EINSTEIN’S CREATURES <i> by Martin Amis (Vintage: $8.95) </i>

In five nightmarish stories and a darkly brooding essay, Martin Amis ponders the unthinkable horror of nuclear destruction, presenting his ideas through metaphor and direct argument with equal skill. Amis maintains that the overweening terror of the nuclear threat has transformed humanity into “Einstein’s Creatures”: cowering slaves to the monstrous technology spawned by the gentle scientist’s research into the nature of the universe. A powerful, disquieting book.