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ckd10. Far Frontiers, Vol. VI: Fall 1986, Jerry Pournelle & Jim Baen, eds. (mmpb)
Another in this bookazine series. This one seems heavier on the science fact, partially because of the timing (it was put together not long after the loss of Challenger). The leadoff story is David Drake's "The Tank Lords" (which I skipped, having read it enough times already and not being a huge fan of the Hammer's Slammers stories anyway); the other fiction didn't really hold my interest either, with the exception of Dave Smed's short "Tournament".
The science fact was fun to read with the perspective of 20+ years, though. John Gribbin's "The Naked Chimp" has a pretty good take on genomics as a tool for understanding evolution that holds up well even after multiple mammalian sequences have been published. Charles Sheffield's overview of the solar system "New Worlds For Old" already required him to update it based on the Voyager 2 flyby of Uranus, and naturally doesn't include anything from its Neptune visit. It probably suffers the most with reference to Mars, since even with the unsuccessful attempts we've still had a lot more data back from Sol IV in the past 20 years than any other planet apart from Sol III itself.
The real interesting bit comes with G. Harry Stine's two-barrelled contribution "The Space Beat" and "In the Wake of the Challenger". The last paragraph of the first is oddly both prophetic and way off:
The second is similarly split. Stine points out that simply replacing Challenger (as was done with Endeavour) doesn't give us any protection against losing another orbiter; he recommended building two on the grounds that it's not twice as expensive as building one, but since OV-104 was built using structural spares it's not clear that would be the case. He has hope, though, since "[o]ne way or the other, the USAF will proceed with the development of its TransAtmospheric Vehicle" though it "may not be available before 1991-1992" (emphasis in original). Remember the National AeroSpace Plane/Orient Express/X-30? Remember it being cancelled? Yeah.
11. Bolo!, David Weber (mmpb)
Self-sacrifice? Room for huge technical infodumps? Yeah, the Bolo universe was practically made for David Weber, or he for it. This is a set of Weber's stories from the sharecropped Bolo follow-ons, and they're pretty good, comparable to the better ones from Laumer's own work. If you like the Bolo stories, give these a shot. (Additional feature for folks who've given up on some of Weber's other series work: the Bolos don't have to go through all the angst and whatnot that Honor Harrington does. They just shoot stuff.)
12. It Looked Good on Paper: Bizarre Inventions, Design Disasters, and Engineering Follies, Bill Fawcett, ed. (tpb)
A collection of short essays on various notable failures, though not as limited in breadth as the subtitle implies; the XFL might be a "bizarre invention" (and that's stretching things a bit) but kudzu? Each essay is very short (67 of them in a 380-ish page book will do that) and none goes into any real depth. A useful book to keep handy for times when you want something short and reasonably funny to read, making it the perfect thing to leave in one particular room of the house IYKWIM. Not deep; buy cheap.
13. Flight 427: Anatomy of an Air Disaster, Gerry Byrne (hc)
This was very good on the technical details of the investigations of both United 585 (a 737-200 that crashed on approach to Colorado Springs in 1991) as well as USAir 427 (a 737-300 crash near Pittsburgh in 1994), though some illustrations would have helped the book significantly. UA585's investigation was originally closed after nearly 1¾ years of work with one of the NTSB's few "unable to determine a probable cause" findings; US427's investigation took over 4½ years and finally came up with a cause for both accidents.
It desperately needed a better copyeditor, though! Some examples: on one page the author refers to the crash of an "Air Austria" 767 in Thailand (though there's no such airline); 100 pages later he gets it right as Lauda Air. A mention is made of "Dallas-Forth Worth" [sic]. Within two sentences, a reporter's name is spelled in two different ways. There's at least one "hanger" that contains airplanes instead of suspending clothing. There are more.
RR26. Hospital Station, James White (ebook)
RR27. Star Surgeon, James White (ebook)
RR28. Major Operation, James White (ebook)
These are the three books included in the omnibus Beginning Operations, containing the earliest of the Sector General stories. These are fix-ups of short stories, so they're a bit more episodic than the later novels in the series and also suffer from a bit of repetitiveness. The first sets the stage beginning with the construction of Sector Twelve General Hospital; the second and third have somewhat more continuous plot arcs.
The Sector General books are among my favorite comfort reads. Recommended.
RR29. Bolo, Keith Laumer (mmpb)
I wanted to go back to the original stories after reading Weber's contributions to the mythos. They still hold up pretty well. The Retief/Bolo crossover is enjoyable, but my favorites are still "Field Test" and "The Last Command".
Coming up: Laumer's Rogue Bolo, which I've never actually read despite having the Baen omnibus that includes it.
Another in this bookazine series. This one seems heavier on the science fact, partially because of the timing (it was put together not long after the loss of Challenger). The leadoff story is David Drake's "The Tank Lords" (which I skipped, having read it enough times already and not being a huge fan of the Hammer's Slammers stories anyway); the other fiction didn't really hold my interest either, with the exception of Dave Smed's short "Tournament".
The science fact was fun to read with the perspective of 20+ years, though. John Gribbin's "The Naked Chimp" has a pretty good take on genomics as a tool for understanding evolution that holds up well even after multiple mammalian sequences have been published. Charles Sheffield's overview of the solar system "New Worlds For Old" already required him to update it based on the Voyager 2 flyby of Uranus, and naturally doesn't include anything from its Neptune visit. It probably suffers the most with reference to Mars, since even with the unsuccessful attempts we've still had a lot more data back from Sol IV in the past 20 years than any other planet apart from Sol III itself.
The real interesting bit comes with G. Harry Stine's two-barrelled contribution "The Space Beat" and "In the Wake of the Challenger". The last paragraph of the first is oddly both prophetic and way off:
The worst-case scenario, however, coming on the heels of the Challenger disaster, is even less palatable. If the Soviet Union continues its long-term commitment to a Soviet presence in space and continues to build its cosmonautic expertise while the U.S. space shuttles are grounded, you may have to go to Moscow to get your passport validated if you want to fly into orbit.It's true enough that space tourism goes through Baikonur, but somehow I just don't see a whole lot of Soviet presence in space these days.
The second is similarly split. Stine points out that simply replacing Challenger (as was done with Endeavour) doesn't give us any protection against losing another orbiter; he recommended building two on the grounds that it's not twice as expensive as building one, but since OV-104 was built using structural spares it's not clear that would be the case. He has hope, though, since "[o]ne way or the other, the USAF will proceed with the development of its TransAtmospheric Vehicle" though it "may not be available before 1991-1992" (emphasis in original). Remember the National AeroSpace Plane/Orient Express/X-30? Remember it being cancelled? Yeah.
11. Bolo!, David Weber (mmpb)
Self-sacrifice? Room for huge technical infodumps? Yeah, the Bolo universe was practically made for David Weber, or he for it. This is a set of Weber's stories from the sharecropped Bolo follow-ons, and they're pretty good, comparable to the better ones from Laumer's own work. If you like the Bolo stories, give these a shot. (Additional feature for folks who've given up on some of Weber's other series work: the Bolos don't have to go through all the angst and whatnot that Honor Harrington does. They just shoot stuff.)
12. It Looked Good on Paper: Bizarre Inventions, Design Disasters, and Engineering Follies, Bill Fawcett, ed. (tpb)
A collection of short essays on various notable failures, though not as limited in breadth as the subtitle implies; the XFL might be a "bizarre invention" (and that's stretching things a bit) but kudzu? Each essay is very short (67 of them in a 380-ish page book will do that) and none goes into any real depth. A useful book to keep handy for times when you want something short and reasonably funny to read, making it the perfect thing to leave in one particular room of the house IYKWIM. Not deep; buy cheap.
13. Flight 427: Anatomy of an Air Disaster, Gerry Byrne (hc)
This was very good on the technical details of the investigations of both United 585 (a 737-200 that crashed on approach to Colorado Springs in 1991) as well as USAir 427 (a 737-300 crash near Pittsburgh in 1994), though some illustrations would have helped the book significantly. UA585's investigation was originally closed after nearly 1¾ years of work with one of the NTSB's few "unable to determine a probable cause" findings; US427's investigation took over 4½ years and finally came up with a cause for both accidents.
It desperately needed a better copyeditor, though! Some examples: on one page the author refers to the crash of an "Air Austria" 767 in Thailand (though there's no such airline); 100 pages later he gets it right as Lauda Air. A mention is made of "Dallas-Forth Worth" [sic]. Within two sentences, a reporter's name is spelled in two different ways. There's at least one "hanger" that contains airplanes instead of suspending clothing. There are more.
RR26. Hospital Station, James White (ebook)
RR27. Star Surgeon, James White (ebook)
RR28. Major Operation, James White (ebook)
These are the three books included in the omnibus Beginning Operations, containing the earliest of the Sector General stories. These are fix-ups of short stories, so they're a bit more episodic than the later novels in the series and also suffer from a bit of repetitiveness. The first sets the stage beginning with the construction of Sector Twelve General Hospital; the second and third have somewhat more continuous plot arcs.
The Sector General books are among my favorite comfort reads. Recommended.
RR29. Bolo, Keith Laumer (mmpb)
I wanted to go back to the original stories after reading Weber's contributions to the mythos. They still hold up pretty well. The Retief/Bolo crossover is enjoyable, but my favorites are still "Field Test" and "The Last Command".
Coming up: Laumer's Rogue Bolo, which I've never actually read despite having the Baen omnibus that includes it.
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Date: 2009-04-05 12:23 (UTC)Stine was an odd duck, of a sort that appears a lot in the SF/space-buff community--he did know a lot about the space business but was also an enthusiast for the Dean Drive and the crank physics that supposedly made it work. It must have been frustrating seeing people mess with rockets while believing there was a workable antigravity drive available.
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Date: 2009-04-05 13:00 (UTC)A great documentary I saw years ago even featured the winner of a Miss Kudzu pageant, now a lovely fat old woman. "I guess you could say," she said in a deep Southern voice, "that like the kudzu, I spread."
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Date: 2009-04-06 03:11 (UTC)