Coffium

[agrumer]

I finished Urth of the New Sun this evening; a bit of a slog. The first four books remain brilliant even on the third reading, but the fifth just isn’t as good.

Now I’m reading a galley of Cory Doctorow’s upcoming novel, Eastern Standard Tribe. It’s fun so far, but one thing has me puzzled. Cory’s invented coffium, coffee made with heavy water

Comments

[scottscidmore]

Well, this site

http://www.slwater.com/slwEnglish/seizouE.htm

gives specific heat of light water as 4.19J/g and heavy as 4.208J/g, which is close to zip. So, no, the simple "heavy vs light" doesn't work but then a lot of SF has such in it.

Heavy water is toxic, if someone were to make coffium their major fluid intake they would likely become ill as the concentration of D2O and DHO in their body went up. However, a cup or two isn't going to hurt them.

[drcpunk]

The fifth book is not as good, true, and it's all implicit in the first four, true.

But I am very, very glad that the fifth book exists for idiots like me.