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    Final Theory: A Novel
    Final Theory: A Novel
    Final Theory: A Novel
    Audiobook12 hours

    Final Theory: A Novel

    Written by Mark Alpert

    Narrated by Adam Grupper

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    A science professor on the run must find a lost Einstein theory—and keep it from those who might use it to destroy the universe. Don’t miss the “riveting” (Publishers Weekly) doomsday thriller that Booklist calls “a strikingly sweet-natured yet satisfyingly barbed high-tech, high-stakes adventure” in a starred review.

    David Swift is called to the hospital to comfort his dying mentor—a renowned scientist who’s been brutally tortured. David is shocked when the old man dies after wheezing “Einheitlichen Feldtheorie.” The Theory of Everything. It was Albert Einstein’s lifetime quest to pin down a unified set of equations that incorporated both relativity and quantum mechanics, combining the physics of stars with the laws of atoms. But Einstein never achieved this goal. Or did he?

    In the next two hours, David’s attacked by a Russian assassin, arrested by the FBI, and nearly killed three times. Someone is clearly trying to get their hands on the supposedly failed theory. But why?

    As David runs for his life, he’ll team up with his old girlfriend (who happens to be gorgeous, brilliant, and living in Einstein’s old Princeton house), another eccentric disciple of Einstein, and an autistic teenager addicted to video games, in order to work out what Einstein’s theories could possibly be worth to the powers desperate for it—and if the world is even ready for their consequences.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster Audio
    Release dateJun 3, 2008
    ISBN9780743572866
    Author

    Mark Alpert

    Mark Alpert is a contributing editor at Scientific American and an internationally bestselling author of science thrillers. His novels for adults—Final Theory, The Omega Theory, Extinction, and The Furies—are action-packed page-turners that show the frightening potential of near-future technologies.

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    Reviews for Final Theory

    3.5/5

    114 ratings10 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Book one. I liked the interspersed physics the author brought in. The plot was good, and the story was unique until the end which seemed to be hastily put together. I think most readers will shake their head in dismay at the levels of ineptness the author continuously shows toward first responders, security, government and military.
    • 3/5
      A decent read but somewhat formulaic. I enjoyed it and tore through it in less time than it usually takes me to finish other books, so I think that's a good sign. The depictions of the government cracked me up, but I could see how that might turn some off.
    • 5/5
      i read the reviews and they said this book was too academic or technical. it could be, but to me it was a very plain way of explaining string theory. of course i'm a fan of string theory and qntum physics. it is a story about a guy who wanted to be a physicist but finally the math got to be too much and he became a writer of the histories of great scientists. i thought this was incredibly well done and can't wait to have my mom read it. it doesn't condensce all the technical info together so i feel it's a very interesting great book. it's based on the idea that einstein did discover Einheitliche Feldtheorie or unified field theory which is string theory. but after the contribution his relativity theory made to the atom bomb he hides it. once someone discovers it's out there it a race to keep it from the enemy and find the thoery before they are killed. a couple of things. the writer of this book actually is an editor for Scientific American and did his thesis on an application of einsteins theory of relativity. there was a lot of research into this book. also alot of the book consists of developed theories. so if you have interest at all you want to read this book. if you don't it was still a great thriller and kept you on the move.
    • 3/5
      Fairly easy going thriller with a scientific twist to it.
    • 4/5
      Loved the mixture of science and suspense. Very much want to recommend this as an alternate history--what if Einstein had discovered the unified field theory but realized what might happen if it fell into the wrong hands? The author does a nice job of giving the reader enough information about the characters so you care about what happens to them. The science is mixed in and obviously the author knows his stuff. Looking forward to his next book.
    • 5/5
      i read the reviews and they said this book was too academic or technical. it could be, but to me it was a very plain way of explaining string theory. of course i'm a fan of string theory and qntum physics. it is a story about a guy who wanted to be a physicist but finally the math got to be too much and he became a writer of the histories of great scientists. i thought this was incredibly well done and can't wait to have my mom read it. it doesn't condensce all the technical info together so i feel it's a very interesting great book. it's based on the idea that einstein did discover Einheitliche Feldtheorie or unified field theory which is string theory. but after the contribution his relativity theory made to the atom bomb he hides it. once someone discovers it's out there it a race to keep it from the enemy and find the thoery before they are killed. a couple of things. the writer of this book actually is an editor for Scientific American and did his thesis on an application of einsteins theory of relativity. there was a lot of research into this book. also alot of the book consists of developed theories. so if you have interest at all you want to read this book. if you don't it was still a great thriller and kept you on the move.
    • 3/5
      My husband has little patience for television if he can see where the story is going. It's not unusual for him to sigh twenty minutes into an hour-long drama, wave dismissively at the television and predict what's going to happen in a disgusted tone. He's often right and generally cranky because he feels the writers didn't do their jobs if he can see it all before it plays out. I'm more patient , especially if I am in any way invested in the characters. I'm usually okay seeing how something plays out even if I'm relatively sure what will happen. But in reading Final Theory, I felt like my husband often does watching television. I knew how scenes would unfold as soon as they were set up and I saw plot twists coming hundreds of pages before they were revealed. And the fact that I did irritated me greatly, probably because there is almost no character development here to speak of. (It should be said, I suppose, that this is a thriller, and that thrillers aren't generally known for their characterization, and that I'm not usually a fan of the genre.) That lack of character development might have been okay if the plot had been sharp enough to keep me entertained or if the result of all of the running about and killing people (seriously--even for a book of this type, the body count is ridiculous) weren't that the general situation returned to exactly what it was at the start of the thing. If you like physics and the idea of a Theory of Everything (the presence of which being what drew me to this book in the first place), go read physics. If you are a huge fan of the thriller genre, you may find something here you like. Otherwise, skip it.
    • 3/5
      Wow! This was a page turner. I appreciate authors who have backgrounds in what they are writing about (i.e: Kathy Reichs & forensic anthropology). I can usually count on accuracy and I learn about non-fiction themes via novels - a neat way to learn difficult concepts. This is the case with this novel that discusses physics (Einstein's theories)and the 'Theory of Everything'.
    • 4/5
      FINAL THEORY's dust jacket includes a gushing review by thriller writer Douglas Preston, who not only exclaims that the book is "a stupendous read!" but rather cattily suggests that "If I were Michael Crichton, I'd be packing my bags and heading for a quiet retirement in Tahiti."Don't buy your ticket yet, Mr. Crichton. Your position as contemporary literature's premier writer of science-based thrillers is still secure.Not that Alpert's book is bad -- quite the contrary. It is a fast-paced thriller with an excellent mix of science, technology, and interesting characters. But it is also predictable, almost to a fault; and hews closely to the typical formula of such books. The big, bad U.S. government, controlled by a group of maverick conservatives (including a thinly disguised Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld), wants to get its hands on a vital scientific secret -- in this case, Einstein's mythical unified field theory -- the theory that not only explains literally every particle in the universe, but is potentially able to be used to unleash unbelievable and devastating power. Well, by gosh, by golly, who wouldn't want to get their hands on such a formula? As it turns out, not all that many folks -- though one would expect a landscape simply teeming with agents of foreign powers and representatives of terrorist groups. Nope. It seems that there is only one other shadowy figure determined to acquire this potentially unlimited power. The evil-doers that thriller readers have come to expect are conspicuously absent in this book. While that may make FINAL THEORY a refreshing change of pace for some readers, I found the absence of other players oddly unrealistic. Another jarring touch, which is never fully explained, is the reason for all this interest in a theory that Einstein searched for over fifty years ago. Why the sudden, frantic interest in this theory now? Even at the denouement, when all is revealed, and the master puppeteer emerges from the shadows, too much is left unexplained. One madman's jealous rage seems too thin an answer to adequately cover the questions that remain.Add in one brutal Russian ex-secret service agent, who leaves a trail of some dozen or more corpses in his wake, a corrupt FBI agent, a beautiful black string theorist, and two, count 'em, two children in jeopardy; sprinkle with a generous helping of scientific exposition, stir well, and voila! You now have your standard thriller.Better written than many, admittedly, but still too shallow and predictable for Michael Crichton to experience any serious qualms about his throne.A fast-paced summer read, but not anywhere as earth-shaking as the subject matter seems to demand.
    • 3/5
      Lots of dead bodies, but not a bad thriller. It held my interest through the last page, even though I kept thinking there were too many lucky breaks and way too much killing. But it's a thriller, so that's what one can expect. Interesting bits about the physics.