, Bryant Park and the Public Library -- are all new and otherworldly to the book's characters. A flashback by Louisa's dad to the library's opening day is hilarious. Two characters briefly glimpse New York City from high above the Earth, and the view is breathaking.

"The Invention of Everything Else" is surprisingly short, given how much material Hunt packs in. Even when the book seems to be going over the top (electrical light shows, intimidating G-men), it's only describing things that Tesla himself actually experienced (or claimed to experience) in his final days. It's definitely worth your time, and don't tell yourself that it's all too good to be true.

What a wise, marvelous book, passing easily between past, future, the possible and the not yet realized! The writing and science are often pure poetry. The novel tells the story of the eccentric and amazingly unrecognized inventor Tesla (now in his upper eighties and living with pigeons and a room full of scientific papers and detritus in the grand old New Yorker hotel in 1943), and a young chambermaid with a longing to understand him and a hope he can restore what she has lost. This is my first introduction to this author and I can't wait to read her first book.

Stephanie Cowell, author or MARRYING MOZART and NICHOLAS COOKE

Sophomore author Samantha Hunt employs the little know life of an eccentric inventor to bring to life secretly passionate characters locked in commonplace.

While at times this novel darts too quickly from one direction to another, the characters are vivid. Story lines are emphasized through the use of well researched historical facts and figures.

A quick read, this novel is interesting and leaves an anticipation for her future work.

The Invention Of Everything Else has some very interesting biographical elements. Nikola Tesla was a famous inventor that I knew nothing about. His contributions to electric power and wireless communications are fascinating to read and learn about. Samantha Hunt takes this famous inventor, and she crafts a novel that is entertaining from beginning to end. The setting of the novel is New York City in 1943. Samantha Hunt paints a vivid picture of what life was like for a chambermaid working in the busy Hotel New Yorker at that time. I like the science fiction element of the possibility of time travel in this novel. The father daughter relationship between Arthur and Louisa is very realistic and touching here. Samantha Hunt provides insightful quotes from famous people like Mark Twain, Bram Stoker and Nikola Tesla at the beginning of each chapter. They are fun to read and reflect upon. This book is very entertaining.