JOM

JOM

A List Beyond Words:The JOM Top Ten Greatest Works of Materials Fiction RevealedLynne Robinson

JOM

JOM, Vol. 67, No. 7, 2015

DOI: 10.1007/s11837-015-1503-8Ó 2015 The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society

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20,000 Leagues Under the Sea: Jules VerneAirframe: Michael CrichtonArsenic and Old Lace: Joseph KesselringAtlas Shrugged: Ayn Rand*Building Harlequin’s Moon: Larry Niven and Brenda CooperCat’s Cradle: Kurt Vonnegut*Caves of Steel: Isaac AsimovContact: Carl Sagan*Copernick’s Rebellion: Leo FrankowskiThe Cross-Time Engineer: Leo Frankowski*Crystal Singer (trilogy): Anne McCaffreyThe Dark Is Rising: Susan CooperThe Dark Knight Returns: Frank Miller*Daughter of Fortune: Isabella AllendeDays of Future Past: Chris Claremont and John Byrne*The Diamond Age: Neal Stephenson*Dragonriders of Pern (series): Anne McCaffreyDragon’s Egg/Starquake: Robert L. Forward*Dune: Frank HerbertFail-Safe: Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler“Farewell to the Master”: Harry BatesThe First Patient: Michael PalmerFlatland: Edwin A. AbbottThe Forever War: Joe HaldemanFoundation (trilogy): Isaac Asimov*Fountains of Paradise: Arthur C. ClarkeA Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire series): George R.R. Martin*Garret P.I. (series): Glen Cook“The Gold Bug”: Edgar Allen PoeHis Dark Materials (trilogy): Philip Pullman

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The Hobbit: J.R.R. TolkienThe Hunt for Red October: Tom ClancyThe Iliad: Homer*Iron Giant: Ted Hughes*The Kalevala: Elias Lönnrot*Killer Instinct: Joseph FinderKing Solomon’s Mines: Sir H. Rider HaggardLord of the Rings (trilogy): J.R.R. Tolkien*The Magic Engineer: L.E. Modesitt, Jr.*Mars (trilogy): Kim Stanley Robinson*McTeague: Frank NorrisThe Merchant of Venice: William Shakespeare*Mercury: Ben BovaMistborn (trilogy): Brandon SandersonThe Mote in God’s Eye: Larry Niven and Jerry PournelleMysterious Island: Jules Verne*No Highway: Nevil Shute*Old Man’s War: John ScalziPoseidon’s Arrow: Clive Cussler and Dirk Cussler*Prey: Michael Crichton“Profession”: Isaac Asimov*Ramayana: ValmikiRingworld (series): Larry NivenRiver God: Wilbur Smith*The Rock Rats: Ben Bova“Semplica Girl Diaries”: George SaundersSinclair, Wonder Bear: Malorie Blackman*Spinward Fringe: Randolph LalondeSublimation: W.M. Goldberger*Survivors (Dinosaur Planet series): Anne McCaffreyThe Vanished Diamond: Star of the South: Jules Verne*The Watchmen: Alan Moore

MATERIALSFICTION COUNTDOWN

A List Beyond Words: The JOM Top Ten Greatest Works of Materials Fiction Revealed 1407

beginning of Days of Future PastThe Uncanny X-Men

Days of Future Past By Chris Claremont and John Byrne

“…with a fearsome blizzard dropping its surface temperature far below zero in a matter of seconds,

making its metal skin dangerously brittle.”

—Days of Future Past

Days of Future Past

Days of Future Past

Suveen N. Mathaudhu, Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering Department, Materials Science and Engineering Program, University of

California, Riverside

Suveen N. Mathaudhu, Reviewer

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The Mysterious Island

“The Engineer was to them a microcosm, a compound of every science, a possessor

of all human knowledge.”

—The Mysterious Island

20,000 Leagues Under the SeaJourney to the Center of

the Earth

—Halvor Dalaker, Senior Research Scientist, Sintef Materials and

Chemistry

Halvor Dalaker, Reviewer

The Mysterious IslandBy Jules Verne

A List Beyond Words: The JOM Top Ten Greatest Works of Materials Fiction Revealed 1409

Contact

Contact

“The erbium produced by this process should be 96 percent pure,

with no more than a fraction of a percent

impurity from the other rare earths.”

—Contact

Contact

Contact

—Ernest Mast, President

Mining Corporation Ernest Mast, Reviewer

ContactBy Carl Sagan

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“Robert was the true steel. Stannis is pure

iron, black and hard and strong, yes, but brittle, the way iron gets. . .

And Renly, he’s copper, bright and shiny, pretty to look at but not worth all that much at the end

of the day.” —A Clash of Kings

A Clash of Kings

A Song of Ice and Fire

—James J. Robinson, TMS Executive Director

James J. Robinson, Reviewer

A Song of Ice and Fire (series)By George R.R. Martin

A Song of Ice and Fire

A Game of Thrones

A Song of Ice and Fire

A List Beyond Words: The JOM Top Ten Greatest Works of Materials Fiction Revealed 1411

Atlas Shrugged

Atlas Shrugged

Atlas Shrugged

via netagiva

Atlas Shrugged

— David Howe, Graduate Student, Drexel University

“. . .a metal alloy that would do more than steel had ever done, a metal that would

be to steel what steel had been to iron.” —Atlas Shrugged

David Howe, Reviewer

Atlas ShruggedBy Ayn Rand

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“But we, our little Foundation, our

single world almost without metallic

resources, have had to work with brute

economy.” —Foundation

Encyclopedia GalacticaFoundation

Game of Thrones

—David Freiberg, Undergraduate Student, Materials Science and Engineering, Drexel UniversityDavid Freiberg, Reviewer

Foundation (trilogy)By Isaac Asimov

A List Beyond Words: The JOM Top Ten Greatest Works of Materials Fiction Revealed 1413

JOMThe Iliad

The Iliad “Beams from the

into the distant sky, and Athene and Here thundered in answer by way of salutation

to the King of Golden Mycenae.” —The Iliad

The Iliad

—Mark Francis, Manager, Stonehouse Hard Materials, NOV Wellbore

Technologies

The IliadBy Homer

Mark Francis, Reviewer

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Cat’s CradleBy Kurt Vonnegut

There are several ways, Dr. Breed

said to me, in which certain liquids can

crystallize—can freeze—several ways in which their atoms can stack and lock in an orderly, rigid way.

—Cat’s Cradle

Cat’s Cradle,

Cat’s Cradle

—Amy Clarke, Scientist, Los Alamos National Laboratory

Amy Clarke, Reviewer

A List Beyond Words: The JOM Top Ten Greatest Works of Materials Fiction Revealed 1415

“Mithril! All folk desired it. It could be

beaten like copper, and polished like glass;

and the Dwarves could make of it a metal,

light and yet harder than tempered steel.” —The Fellowship of

the Ring

Lord of the Rings

Lord of the Rings

— Sarah Driver, Graduate Student, University of Cambridge

Lord of the Rings (trilogy)By J.R.R. Tolkien

Sarah Driver, Reviewer

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JOthemagazine

The Kalevala The Kalevala

The Kalevala Lord of the Rings

The Kalevala

Old KalevalaThe Kalevala

— Lauri Holappa, Professor Emeritus,

Aalto University

The KalevalaBy Elias Lönnrot

Lauri Holappa, Reviewer

“Then again speaks Ilmarinen,Thus the smith addresses Iron:

‘Be not frightened, useful metal,Surely Fire will not consume thee,Will not burn his youngest brother,Will not harm his nearest kindred.

Come thou to my room and furnace,

Thou wilt live, and grow, and prosper,Wilt become the swords of heroes. . .”

—Rune IX, The Origin of Iron

In this pivotal scene from The Kalevala, Ilmarinen, the Eternal Hammerer, works mightily to forge steel, alternately praising, coaxing, and cursing Iron Ore. The insects bring Ilmarinen useful materials, while the bear and the wolf in the background depict the bogs that Iron Ore fi rst called home. This original artwork was created by David Rasel, TMS Media Manager, for JOM.

The Kalevala