The Science Experiment

Hancock and Cherkas were responsible for the excellent Silent Invasion series and this volume continues to display their interest, as well as that of freelance illustrator Van Bruggen, in 1950s Americana, specifically anti-communist hysteria, the atom bomb, flying saucers and suburbia. Notwithstanding the stark atomic-power-is-our-friend ironies of the ``The Science Experiment,'' the book consists of several crisply illustrated but lackluster Twilight Zone -like rehashes. The local science teacher in ``The Science Experiment'' asks too many questions about the effects of nuclear testing on the residents of the perfectly planned community of Green Valley, Nev. ``Buster Takes a Nap!'' lampoons the bomb shelter frenzy of the time, while ``Just Another Joe'' turns to ``commie'' witchhunts. In ``June 1953,'' a suburban dad stuns his neat little family with a scheme to abandon earth with alien visitors, and ``The Seven Thirty-three'' features another suburbanite who takes a later commuter train and somehow ends up with a different life, again and again. (June)