Reviews are coming in...



...and they're a mixed bag, as reviews always are. But that mix looks rather curious to me.

On Amazon.com, I've got a review from a 37-year veteran high school science teacher, who praises my book as being "scientifically accurate." I've also heard from the reviewer at the "Lunar Library" at OutOfTheCradle.net, who tells me he thinks "the book would be great for schools." But then there was the reviewer at the National Space Society, a former NASA flight controller, who absolutely hated the book, and proceeded to write me a long diatribe pointing out all the things I got wrong. And she didn't even make it all the way through the book.

(Just as an aside, this is exactly why I decided not to be a science-fiction writer. No matter how hard you work to get all your details right, there's always someone who will come along and pick at everything you missed. It's the nature of the fandom.)

As I said, every book, movie, play, TV show, etc., gets a mix of good and bad reviews. It goes with the territory. I've always known that. Here's what strikes me as so curious, though - if my book is so riddled with inaccuracies, then why did a veteran science teacher and a major space advocate miss them? I mean, I'm giving the NSS reviewer the benefit of the doubt and not simply writing her off as a nit-picker. (She did seem inexplicably hostile toward my publisher, but like I said, I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt.)

One thing I point out in my book is in the days of the American frontier, any regular person who could hitch a horse or an ox to a wagon could head west and try to start a new life. A lot of them didn't make it, but a lot of them did, and that's how the west was won. Space isn't like that - but is it so complicated that you can't even get in the game without an advanced degree and years of experience? If so, then the "final frontier" is never going to be settled. It's simply not going to happen. There aren't enough people that smart.

Or should I not be giving the NSS reviewer the benefit of the doubt? Maybe I am being nitpicked, out of intellectual techno-snobbery or something. But if that's the case, it opens up another range of issues. If the people with the know-how try to set themselves apart from the ignorant masses, they're going to end up frustrated by the unwillingness of those ignorant masses to give them any money for space development. And once again, the final frontier never gets settled.

I'll have to discuss those ideas with my brother the Harvard PhD and my sister-in-law the Yale MD/PhD, the next time I see them.

Meanwhile, my book is what it is. I gave it my best shot. I'm thankful for everyone who likes it. And for those who don't... well, I thank them for their time and move on.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Whew!

Image
It's been quite a whirlwind the past couple of weeks. It started right after Thanksgiving, when Lunar Pioneers was named... Best of the Moon 2008 Youth Moon Fiction Category For OutOfTheCradle.net's complete list of the winners, you can click on the banner above. Since then, I've been scrambling to get the word out, and also getting ready for my trip to Indianapolis. Last Saturday was the Holiday Author Fair at the Indiana Historical Society. Here's how it looked: While I was in town, I also paid an author visit to Park Tudor School, where I talked to middle school and high school book lovers: Now I'm home again, and ready to get back to work. There are new projects ahead!
Read more

Where the Wild Things Are

Image
Our job on San Nicolas Island was part of an ongoing project, restoring the natural habitat along a three-mile stretch of roadside terrain. The Navy dug up it to replace the water pipe that runs from the Navy's desalinization plant up to the main water tanks on the highest point of the island. Channel Islands Restoration started the project by collecting seeds from all around the island and growing them in a nursery built near the base, and now it was time for planting. The hope is that the plants will grow and propagate, until the entire roadside is full of native plants. One evening, we got to see an earlier project that had been nicknamed "the Google Site," because the Navy Resource Manager in charge had said he wanted to look up the island on Google Earth and watch the planted area grow from year to year as the plants multiplied. Naval Base Ventura County, which includes San Nicolas, just won an award for natural resource management among the nation's milita...
Read more

Recommended viewing

Ken Murphy over at OutOfTheCradle.net has previously written glowing reviews of two anime series, Planetes and Rocket Girls (the latter winning a "Best of the Moon" award along with Lunar Pioneers ), but there's one other series he hasn't mentioned. That's probably because it isn't commercially available in the US, although you can find it online if you know where to look. Twin Spica (or Futatsu no Spica in Japanese) is the story of five kids who make it into the very first class at a special Japanese astronaut training academy. In this version of the near future, Japan has had its own manned space program, but suffered a disaster when one of its rockets malfunctioned on liftoff and crashed into a Japanese city. The main character, 16-year-old Asumi Kamogawa, lost her mother in the accident. Her father was an engineer in the space program, but now he works elsewhere. Asumi's dream since childhood has been to become a "rocket driver." H...
Read more