Science of the X-Men [Mass Market Paperback]

Linc Yaco (Author), Karen Haber (Draft Writer)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 24, 2004

From the Angel to the Wolverine, here is a comprehensive guide to the strange and wonderful powers of the world's most popular mutant superheroes, with a twist: learn how the X-Men's powers could work in the real world.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Link Yaco is currently a web editor for IBMand is a contributing writer to the Marvel-related magazine The Jack Kirby Collector. Karen Harber created the bestselling the Mutant Season series and co-authored the first volume of the same title with her husband Robert Silverberg. She is a respected journalist and an accomplished fiction writer. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: I Books/Marvel (February 24, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743487257
• ISBN-13: 978-0743487252
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,864,829 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

48 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Mutant Physics 101, August 8, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Science of the X-Men (Hardcover)

Think of it as a comic book lover's guide to basic science. This book doesn't so much debate the plausibility of a mutant's powers as it explains the laws of physics that would govern the use of them. It's overly simplistic in some places and needlessly complex in a few others, but mostly it's an easy, straight-forward read. Out of the 19 mutants that they profile they include all the originals (Jean, Cyclops, Beast, Iceman, Angel), some odd choices (Scarlet Witch, Unus the Untouchable) and miss some good opportunities (Banshee in particular). The section on psi-powers is probably the weakest, but the strong analysis of Wolverine and Magneto mostly make up for it. The character bios seem very accurate and detailed and the one error that I noticed is more likely a problem with editing than with the authors. On the whole it's a much better book than I expected it to be.

Other mutants included: Nightcrawler, Shadowcat, Quicksilver, Mastermind, Colossus, Havok, the Blob, Xavier, Storm, and Rogue plus sections on Cerebro and the Sentinels

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars X-Tremely Poor, January 6, 2001

By 

Robert Street - See all my reviews

This review is from: Science of the X-Men (Hardcover)

The concept of this book is excellent and the introduction is good. This completes the list of nice things I have to say about the book. The artwork varies from good to dismal, the science is often poor or simply wrong (a list of my favorites: Stephen Jay Gould is a controversial evolutionist!, most scientists believe evolution of higher life forms from nothing is inevitable(?), superstring theory is presented as a fact, only primitive civilizations have polytheistic religions(I'd love to know where he got this one from and how the Hindus of the world feel about it), and the section on the Brood shows such a fundamental lack of understanding of evolutionary theory that I was almost in tears). I might even have overlooked these glaring problems if the writing about the characters had been good, but quite frankly, it wasn't. The author mentions the possibility of sequels in the introduction; in response I say: Please don't.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The author speaks: A message from Link Yaco, December 11, 2005

By 

Lincoln Yaco (NYC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Science of the X-Men (Hardcover)

The story behind the book is probably more interesting than the book itself. For starters, let me tell you that Karen whatsername had nothing whatsoever to do with this book. Byron Preiss (recently deceased), the publisher, put her name on this because she is the WIFE of ROBERT SILVERBERG, famous SF author. He hoped that if he hired her as a copyeditor, Silverberg would look it over. Not only did Silverberg ignore it, so did she.
If this thing was copyedited, then why all the terrible typos?
This thing wasn't even SPELLCHECKED!

I rewrote this like, five times. Preiss took incomplete drafts from different rewrites of various chapters, and put them together OUT OF SEQUENCE so they contradict each other in places.

I have yet to receive complete payment after over FIVE YEARS.

Now that Byron is dead, I guess I will never get paid.

Well, it was nice to be able to say I wrote a book, but the unnerving experience of being screamed at by Byron's neurotic assistant editor who had never edited a book before, hardly made the task a joy. The result is so slapdash that I have never been able to open the covers and actually read it. GAD, there are so many TYPOS!

BYRON PREISS had a reputation and as soon I signed the contract and announced it to various zines and groups, other authors who had worked for Byron began to approach me to warn me about hiim.
So none of it came as a suprise. I KNEW what I was in for. But that didn't make it any more pleasant.

But...good things came of it, so it was well worth it. My nerves jangled for some time afterward, but that's life in the publishing biz in New York City. A real contest of egos. It is easy to face them down and I did so many times (all so childish) but it is so TRYING. It is a foolish way to do business. No adult should interact with another like a schoolyard bully.

I feel there is some good text in the book. Some very funny stuff. All the research I did on the characters was thrown out. The science is uneven because some chapters are, as I say, incomplete drafts. But I tried to write a lot of funny stuff. The editor felt it was unprofessional and kept cutting it out. I kept putting it in. After awhile I think he gave up. The editor was Byron's assistant, I think his name was Dwight. I've blocked him out. He was so shrill and brittle. Poor man. He must have been suffering the major brunt of forces above far more shrill than he. And he could NOT have been making much money. So he was trying to rush thru my little book as fast as possible because time was money. He had a dozen other projects that were on deadline and no time for me.

SO, if you want to be a writer, I warn you as I was warned--be prepared for everything I have described. It is a common story.

Not so bad in the scale of things. People are starving in Africa, the world is full of terrorists...In the scale of things.

Thanks for reading,
My best to you all,
=link