In Enemy Hands
Story: Promoted to Commodore after helping to turn the Manticoran Alliance’s fortunes around in the Silesian Confederacy, Honor Harrington is no longer in command of a single ship, but an group of ships dispatched to routine convoy duty in disputed space. When the People’s Republic of Haven, whose revolutionary government has just barely survived a mass assassination attempt, moves to take back a system conquered by Manticore, Honor and some of her most loyal crewmates past and present find themselves in the wrong place, at the wrong time, and in custody. But despite the change of government at Haven, Honor’s “crimes” at Basilisk Station have not been forgotten, and she and Nimitz are sentenced to death.
Review: A serious shake-up after some of the previous Honor Harrington books settled into a nice pat formula, “In Enemy Hands” puts familiar characters on unfamiliar ground, and puts a fair few of them out of commission, and it does it without coming across as too cliched. And clearly author David Weber is setting up strands of plot for future consumption, and this time I can’t wait to see where they’ll lead – or how one of the series’ few honest-to-God cliffhangers will be resolved.
ABC To The VCS – Second Edition
Video game historian Leonard Herman takes on the unthinkable task of cataloguing every Atari 2600 game known to exist at the time of publication, offering brief directions, notes, and – in most cases – a screen snapshot of the games discussed. Rather than an alphabetical list, games are organized by broad genres.
It should be virtually no secret to anyone who can actually read that I’m a video game collector. Now, compared to some of the guys out there in the hobby who drop hundreds and hundreds on a single game, I’m pretty lightweight, because my deal is that I like to have plenty of games available to play. But when you’ve got drawers and drawers full of cartridges that, at least on the label end, all look more or less alike, and even worse, if you’ve got an emulator directory full of names that tell you next to nothing, there’s an overriding question that curses anyone with such a collection: what do I want to play?
When I first opened the cover of “ABC To The VCS”, flipped through it and saw how it was organized, I’ll admit that my first thought was that it was incredibly silly to do it that way. Now that I’ve had the book for a couple of weeks, I’ve reassessed that view. “ABC” divides the Atari 2600 library – which is already hundreds of titles deep, and replete with titles that tell you absolutely zip about the game itself – into more manageable chunks of dozens. Space games (specifically, those based more or less on the basic mechanics of Space Invaders, sports games (subdivided by sport), puzzle games, maze games, military/war games, games involving animals…broad categories, sure. However, I’ve found myself turning to “ABC” with almost alarming frequency because, within that organizational structure, I can come closer to answering that daunting question, What do I want to play?
The author’s dispassionate, concise take on each game is commendable: he’s not here to “sell” any of these games to you. He describes the game play (including briefly covering variations and settings), and may briefly mention any major innovations that the game is known for. No ratings are given for quality or rarity, and there’s not even the hint of a whiff of “ABC” being a price guide. (One thing I really would have liked would have been an end-of-book checklist of all known titles, something which “ABC” just can’t do within its body copy due to its unique structure, but again, that might’ve brought it closer to being a book about collecting rather than a book about games.)
Recently discovered unreleased prototypes and amateur-programmed homebrews are also included, and they’re given no more and no less coverage than any major commercially released games. This book covers the Atari 2600 library even-handedly, and that’s it. I could count off points for the lack of coverage of hardware items such as third-party controllers and the like, but that again is more up the collector’s alley. Almost every game is illustrated with a screen shot.
It’s hard to stare at a stack of recently-acquired cartridges and decide where to start, but “ABC To The VCS” makes it easier. It doesn’t quite answer what game do I want to play?, but it certainly helps me cut back on second-guessing and spend more time playing. That alone makes this book worth its price tag.
Year: 2005
Author: Leonard Herman
Publisher: Rolenta Press / Good Deal Games
Pages: 338
Star Trek: Ships Of The Line
Story: The computer-generated, hand-painted and photographed images that have graced the numerous Star Trek: Ships Of The Line calendars through the years are collected in a single, large-format volume, each piece accompanied by a descriptive text placing the artwork in the context of the larger Star Trek universe.
Review: As much as I try to avoid reviewing what are essentially “picture books” here, this one was interesting enough to grab my attention. The artwork is impeccable. Featured here are the first full printed rendering of the far-future Enterprise NCC 1701-J, though the prize among the recent works may go to 3-D artist Gabriel Koerner’s impressive redesign of the original 1701, which stretches design elements of past (NX-01) and future (24th century) Enterprises together over the same basic silhouette of the original. Andrew Probert, designer of NCC-1701-D, gives us our first good look at the oft-mentioned but never-seen 1701-D Captain’s Yacht. And there’s a curious picture which ties the fate of the Columbia (NX-02, sister ship of Jonathan Archer’s Enterprise) to the era of the Dominion War (!). Each picture’s accompanying slice of text hints at a bigger story yet untold; few of the pictures attempt to visually “retell” existing stories. I like that – we have the HD remastered episodes of the original TV series for that. Most of the works in this book tell their own stories.
Star Trek: The Motion Picture
Story: As has been the case with all of the Star Trek movie and telelvision book adaptations since, Roddenberry embellishes the first movie’s storyline with a great deal of off-screen plotting which we didn’t see on film. Much of this backstory was itself embellished upon in the very brief Lost Years series of Trek novels published in the early 90s.
Review: Perhaps the most interesting elements that Star Trek’s creator introduced here were found between the lines, in footnotes and in the introduction attributed to Admiral Kirk himself. The introduction speaks of a new breed of human, a bland and conformist herd of sheep, from which Starfleet officers are different due to the “individuality” Starfleet affords them (which must make Starfleet the most unusual military service in the history of Earth!).
The Dominion War, Book One: Behind Enemy Lines
Story: According to this book, whose events occur in the gap between the events in the fifth season finale and sixth season premiere of Deep Space Nine, the new Enterprise has been involved in the same desperate defensive battle as the rest of Starfleet. Then an unexpected reunion takes place – the Enterprise rescues a Bajoran freighter near the Badlands from Dominion attackers. But this Bajoran ship is under the control of the Maquis, and its captain is Ro Laren, formerly the Enterprise’s Bajoran navigator who later abandoned Starfleet to join the renegades and defend her people.
While Picard and Riker are initially wary of Ro, and she herself fully expects to be thrown in the brig for showing her face again, the rebel does come with a disturbing piece of news: since the Bajoran wormhole at Deep Space Nine has been made inaccessible by the Starfleet minefield, the Cardassians are attempting to create their own artificial wormhole in the Badlands, allowing Dominion reinforcements to take over the Alpha Quadrant. Picard and Geordi, in disguise, join Ro’s crew and embark on a dangerous mission to derail the Cardassians’ construction timetable on the artificial wormhole.
Review: The first Star Trek fiction I’ve gone out of my way to buy since the initial four-book New Frontier set, this first entry in the Dominion War series of books helps to answer a question that many fans have been asking: where has the Enterprise-E and her intrepid crew been during the Federation’s war with the Dominion?
A Rock And A Hard Place
Story: The same Starfleet officer exchange program that once put Riker into a life-threatening situation aboard a Klingon vessel now sends the Enterprise’s first officer to the icy planet of Paradise, a remote outpost whose population of colonists are trying to tame its ecosphere. Taking Riker’s place on the Enterprise is Commander Quentin Stone, an officer with a colorful history and a legendary unstable temper. Somehow, Stone has stayed in Starfleet despite this trait which has endangered his career and others’ lives, but his career may not survive a tour with the more rule-bound Picard in command. And on Paradise, unnaturally fierce creatures, an inhospitable environment, and an old friend’s teenage daughter may be the death of Will Riker.
Review: I’ve probably mentioned it once or twice before, but I make little time these days for the Star Trek fiction publishing program. Too many of the novels I’ve read under the imprint of any of the Trek series have turned out to be merciless stinkers, though there was once a time when I did go out of my way to read Peter David’s books. And though many a fan would probably disagree mightily, I still think “A Rock And A Hard Place” may be the best Trek novel ever to hit wood pulp. It captures the flavor of the series and its characters, and it brings a rather wild guest character into the mix to challenge them. (And if you spot a wee bit of a resemblance between Quentin Stone and Mackenzie Calhoun, the captain of David’s later Star Trek: New Frontiers novels, I seriously doubt that it’s a coincidence.)
The City On The Edge Of Forever
Story: Harlan Ellison’s complete original script, with revised drafts, for the legendary Star Trek episode is presented in its entirety, along with lengthy essays by Harlan on the story’s creation and the rewriting of its already storied history by various other parties, including Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry.
Review: This volume reprints the original draft, and several subsequent revisions, of Harlan Ellison’s multiple-award-winning, career-defining, critically acclaimed, and seemingly life-ruining Star Trek script, The City On The Edge Of Forever. A lengthy essay opens the book with the full background of the episode’s birth from Harlan’s own inimitable point of view. Numerous people have taken credit for City‘s success over the years, and just as many have been more than happy to lay the blame for any perceived faults in the story at Harlan’s feet. In this book, Harlan lashes out at all of them. Every last one of them. In a way, maybe “lashes out” is too gentle – he positively breathes fire at many of his former colleagues.
Trek Navigator
Story: Former Sci-Fi Universe editor/Cinefantasique Trek reviewer Mark Altman teams up with ex-Starlog/Cinescape writer Edward Gross for this exhaustive (and yet already terribly obsolete) series of reviews of every Star Trek adventure committed to film.
Review: Hey, it seems like a good idea, but is it worth the cover price? I’m not sure. Despite the fact that the authors are some of the best SF-oriented journalists in the business, their lightweight Siskel & Ebert schtick wears a little thin at times. And since both are diehard Classic Trek worshippers, they tend toward the viewpoint that even the biggest Kirk-era stinkers have something to recommend them over most decent episodes of Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager.
Star Trek Phase II: The Lost Series
Story: This outstanding and surprisingly thick tome tracks the progress of the attempt to revive the original Star Trek series in the 1970s which eventually mutated into something we now call Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
Review: Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens, the authors who brought us 1994’s wonderful “Making of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine”, have truly outdone themselves with this book, which follows the inception, development and pre-production of the second Star Trek series which never was, as well as the studio decisions which caused its metamorphosis into the first of many feature films. The book stops short of following Star Trek’s evolution to the big screen, though the authors drop a hint that they might be working on such a volume. I’ll be among the first to buy it if they should do so, based on their work here.
Star Trek Movie Memories
Story: Star Trek’s own William Shatner sits in the captain’s chair once more, this time holding court and spinning tales of the lean years after Star Trek’s cancellation, as well as its unexpectedly successful return via the big screen. These are his voyages.
Review: Despite the relative immunity that biographers and/or autobiographical writers seem to have when telling their side of their respective stories, I’m amazed that Shatner didn’t incite so much as a single lawsuit with his first book, “Star Trek Memories”. It was in that volume that Shatner alleged everything from Nichelle Nichols’ now-well-known affair with Trek creator Gene Roddenberry to Grace Lee “Yeoman Rand” Whitney’s various addictions. That a lot of Shatner’s gossip turned out to be at least partly true in the end was surprising. No doubt his co-stars would’ve had the opportunity to carefully bury these facts when the time came for their own autobiographies.
The Music of Star Trek
Story: Through interviews with composers, editors and others, cue lists, and excerpts from sheet music, the author explores the evolution of Star Trek’s sound from the original series’ sometimes almost-over-the-top – yet indelible – library of frequently-reused cues, to the varied scores of the film series, to the sometimes humdrum music produced for Next Generation and its own spinoffs.
Review: Just when it seems that every possible subject for a book on the Star Trek phenomenon has been mined by tomes both authorized and unauthorized, along comes a book on the subject of one of Trek’s most hotly-debated elements: the musical scores.
The Making of Star Trek
Story: The first book ever written about the making of Star Trek – published while the series was still in production – this is still one of the best non-fiction Trek books that has ever been published. Several things factor into this. It’s a relatively unopinionated look at the development of the story of Star Trek. Such elements as production design, budgets, difficulties with actors, and other hassles are touched upon, but at least the first half of the book concentrates on the various changes that the show’s original premise underwent. This book’s material dates back to the time when the Enterprise’s captain was going to be named Robert April.
Review: My trust in this book’s information stems from the fact that it dates back to Star Trek’s original broadcast life span, before Gene Roddenberry (whose comments appear throughout the book IN ANNOYING ALL-CAPS TO SET THEM APART FROM EVERYTHING ELSE) set about reinventing the Star Trek universe and adjusting his own public image in the 1970s.
Inside Star Trek: The Real Story
Story: Herb Solow, a Paramount executive who helped to get Star Trek off the ground, and Robert H. Justman, the original series’ co-producer and confidant of Gene Roddenberry, dish every available particle of dirt in this well-illustrated and well-written book, brimming with copies of memos and behind-the-scenes photos.
Review: I’ll say this upfront – I liked this book a lot. I’m just saying this first to dispel any opinions to the contrary as I launch into my many misgivings about this kind of book.
It’s fascinating, and at the very least, it does have the ring of verisimilitude to it. Bob Justman has long been known as one of Star Trek’s fondest founding fathers, though he’s never been afraid to criticize the weaknesses of the series. Or, in this case, the other people who worked on it.
I Am Spock
Story: Leonard Nimoy, who certainly needs no introduction, backtracks to his earliest days as an actor, the series of coincidences and connections that led to his most famous role, and the continuiation of that role – and his new role as a prominent director – on the big screen.
Review: In the 1970s, Leonard Nimoy’s first autobigraphical book, I Am Not Spock, aroused equal parts curiosity and ire among the burgeoning Star Trek fandom that was rising during the show’s post-cancellation syndicated run. Nimoy backpedals a lot in the early part of this book, trying to explain that, at the time, he was desperately trying to outrun his famous character’s shadow and prove that he was capable of many other things creatively.
The Planets
Story: The Planets is, quite simply, one of my all-time favorite books, a mind-boggling and impossible-to-pigeonhole anthology of scientific essays and short stories from some of the best science fiction authors on the planet. The Planets is a brilliant combination of facts, speculation, and artwork, each section of the book focusing on one of the planets in our solar system, as well as the asteroids, comets, and Earth’s moon, and how humankind could change it – or how it could change us.
Review: Though it’s most likely out of print now, this book is one of my most prized literary possessions. Smartly-written factual essays combined with mold-breaking science fiction short stories made for a book whose contents have challenged and awed me since my early teens. (Somehow, the follow-up book, The Stars, edited in much the same staggered science/science fiction format, didn’t thrill me as much.)
We Have Capture: Tom Stafford And The Space Race
Story: Lt. General Thomas P. Stafford, USAF (retired) recounts his journey from Weatherford, Oklahoma to the Cold War-era Air Force, and from there to the Edwards Air Force Base test flight facility and the second class of astronauts selected by NASA. Stafford would fly two record-setting Gemini missions and command the Apollo 10 mission, essentially a full-on dress rehearsal for the first lunar landing. He also commanded the Apollo half of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project flight, the first international mission in space and the first docking of American and Soviet spacecraft. Even after his retirement from the NASA flight rotation, Stafford would go on to serve frequently as America’s ambassador to the Soviet and Russian space programs, right through the Mir/Shuttle docking missions and the International Space Station; and at the same time, he was still fighting the Cold War as well, drawing up the B-2 Stealth bomber’s specs on a hotel napkin. He would also be on many advisory boards regarding NASA safety issues in the wake of both the Challenger and Columbia disasters, and would eventually return to Weatherford to found an aerospace museum.
Review: Co-written with Michael Cassutt (who also co-wrote Apollo-Soyuz astronaut Deke Slayton’s memoirs), “We Have Capture” is an engrossing read for anyone interested in the history of the U.S. space program. Many of the stories you’ve already heard have something in common – Thomas Stafford was on the flip-side, whether it was flying the plane that landed safely mere minutes after another plane carrying a promising two-man rookie Gemini crew crashed, or taking over as NASA’s Chief Astronaut after Alan Shepard overcame Meniere’s Disease and reclaimed his place on the flight roster, or commanding half of the Gemini 6 / Gemini 7 rendezvous mission, or commanding the Apollo 10 moon landing “rehearsal” mission that went to the moon and did everything but land. Tom Stafford was there.
This New Ocean: The Story Of The First Space Age
Story: The author traces the history of space travel from engineering imaginings to WWII missile technology through the planning stages of the International Space Station. Much attention is paid to military funding and applications of the space programs of both the United States and the Soviet Union, as well as to the political ebb and flow that allowed Apollo to flourish and yet later all but crippled the Space Transportation System, of which the space shuttle was intended to be only a small part.
Review: Thrillingly comprehensive and yet astoundingly cursory in its treatment of some episodes in space history, “This New Ocean” leaves me baffled as to how to assess it, and yet still turning the pages.
NASA & The Exploration Of Space
Story: NASA’s chief historian charts the beginnings of the agency in the midst of the Cold War, the race to orbit and then to the moon against the Russians, and the evolution of manned spaceflight from Mercury to the Mir/shuttle docking missions. The text is accompanied by artwork from NASA’s archives, ranging from photorealism to abstract impressionism.
Review: Ah, that NASA artwork. With the marvels of real photography and computer animation, some of this book’s paintings, sketches, charcoal drawings and other works may seem a bit dated. But once upon a time, they were the only way you’d ever get to envision a spacecraft as it appears in orbit. Even now, it’s often still the best way to go, and stirs the imagination more than anything else. And when we’re looking at a space program that is, at the time this review was written, stalled until further notice, stirring the imagination would seem to be an absolutely vital thing.
Moon Shot
Story: In a way, this book picks up where Deke! leaves off – the prologue of the book describes the arrival of the old members of Slayton’s team of astronauts for his funeral in Texas. But the main portion of the book covers Deke and Alan Shepard’s adventures through their risky lives as military test and combat pilots, the origins and selection of the Mercury astronauts, and medical problems that later kept both of them Earthbound during the Gemini years. Both of them served as administrators during that time, and they dealt with everything from the tragedy of Apollo 1 through the triumph of Apollo 11 and the Apollo 13 emergency, from their own unique perspectives – sort of.
Review: With the help of two other writers, both space historians in their own right, the book is written in a curiously detached third-person perspective, not unlike “Lost Moon”. (It’s interesting to note that, unlike quite a few other biographical and factual books on one subject which diverge in their details, virtually all of these books, including Lovell’s “Lost Moon”, agree completely on the events of Apollo 13.)
A Man On The Moon
Story: Each mission is given plenty of coverage, and a lot of attention is paid to the doomed Apollo 1 test mission as well as what the future of America’s manned moon presence could have been if not for budget cuts to redirect funding to the Vietnam War. I learned an incredible amount of information I had never heard before from this book, including something of a minor scandal involving the crew of Apollo 15.
Review: Though I thoroughly enjoyed Jim Lovell’s “Lost Moon”, I have to hand the definitive honors in the category of books about America’s push to reach the moon. It’s amazing how many of the astronauts, families and support crews Andrew Chaikin tracked down and interviewed, and the resulting gold mine of information and feelings barely fits into this admittedly thick book.
Lost Moon (a.k.a. Apollo 13)
Story: Unusually for a book which concerns itself with events that were directly experienced by one of the writers, the entire story is told in the third person perspective, switching back and forth from the spacecraft to Lovell’s home, Mission Control in Houston, and even leaping around in time from Lovell’s early fascination with rocketry, the Apollo 1 fire and its demoralizing effect on the astronaut corps, Lovell’s earlier groundbreaking flight to the moon aboard Apollo 8, and so on. Of course, the book’s primary focus is the doomed April 1970 flight of Apollo 13, and how astronauts and ground controllers alike fought valiantly to bring the crew home safely.
Review: I missed “Lost Moon” when it was originally released just a year before the movie that it spawned. When I went looking for the autobiographical “Lost Moon”, I instead saw numerous books bearing Tom Hanks’ face and the title “Apollo 13”. Thank goodness the small print beneath the title mentioned that this was, in fact, the book that started it all – for a moment, I feared a ridiculous repeat of the Alan Dean Foster novelization of Total Recall, which itself was based on a Philip K. Dick short story! That’s a roundabout way to tell one story. This book, however, is another story entirely, and it’s well worth a read or two. For about the same price as a movie ticket, there’s a lot more story.
Light This Candle
Story: America’s first astronaut was also one of its quietest. Fiercely guarding his privacy and that of his family, Alan B. Shepard Jr. did few interviews during his time as an astronaut, seldom talking about his stellar career as a U.S. Navy fighter pilot and later test pilot, or his quest to be the first man in space (he had to be content to be the first American in space, a mantle he was just as happy to wear), or his fierce fight with a debilitating disease – a fight he won before commanding the third successful lunar landing mission, Apollo 14.
Review: As author Neal Thompson explains in his foreword, he wasn’t inspired to write Alan Shepard’s biography until, when asked to write an article upon Shepard’s death, he discovered that no such book existed. Thompson decided to fill this gap himself, and he’s done an admirable job with Light This Candle – amazing, really, drawing from a staggering number of sources, some of them rather obscure and terribly enlightening. Interviews with Shepard’s surviving fellow Mercury Seven astronauts, as well as the astronauts under him during his lengthy grounding while battling a disorienting inner ear disease, you’d expect; Thompson goes back as far as Shepard’s Navy days, interviewing bunkmates, shipmates, instructors, fellow pilots, you name it. The FBI’s dossier on Shepard is also opened, thanks to the Freedom of Information Act.
Journey Beyond Selene
Story: The story of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory is told in much the same style as the author’s account of the exploits of the Apollo 13 crew in Lost Moon, but occasionally the casual observer might be lost in the midst of some of the tech talk. While Lost Moon had a very human element in the crew and the ground controllers, Journey Beyond Selene is more of a romance novel for engineers. The human story is on Earth, as the engineers deal with the menaces of launch vehicles, NASA bureaucrats, a press corps more obsessed with manned flights, and an apathetic Congress…not to mention the fact that, quite simply, not all of their marvelous hardware worked.
Review: This recently published opus from the co-author of Jim Lovell’s “Lost Moon” tells the often-overlooked story of the frequently unsung pioneers of America’s program of unmanned space exploration.
John Glenn: A Memoir
Story: Former astronaut and U.S. Senator John Glenn recounts his life, from an upbringing during the Great Depression to service during World War II and the Korean War, to a series of unexpected twists and turns that culminated in his manning Friendship 7 as the first American astronaut to orbit the Earth. But Glenn’s story continues into a series of false starts in the political arena, until his election to the Senate in 1974; some 24 years of policy making and surviving an increasingly hostile political environment are covered in brief, bookending his memoir with his return to space as part of shuttle mission STS-95.
Review: An absolutely engrossing read, “John Glenn: A Memoir” sheds some light on a man who chased his indelible chapter in our national history down with an attempt to keep shaping history.
Illustrated Encyclopedia of Space Technology
Story: An exhaustive compilation of space hardware, both manned and unmanned, complete with colorful Popular Mechanics-style cutaway diagrams, a complete history of successful and less than successful launches through the year of publications, details of abandoned programs (such as a Nixon-era push for man on Mars), possible future projects (orbiting power stations and starships), and everything in between.
Review: I love this book. I’ve had it for nearly 20 years, and despite the fact that it’s out of print, and despite the fact that I could be reviewing something readily available through Amazon.com that would reap a return for my investment of writing about it, I’d much rather tell you a little something about Kenneth Gatland’s wonderful book.
Genesis: The Story Of Apollo 8
Story: Amid the tumultuous events of 1968, NASA mission planners watch a suspicious string of Soviet steps toward what may be a lunar mission, and begin preparing an ambitious swap of mission objectives. Instead of waiting until the lunar excursion module has been tested in Earth orbit, NASA will send its second manned Apollo mission to the moon using only the command/service module. Astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders are profiled from their childhood through their spaceflight careers, and followed closely throughout the mission in transcripts and the astronauts’ own remembrances.
Review: It’s not that the story of Apollo 8 has never been told; all three astronauts have published their own memoirs of their NASA careers, and Andrew Chiakin’s A Man On The Moon did an excellent job of putting it all together. But sometimes it’s hard to appreciate just how many risks NASA took with Apollo 8.
Full Moon
Story: Photographer Michael Light delves into NASA’s archives and does what no one had done in the thirty years since the landing of Apollo 11 – gained access to the original master negatives and struck the first new copies of these iconic images from space since the missions were flown. The digitally scanned images offer a new degree of resolution to shots of the moon’s surface, the astronauts and their vehicles, and even their looks back at the Earth.
Review: I don’t normally spend a lot of time reviewing art or photography books here, because what is there to say? That they’re pretty? One would presume that, or the book probably wouldn’t have made anyone’s publishing schedule. This book quickly grew on me, though. It’s not pretty. It’s mind-blowingly gorgeous.
The Encyclopedia Of Soviet Spacecraft
Story: After a brief introduction on the dawn of the Soviet space program and its pioneers, this book offers a concise, launch-by-launch, mission-by-mission catalog of the entire space program through 1987. Launch sites and dates, crew rosters, and mission accomplishments are noted, along with a surprising number of photos and diagrams. In some cases, though, the mission details and even the physical details of the craft are still conjecture, despite the author’s best efforts, due to the secretive nature of the Soviet space program at the time.
Review: This book urgently needs updating.
I found “The Encyclopedia Of Soviet Spacecraft” quite unexpectedly while doing a bit of used book browsing, and my curiosity was piqued to say the least. If you’ve spent any time visiting this site, you’ll know that I’ve read and reviewed gobs of technical, historical and autobiographical texts on the U.S. space program, and on humanity’s push into space as a whole. But never before had I seen a book so detailed in its focus on the other half of the space race.
Deke!: U.S. Manned Space From Mercury To The Shuttle
Story: Donald K. “Deke” Slayton, as you may recall, was the one member of the original Mercury seven who was shackled to the Earth by a recurring heart condition. Admirably, he made the best of his condition and eventually became the first director of NASA’s Astronaut Office, selecting and coordinating primary and backup crews for the Gemini and Apollo programs, and all the while waiting patiently for a flight of his own, something which did not happen until he was declared fit to pilot the final flight in the Apollo program, the joint American/Soviet Apollo-Soyuz mission in 1975. This is his story, told from his own no-nonsense perspective (with the posthumous blanks filled in by co-writer Michael Cassutt; Slayton died before the book was published).
Review: If anything, Deke Slayton’s autobiography is the Apollo astronaut bio which features the least information on the Apollo program.
Chariots For Apollo
Story: Long before men set foot on the moon or even set off on a journey to orbit it, NASA engineers and their brethren at several corporate contractors and subcontractors sweated blood to make sure that the astronauts would have spaceworthy vehicles to fly. Veteran aviation and theoretical engineers alike gave up family life, personal time, and other amenities because they faced the reality that, if their numbers were even slightly off, astronauts could die. Some of them watched their worst nightmares realized when Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee died on the ground in the Apollo 1 fire. But they still kept up an unrelenting quest to get the numbers right and put Americans on the moon by the end of the sixties.
Review: A bit of a “tech novel” of sorts, Chariots For Apollo does not assume that anyone opening the book’s cover understands all of the terminology involved in going to the moon, let alone the math, but it does an admirable job of catching you up very quickly.
But that’s not the heart of this book.
Behind the tech talk, Chariots For Apollo is about the people who dreamed, and then built, the Apollo program (primarily the delicate lunar excursion module).