His Wisdom

This novel, His Wisdom The Defender, is the worst novel I have ever read. I can say that with confidence, because although I expect that I have started reading still worse novels, I never finished them. So why did I finish this one? Simply because Simon Newcomb is regarded, correctly, as the greatest, or at least one of the greatest, of all astronomers who have ever lived, and I am a professional astronomer. I wanted to know the mind of Newcomb better, and now, sadly, I do. I might add that I have recently learned that this same Simon Newcomb is regarded by professional economists as, you…