A.r. Taylor

Sex, Rain, and Cold Fusion A.r. Taylor

Sex, Rain, and Cold Fusion - a lot of rain, a modest amount of science, and complicated sex lead David Oster into mayhem in the Pacific Northwest.

Prepare to meet physicist David Oster, a big thinker, a charming cad who flees Caltech and his three girlfriends for the Pacific Northwest, pastoral fantasy firmly in hand. Whatever will he do with all that rain, yet another beautiful woman, and several crazy physicists intent on his ruin? Obviously he needs to discover some entirely new physics principle, as yet unnamed, but can he deliver?

"An unpredictable, winningly bizarre academic satire." -- Kirkus Reviews 

"Taylor's funny, meticulously controlled fiction debut opens with 30-year-old hotshot physicist David Oster finding himself fed up with teaching physics to undergraduates ("It was pitiful when a physicist tried to tell eighteen-year-olds how a ball rolls off a table") and eager to trade his California Institute of Technology postdoc for something different, something involving pure research . . . Taylor so skillfully blends David Lodge-style academic farce with Thomas Pynchon-style weird science . . . that it's impossible to spot the dividing line between the two." -- Kirkus Reviews 

"In David Oster, she crafts a perfect, hapless Everyman who faces academic jockeying, lovelorn antics and even an attempted murder with beleaguered charm and an endless supply of snarky one-liners and sardonic observations. " -- Kirkus Reviews 

"A surreal novel about a promising young academic trying to change his life" -- Kirkus Reviews

Praise for SEX, RAIN, AND COLD FUSION:

"A. R. Taylor's work positively crackles with wit, humor, and charm. Polished, shining prose that gave me a bad case of sentence envy." -- Ted Bell, New York Times Bestselling Author of  PHANTOM and THE TIME PIRATE

"Twisted, hilarious, and strikingly original, Sex, Rain, and Cold Fusion is my kind of book. Its physicist hero, David Oster, is the sexy, hip, geek star we've been waiting for." -- Gia Gittleson, RN, former Senior Editor,Los Angeles Magazine

"Those who think science is a staid, impersonal affair need look no further than the raging controversies over cold fusion, the fifth force, and other forays into uncharted territory that drive some of the greatest (and not so great) minds to distraction. A. R. Taylor captures the sometimes wild and woolly spirit of out-of-the-box science. Physics has never been funnier!"
-- Dr. Zaven Arzoumanian, Astrophysicist, NICER, Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer

"You need A. R. Taylor's new book at least as much as you need the items identified in her title: "Sex, Rain, and Cold Fusion." There is no author funnier or smarter, nobody who packs her punch. She assumes unshakeable residence in the back of your mind. Along the way she reveals a hitherto undiscovered principle of physics: the force called A. R. Taylor." -- Joseph Di Prisco, novelist, ALL FOR NOW.

"A. R. Taylor is wildly funny in a very serious sort of way - thought-provoking, cool, she doesn't throw a baseball like a girl, neither does she write like one. Her work involves boisterous, hilarious fun, tinged with a poignant vibe. I want her to write a book about me."
-- Diana Ketcham, Writer and Editor, San Francisco

"I haven't been allowed to read SEX, RAIN, AND COLD FUSION , but I am going to get a copy when the folks give me my allowance on Saturday. It's about doing it (fusion) while taking a cold shower. The author is older than my mother but hotter. She lives near us and sits on the porch in a bikini. I deliver her newspaper and think about her all the time, even when I'm taking a cold shower." -- Andrew Hoyem, Publisher, San Francisco

"A. R. Taylor is one of my favorite writers, and SEX RAIN and COLD FUSION is funny and wise, wet and wonderful." -- Jeanne Martinet, author of ETIQUETTE FOR THE END OF THE WORLD.