Astounding by Alec Nevada-Lee Review

Title: Astounding
Author: Terrence L. Brown

Astounding—John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction

by Alec Nevada-Lee

Gray Planet Commentary

• Biography of John W. Campbell
• Exhaustive detail of Campbell’s relationships with Robert Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard and Isaac Asimov
• Documents Campbell’s racism and his fascination with pseudo science concepts particularly with respect to psychiatry

Gray Planet Indices

• Good Book Index: 95/100
• Literature Index: 75/100
• Magic Factor: 75/100
• Sense of Wonder: 60/100

In Astounding, Alec Nevada-Lee has compiled an exhaustive history of the golden age of science fiction, the time during which John W. Campbell was the editor of Astounding Stories (renamed Analog Science Fact/Science Fiction in 1960). The book focuses on Campbell’s relationships with three writers he developed and with whom he worked closely over a period of 30 years: Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, and L. Ron Hubbard.

The audience for this book is probably limited to serious science fiction readers and fans. Even then, it is mostly for those of us who remember the period. It is an important book of history, but few readers under 50 will be interested, except for academics and purists. But Astounding is an important book that provides an historical perspective on how science fiction came to be dominated by white heterosexual males and why it was so difficult to move it toward a genre more inclusive of women, people of color and those of the LGBTQ community.

I have read numerous biographies and memoirs of the science fiction writers who created the field and defined the tropes of science fiction during the time period of this book, 1938-1971, so I am familiar with many of the events related here about Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov. Hubbard, however, I knew only through my readings about the history of Scientology. This view of Hubbard, first as a science fiction writer, and then, secondarily almost, as the founder of Scientology is new to me. But Nevala-Lee brings it all together and provides a new perspective and new material as well.

Hubbard does not come off well. He is a journeyman writer with a talent for pure pulp writing. He is narcissistic and borderline crazy in his personal and professional lives. He eventually adapts his science fiction writing into the presumed revelations which become Scientology, a religion which exists to this day. The basis of Scientology is really a retelling of Hubbard’s science fiction—it is his attempt to monetize his talent to make shit up.

Campbell, particularly during the period from 1938 through 1950, was a fountainhead of ideas, ideas which, when placed in the hands of Asimov and Heinlein and others like L. Sprague de Camp and Lewis Padgett (the pseudonym used by C. L. Moore and Henry Kuttner), resulted in many classics of science fiction. Nevada-Lee tells how these stories came to be, and, along the way, how Heinlein and Asimov, particularly, became the dominant writers of their generation within science fiction.

But we also see the development of Hubbard and his crazy ideas—dianetics and scientology, in all their pseudo-scientific, crazy glory. Campbell is intimately involved in this development as well, and in the end, it is Campbell’s fascination with these kinds of unprovable and fallacious concepts presented as science, that are part of the reason his dominance in the field of science fiction comes to a necessary end.

Campbell was racist, misogynistic, and unscientific, but also creative and able to generate compelling arguments for his viewpoints, arguments which, when combined with his forceful personality, were difficult for most people to refute. In many ways, Campbell was egotistical enough to think that he knew more than experts in many fields, and was not shy about promoting pseudo-scientific ideas far beyond the mainstream. Campbell routinely blurred the boundaries between science fact and science fiction—he even renamed Astounding with that title. The result was compelling fiction you could almost believe, and which eventually motivated a generation of scientists and engineers (almost exclusively white and male) to try to make the concepts they read about a reality. But it is difficult to get past Campbell’s silliness and pseudoscience.

So Campbell leaves a very mixed legacy. Nevada-Lee does not limit himself to taking Campbell to task over these issues. Asimov continually harassed women with obscene comments and by touching them inappropriately and also was a philanderer. The extent of some of this was new to me as Asimov (unsurprisingly) did not go into this in his own autobiographies. Heinlein had various sexual proclivities of interest and was jingoistic personally and in his writing.

This time period was a different world, in some ways more simple than ours, easier to understand, and to navigate. But it also limited the opportunity of anyone not white, male and heterosexual. We should listen, learn, and understand, but not emulate.

John Campbell created, guided and controlled science fiction during the Golden Years, forming the basis of what is now a field he would not recognize, a genre more diverse and more creative that he could ever be. The spirit of John Campbell would have loved SF today with its unbridled ability to conceive of and examine science and its effect on our culture from myriad perspectives. The man would probably wonder where all the weirdos came from and why anyone is paying attention to them.

I’ll leave you with the fitting words of Jeannette Ng, the 2019 winner of the John W. Campbell Award for best new writer in science fiction:

John W. Campbell, for whom this award was named, was a fascist. Through his editorial control of Astounding Science Fiction, he is responsible for setting a tone of science fiction that still haunts the genre to this day. Sterile. Male. White. Exalting in the ambitions of imperialists and colonizers, settlers and industrialists. Yes, I am aware there are exceptions.

But these bones, we have grown wonderful, ramshackle genre, wilder and stranger than his mind could imagine or allow.

And I am so proud to be part of this. To share with you my weird little story, an amalgam of all my weird interests, so much of which has little to do with my superficial identities and labels.

The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder

Title: The Soul of a New Machine Review
Author: Terrence L. Brown

The Soul of a New Machine

by Tracy Kidder

Gray Planet Commentary

• Technology is dated, the process and the writing are not.

Gray Planet Indices

• Good Book Index: 93/100
• Literature Index: 91/100
• Magic Factor: 80/100

In his Pulitzer Prize winning book The Soul of a New Machine, Tracy Kidder gave most people who read it their first and only introduction to the technical complexity and addictive nature of designing modern computers. First published in 1981, The Soul of a New Machine tells the story of a group of engineers at Data General who form a “Skunk Works” and design an advanced (for the late 1970s) 32-bit minicomputer—the Eagle. The group is led by experienced design engineers, but the majority of the detailed work of designing logic and writing software is taken on by very young and inexperienced engineers hired for the project. In the parlance of computer engineering, they are well suited to the task since they “don’t know what they can’t do.”

Kidder delves deeply into the process of the design, implementation, and debug of the machine, and in doing so educates the reader with descriptions of how it all works. Kidder’s descriptions are generally quite good and understandable. I should know—from 1984 to 2016 I was a computer engineer and I experienced all of what Kidder describes.

This introduction to computer architecture, and particularly to debugging prototype computers, would have been enough for most, but Kidder makes the story so much more by peering as deeply into the souls of the engineers as he does into the soul of the new machine. His narrative descriptions of the lives of the managers and engineers who create the machine are as important as the machine itself. It is their stories that bring the book to life and create an unforgettable reading experience. In many ways, this is a book that could have been written by John McPhee, and I consider that the highest praise.

It is amazing to me that, 38 years later, the book is not dated, only the technology is. But if one substitutes designing custom chips for designing the circuit boards of the Eagle, most of what Kidder describes could and does happen today.

It is also interesting to see Kidder discussing computers and what they mean to society. “To some the crucial issue was privacy.” He says in Chapter 13. At another point, the manager of the Eagle project comments that a danger of using computers is “You end up making people so dumb they can’t figure out how many six-packs are in a case of beer.”

Indeed.

Three Women by Lisa Taddeo Review

Title: Three Women Review
Author: Terrence L. Brown

Three Women

by Lisa Taddeo

Gray Planet Commentary

• Compelling narrative of three women and their desires

Gray Planet Indices

• Good Book Index: 93/100
• Literature Index: 91/100
• Magic Factor: 65/100

Three Women by Lisa Taddeo is the story of the sexual desires of three women (Maggie, Lina and Sloane) told by Taddeo in narrative form based on extensive interviews with the women and their friends and relatives.

The book is an impressive piece of journalism. Taddeo handles her material with confidence and the result is an involving set of stories.

There is little commonality among the three women. Maggie is in her early twenties, but was in high school when the defining moments of her story occurred—she had a consensual affair with one of her teachers. The affair left her distraught, not because it happened, but because she was devastated by the loss of her lover. A few years later, Maggie files sexual abuse charges against the teacher. The resulting trial is, in some ways, even more devastating for Maggie than the affair. Maggie’s inability to understand the depth of what is happening to her during the affair, her immaturity and her romantic misinterpretation of the events, make the reader realize the necessity of laws and systems that try to prevent this kind of exploitation. But the trial explicates the danger women face when pursuing any remedy after they have been abused like this. It emphasizes the apparent inability of our judicial system, and of our culture, to take seriously the emotional damage done to women in these circumstances. Maggie’s story is powerful and sad.

Lina has two children by her husband but considers her marriage loveless and her husband distant and cold. Lina defines her marriage and her life through what she sees as the lack of passion, respect, and love from her husband. She just wants to be physically loved. Desperate, Lina seeks out Aidan, her boyfriend from high school. She leaves her husband and devotes her time to arranging trysts with Aidan. Lina’s needs are simple, but they are intense, and when unsatisfied they threaten to destroy her. Her story is one of desperation that she cannot avoid.

Sloane is unique—a woman born with means, a woman who controls her own destiny through the power of her personality, but who suffers from deep conflicts and uncertainties. Sloane is beautiful because she makes herself beautiful, powerful because she refuses to be otherwise, but strangely passive as a result of two past events that changed her life and left her malleable, looking for love. In the end, despite her personal power, Sloane is manipulated by her husband’s desires.

What stands out in all three of these narratives is the detail that Taddeo brings to the inner stories of her subjects. Although common in fiction, this type of narrative detail and power is not common in non-autobiographical nonfiction simply because it is nearly impossible to know such detail about another’s inner life. The three stories read like individual memoirs, the voice is different for each, and the detail is memoir-like.

Taddeo spent eight years researching this book and, as she says in her author’s note “I have spent thousands of hours with the women in this book”. Taddeo “based my selection of these three women on the relatability of their stories, their intensity, and the way that the events, if they happened in the past, still sat on the women’s chests.”

Indeed, Taddeo has created a work that lays bare the innermost desires, thoughts, and feelings of Maggie, Lina and Sloane and allows us to understand the stories of their lives with a depth and closeness most of us rarely experience with others even in our own lives.

This is a powerful and revelatory work, but it is not for the faint of heart. The sex is raw and startlingly frank at times. But it is also real, and fraught with feeling and meaning. Even though we may be shocked by it, we also realize its power to transform the participants, although not always for the better.

Taddeo’s work brings these women to life. She makes us think of each woman individually, to consider that we know them. This is a powerful narrative that gives us a unique perspective on the lives of these women.

Sunburn by Laura Lippman--A Review

Title: Subnurn
Author: Terrence L. Brown

Sunburn—A Review

by Laura Lippman

Gray Planet Commentary

• Formulaic
• Mysteries slowly revealed
• I don’t like the characters
• I don’t like the ending

Gray Planet Indices

• Good Book Index: 50/100
• Literature Index: 25/100
• Magic Factor: 20/100

Sunburn by Laura Lippman is marketed as a “noir gem” with blurbs from prestigious authors and publications. I was drawn to the book after reading an interesting article about Laura Lippman’s writing.

But Sunburn is a formula story. In Sunburn, everything is mysterious. There is Polly Costello, a mother who walks away from her husband and daughter for mysterious reasons. There is Adam Bosk, the private detective hired to follow her and find where she is hiding a supposedly large sum of money. Bosk’s background, his client, and his motives for accepting the job are unknown.

The story switches between Polly’s and Adam’s viewpoints. In each chapter (there are forty-six of them), we are teased with a bit more revelation about each character’s secrets. Polly is hiding a complex history of mistakes behind various deceptions and playing a waiting game with an unknown goal. Adam is a reluctant investigator who finds himself attracted to his target, Polly, and even more conflicted than usual as a result.

At first, this teasing is effective and makes for compelling reading. But, for me, it grew old as each tease became less interesting and as Polly and Adam entered into a relationship where neither was truthful in the least, while still maintaining, in their thoughts, that they were truly in love. I started to lose interest but I kept reading, hoping for a final revelation and resolution that would allow me to feel better about these two people whom I no longer trusted or liked and now had no sympathy for.

It never happened. The revelations didn’t feel significant enough to justify the long tease and there was no resolution, only an almost off-camera deus ex machina that was just an excuse for a final passage explaining another tease.

The book was frustrating and I am not particularly happy I spent the time to finish it.