The Truth about Santa: Wormholes, Robots, and What Really Happens on Christmas Eve »

Gregory Mone is a contributing editor at Popular Science magazine. His feature articles have appeared in Wired, Discover, Women’s Health, National Geographic Adventure, and The Best American Science Writing 2007. He is also the author of the novel The Wages of Genius. He lives in Massachusetts with his wife and two children.

The How to Survive a Robot Uprising of Christmas: a dynamically illustrated, futuristic case for the scientific possibility that Santa Claus really exists.

We all know Santa Claus: fat, jolly, omniscient, swift. Lives in a nice home in the Arctic, with the missus and a pack of elves.

Well, forget what you know. Santa Claus is from Greenpoint, Brooklyn, as it turns out, and he’s not as fat as he used to be. Here’s something else you didn’t know: he’s been dabbling in some futuristic technology, and has found myriad ways to make his job possible. How can Santa know who’s been naughty and nice? Simple: implant listening devices into your ornaments. How can he make it to every house Christmas Eve? That’s nothing a little cloning and some wormholes can’t solve. And he has plenty of other tactics: quantum entanglement, organ replacement, drug-induced hibernation, and unmanned aerial vehicles, to name just a few.

In this fantastically illustrated, affectionate, and hilarious book, Gregory Mone uses science and technology to overturn the assumption that Santa can’t be real. Drawing on the work of accomplished scientists and researchers, Mone gives us a whole new portrait of this remarkable man and the miracles he makes happen every year. With imaginative artwork and an eye-catching package, this book makes an outstanding Christmas gift for just about anyone.

School Library Journal

Adult/High School—This delightfully whimsical combination of popular culture and science, of international folklore and leading-edge technology, is sure to elicit more than a few laughs and a good many "ahas" and "wows" from readers. Everyone knows something about Santa Claus. We are reminded every November and December in multiple formats. But none of us knows the true story, who Santa Claus really is, where he comes from, and how he does those seemingly impossible things. Now, Mone has researched the story extensively, gathered all the evidence, and presents, in simple, direct prose, the scientific case for the possibility that Santa Claus really exists. The author, a contributing editor at Popular Science magazine, relies on the latest breakthroughs in physics, chemistry, biology, business, and other sciences and disciplines to project into the near (or perhaps distant) future to explain how Santa makes use of such mind-boggling things as wormholes, teleporting, drug-induced hibernation, self-assembling molecules, and surveillance technology. Mone does reveal that aliens of superior intelligence are helping out behind the scenes, because our understanding of these things is not quite at the level of fully supporting Santa in his endeavors. With clever illustrations throughout, and with abundant doses of fun and humor, this book introduces readers to new adventures in science and technology in a most imaginative and painless fashion.—Robert Saunderson, formerly at Berkeley Public Library, CA