Books
Mr. Buck’s first full length book, Einstein’s Mistake, is the culmination of a poet’s latent fifty year study of the esoteric world of theoretical physics. See Einstein’s Mistake.
To illustrate the author’s literary versatility and to entertain his audience, he completed his second full length book, Star Ship, an episodic comedy with geopolitical overtones. See Star Ship.
Einstein’s Mistake - a lyric poem in prose
Einstein’s Mistake explains to the general reader how the principles of modern theoretical physics explain the true nature of physical reality from the perspective of human perception, how our world is actually governed by the weirdness of quantum mechanics and quantum field theory. Freed from academic scientific precision, this novel’s perspective answers some of the major mysteries of our universe: of life and death, of time, of the multiverse and of how it is that reality is not local, that its effects are not bound by causes. The author also shares his counter-intuitive answers to the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy. After some scientific exposition, a fictional narrative follows involving a humble day worker who, in contrast to a world ponderously pursuing the ultimate particle, sees the larger truth of things seamlessly coherent across all of creation, naked of aura and credentials, personifying the principle that the path to truth is intellectual humility. The story is one of fast-moving technology innovation embodying the principles that the science represents, how wishful beliefs create a reality otherwise unbelievable. It is presented as a book by two pseudonymous authors, both physicists, one American, the other Italian. The authors during the course of the story become absorbed into it and disappear from its external execution like subatomic particles sometimes do in deep space.
Thus the book becomes authorless and similarly pops into existence on its own providing a novel perspective on our universe and what it is really about. Einstein’s Mistake was offered on Amazon where it received all 5 Star reviews of which this one is representative, “Make no mistake about it. Einstein’s Mistake is a masterpiece, revealing secrets of humanity, science and poetry just as E =mc2 did in mathematics. The tale… is told in exquisite prose often poetic. What is Einstein’s Mistake? You will be pulled page after page on a string. And that is a hint of the joy you will experience. Read it NOW.”
Common among the reactions to it were “I couldn’t put down” and “I didn’t want it to end.”
Star Ship
On the heels of the readership acclaim for Einstein’s Mistake Mr. Buck began writing his second book, Star Ship. While the first book was science based, the second was a different genre- episodic comedy. Star Ship is cast in a different setting. America emerged from World War II the most powerful nation on Earth. But she was not without adversaries, including devious and treacherous ones. That tension culminated in the Cold War of the 1960s and ’ 70s. The hostile players converged on the Mediterranean Sea where the United States brandished its radiant emblem of American military majesty and might, the Flagship of the Sixth Fleet and its august three-star Admiral. It was shown off to Ambassadors, Heads of State and European Royalty. However, while its surface glittered, at its core was the biggest bunch of miscreant meatheads ever assembled on a six hundred foot long structure. With one junior officer who took it upon himself to suppress the mayhem from rising to the surface to embarrass and undermine the United States and its Navy at that critical juncture. Star Ship tells the story of that struggle and the undercurrent of intrigue that gives the story geopolitical significance.
While Star Ship is just beginning its public exposure the initial response is similar to that of Einstein’s Mistake. Star Ship is guaranteed to be equally compelling. As one preview describes it “From cover to cover Star Ship is a potpourri of history, romance, humor and pathos with exquisite writing…Loved it..”
Another reviewer notes, “Starship may be the most enjoyable read I've had in a long time. As I turned the pages quickly I started putting it down so it would last longer.”
Bird’s eye
Jan Buck has just released his new book, Bird's Eye, a novel that interweaves the concepts of fantasy and reality, chaos and order into an intriguing page-turner where surprises drop like a school bus plummeting over a cliff. Inspired by a new discovery of Princeton scientists in the field of Chaos Theory, Bird's Eye is the story of how a troublesome young boy is transformed by a horrific, random event into a highly successful New York City achiever through newly imbued diligence and industry. This journey takes him from one random and unexpected experience to another, suggesting that it is chaos rather than order which determines our destiny and brings life to our world. Bird's Eye is aptly titled helping us see our own world and its "random" events from another perspective. Mr. Buck graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University and received his Juris Doctor degree from Columbia Law School where he was Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar and Editor, Columbia Journal of Transnational Law. He also served as line officer in the U.S. Navy on the Sixth Fleet Flagship in the Mediterranean.
God at the gate
God at the Gates is an historical novel set in the late 1600s when the Ottoman Turks were making their way up through Eastern Europe with the ambition of overrunning Vienna, then the capitol of all Christendom. It tells the story of how a terrified Pope Innocent XI in fear of losing his Church desperately though futilely sought the help from the Church’s former allies to save Christendom, and how in his final entreaty to his last hope, the King of Poland came to his rescue and agreed to confront the Turks at the Gates of Vienna. This is the story of the few courageous Knights and devout Christians and their ingenious plan to save the starving city of Vienna surrounded and cut off by an overwhelming Islamic army intent upon taking and destroying the city followed by the conquering of all of Europe.
This is the story of a miracle.
Why am I here?
Why Am I Here? tells the story of Jim Ball, a good and earnest man who is becoming something, but what, exactly, he does not know. Jim’s mystery is, at its source, a riddle. What is the meaning of life?
Jim faces one after another of life’s challenges and in each case becomes something new. But is this really the reason he’s here? This book illustrates how all of life’s phenomena do not just happen.
Rather, they become. What would be Jim’s final becoming, his ultimate reason for being? Jim’s epiphany should hold meaning for us all - why we are here.
A String of pickles
We have all been in predicaments that, at the time, are difficult, awkward, scary and seemingly unsolvable. Here is an array of such situations and their resolutions. I call them pickles, and, whether sour or sweet, I hope you will enjoy them, because thank goodness, they didn’t happen to you.
