|  | Author: Craig Nelson
Publisher: Viking Adult
List Price: $27.95
Buy New: $2.89
as of 11/22/2009 15:00 CST details
You Save: $25.06 (90%)
New (55) Used (29) Collectible (3) from $2.02
Seller: cherrybooks
Rating:  36 reviews
Sales Rank: 10611
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Hardcover
Edition: First Edition, First Printing
Pages: 416
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.6
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.4 x 1.3
ISBN: 0670021032
Dewey Decimal Number: 629.4540973
EAN: 9780670021031
ASIN: 0670021032
Publication Date: June 25, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: SHIPS SAME DAY
|
| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 26-30 of 36
 Blantant Commercialism July 22, 2009
Carol L. Busse
17 out of 24 found this review helpful
This book was clearly rushed into production to take advantage of Apollo 11's fortieth anniversary, and the result of this blantant comercialism is a book replete with errors-big and small-that should have been,and could have been,easily avoided. Nelson is a fine popular writer but in his rush to sell books for the Apollo anniversary he clearly did not complete the extensive research that his publisher claims for the book. In truth, Nelson's research mostly involves picking the fruit of other books that have already been published on Apollo 11 and then weaving them into a story that is over and over again far too melodramatic. It may be an exciting read, but only for those who do not know enough Apollo and its astronauts to realize that this book offers nothing at all that is essentially new. Though reviewers who simply like fun reads will probably praise the book, I can guarantee you that the true scholars and historians of Apollo 11 will write off this book as absolutely unessential to understanding the first Moon landing or its broader context. As for Nelson digging out important new information from declassified CIA material, that claim is purely hype for the book, as there is nothing new in the CIA material that space historians have not already well digested. If one really wants to read truly first rate historical treatments of Apollo 11, they should find those names in Nelson's acknowledgements and read the books published by those authors.
 Decent Hard Sci-Fi, but the Characters Need Work July 22, 2009
Sean O'Hara (Manassas, VA United States)
11 out of 20 found this review helpful
Rocket Men is a rather preposterous novel about the United States sending a space craft to the moon in 1969. The story begins with the rocket on the launchpad, waiting for blast off, with brief flashbacks to the launch prep, as the administrators make last minute checks on mission readiness and the "astronauts" undergo final training.
(The astronauts are named -- and I swear I'm not making this up -- Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. And "Buzz" isn't a nickname -- that's the character's legal name. Thankfully the third astronaut isn't Al American. He's Michael Collins. Why Nelson would name a character after a prominent member of the Irish Republican Army is beyond me.)
Then, just before lift-off, the story goes into an extended flashback. First comes a big infodump on the history of rocketry, from Oberth, Goddard, and Tsiolkovsky, to the German development of the V2. And this is where the book goes off the rails, launching into an absurd conspiracy wherein the Nazi scientists flee from the Red Army and seek asylum in America, where they're welcomed with open arms. This introduces a bizarre subplot involving these former Nazis settling in a small town in Alabama, where they establish themselves as members of the community while working on new rocket systems.
At the same time, the Soviets launch a bit of tinfoil into space with a radio transmitter. They follow this up by launching a crockpot with a dog inside, and cooking it on reentry. These feats, combined with a perceived Soviet superiority in ballistic missiles, prompt a young American President to brashly promise that the US will place a man on the moon within ten years.
What follows would be, in a movie, a musical montage, as the American space agency perfects the technology necessary and locates the best-of-the-best to fly the ship. The book loops around on itself as we finally get back to the launch and the mission proceeds.
And what a bizarre mission. Instead of building a ship that can go from the Earth to the Moon, land, take-off and return to the Earth, the US has built a vessel that will go into lunar orbit and then launch a shuttle craft for the actual landing. Nelson offers some technobabble about why this is a better design, but it never entirely makes sense. To his credit, though, Nelson does make the engineers dubious of the idea when it's first proposed, having them point out all the flaws.
The upshot of this mission profile is that one of the astronauts -- Collins -- has to stay on the ship while the other two take the shuttle to the surface. Exactly what Collins does while they're gone is never explained. Sounds like the most boring job in the world -- the ship is too small for him to do much, and the computers are absurdly weak, so he can't even play chess or solitaire.
The best part of the novel is the landing sequence, which features several technical flaws that almost derail the mission. First, the flight computer has insufficient RAM to deal with the sensor input and keeps freezing up. Then, despite the best laid plans, the crew finds their pre-picked landing site covered with boulders. Armstrong has to use an enormous amount of fuel to stay aloft, only sighting a flat piece of ground when he's within seconds of having to abort. The scene strains credibility, but Nelson's writing makes it exciting despite itself.
The actual time on the moon is rather anti-climactic. You'd think something exciting would happen there, but no. No aliens, no disasters, no Great Discoveries that change the way we see the world. The biggest problem faced by the crew is that the touchdown was so soft that it didn't trigger the shock-absorbers and retract the landing struts. As such, there's a three foot gap between the ladder and lunar surface. This renders Armstrong's first words on the moon ironic -- "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." (That's the exact quote -- you'd think an editor would've caught the missing article in the first clause. As it stands, the sentence doesn't make a lot of sense.) The other challenges faced are pretty minor -- the top-soil (if you can call it that) is so thin the astronauts have a hard time getting the flag to stand up; Buzz describes a rock as looking like mica, which pisses off the geologists at mission control.
The crew lifts off and makes an unremarkable rendezvous with the mothership, followed by an uneventful return to Earth.
The characters are borderline cardboard -- everyone who works for this NASA organization is an uber-professional expert who seems to have stepped out of the 1950s. Nelson even mentions this, explaining that the scientists, engineers and astronauts are so focused on their jobs that they don't pay attention to the changing world outside. The only exception is the, uh, let's say "feisty," Buzz. One memorable scene has him arguing about whether he or Armstrong should be the first on the surface. Unfortunately for him, plot-logic dictates that the guy named Buzz must be the wacky sidekick and Armstrong the jut-jawed hero. You just know that in the movie, Armstrong would be played by Leslie Nielsen and Buzz by Earl Holliman. Too bad there's no room for Anne Francis.
The book does well enough in depicting what space might really be like, but this whole "mundane sci-fi" movement does nothing for me. No Robbie the Robot, no sale.
A flawed but fascinating history of Apollo 11 July 22, 2009
D. J. Nardi (Washington, DC)
9 out of 13 found this review helpful
I noted that there's a lot of disagreements among reviewers, particularly over the author's portrayal of the technical aspects of the Apollo program. I'm not an engineer so can't comment, but I do think it's important to provide an objective review of the book as a history of the Apollo program and politics behind it. In this, Craig Nelson provides the most current and comprehensive account of America's Moonshot, but it does at times seem a bit disorganized.
First, the good parts of the book. Nelson tries to retell the story of Apollo 11 by stressing the huge risks involved with the program. The public, during the 1960s and many years later, never appreciated some of the risks involved. This is well illustrated early in the book, when Nelson recounts a debate among lunar geologists over the composition of the moon. At the time, geologists weren't even quite sure what the moon was made of. Some though the surface might be a puffy dust that would not support a landing craft. Eventually, the presence of boulders convinced most that the moon had a hard, rocky surface. But just the fact that there were questions showed how risky and bold the entire endeavor really was.
Second, Nelson does a good job teasing out the personalities of the astronauts. They weren't all cast from The Right Stuff. For Nelson, the symbol of this is the slide rule (for those of you too young to remember, it was an ancient form of the calculator and the ultimate geek accessory). The astronauts as test pilots - not fighter pilot jocks - had both engineering background and top flight experience. The had very different personalities, but were (surprisingly) overall a shy and unemotional group of people.
The best part of the book: you will learn a lot of interesting trivia about the U.S. space program. Since this is the most recent book, Nelson is able to rely on information that has come out more recently and combine them to tell an exciting story. Several news articles have relied on this book to highlight the top 10 most surprising facts about Apollo. For example, BBC's list is here: [...]. My advice is to read over one of these top 10 lists and if you are excited by those tidbits, there's a whole lot more in Rocket Men: The Epic Story of the First Men on the Moon. My favorite piece of trivia is that Buzz Aldrin reportedly considered refusing to accept the assignment on Apollo 11 or resigning from NASA, since he feared the ensuing publicity he knew would accompany the mission. He is also reported to have wanted a later assignment where he could focus on the science, rather than who made the first step on the moon. Now Buzz is promoting space exploration using rap songs! Who'd have thought?
Now, for the drawbacks. I gave the book only four stars since the book doesn't seem well organized. It's not strictly chronological (indeed, it starts with the Apollo 11 launch, then the three astronauts, then jumps back in time to the beginning of the program). At times, it felt like the material was organized somewhat randomly. The anecdotes are still fun to read, but I feel like the organization should have been a bit clearer (perhaps with an introduction explaining the author's organization plan).
Nelson uses a lot of bloc quotes in retelling the story of Apollo 11. This has both drawbacks and benefits. Sometimes it is great to hear the story directly from the actual people involved in the program. Sometimes though, the quotes are too long and could be summarized or edited for easier reading. It also indicates that Nelson relied heavily on other authors' scholarship rather than original research. For a casual reader who wants to learn a bit more about Apollo 11, this isn't a major concern. If you want more detail or original research, check out the other books in Nelson's bibliography. If you want a summer read to learn more, this book will work fine for you..
The story of Apollo 11 is a great story and Nelson pays honor to the risks involved and the men who participated. The overall story is told reasonably well, and the book covers a lot of great trivia. The issues with Nelson's portrayal of Apollo technology are frankly collateral and don't justify giving the book only 1 star (as some reviewers have). The book is clearly about the politics and men involved with making Apollo 11 happen, and in that it succeeds.
Note: unlike Andrew Chaikin's inspiring A Man on the Moon: The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts, Rocket Men: The Epic Story of the First Men on the Moon is primarily about Apollo 11. Since it is published more recently, it takes advantage of some material that wasn't available to Chaikin. However, if you are interested in learning about the later Apollo missions, you'll have to read A Man on the Moon.
Overall, I'd give this book 3.5 stars if that were possible.
Too Many Factual Errors July 22, 2009
P. Chrzanowski (Chicago IL USA)
23 out of 29 found this review helpful
This book offers a generally strong narrative of the technology, politics, and personal stories of the "space race" that culminated in the Apollo moon landings.
Although I wanted to like this book, the continuing and frequent factual errors ultimately ruined it, as after a certain point the reader comes to doubt everything the author says. Especially as the factual errors are of a type that makes one question the author's basic understanding of what happened.
To pick one of these: in discussing a Redstone missile launch, the author states that the missile attained a speed of 1926 miles per second. Now, perhaps this is petty, but, someone writing authoritatively about "Rocket Men" should have a rough idea of how fast these things go (that is, low earth orbit is about 5 miles per second, and escape velocity from Earth--did I mention that the author keeps confusing these two?--is about 7 miles per second). And (if it matters) the Redstone didn't go 1926 miles per HOUR either--it's maximum speed is about 5,000 mph.
To pick another, the author states that Atlas ICBMs were deployed in Europe. Which wouldn't have made much sense, as the Atlas took some 15 minutes to ready for launch (due to the need to load liquid oxygen), and therefore the obvious place for such a missile is far away from possible enemies so that there will be time to prepare the missile for launch after an incoming attack is detected.
Indeed, the Atlas (and the Soviet R-7) were considered somewhat destabilizing due to the need to launch-on-warning, due to the time needed to prepare them for launch and their extreme vulnerability during ground preparation--a point the author was sure to miss, from not understanding the basic technology.
And so, although the narrative moves along nicely and there is some good characterization of the astronauts here, this non-fiction book's horrible, inexcusable factual sloppiness makes it painful to read, and of little value in understanding the space race.
Possibly the Worst I've Ever Read July 21, 2009
Russell Still (Roswell, GA United States)
19 out of 28 found this review helpful
I am baffled as to why Booklist and Publisher's Weekly would give this book such glowing reviews. It is chock full of mistakes and misinformation. Let's just hope that future historians don't use this book as a reference.
Showing reviews 26-30 of 36
|
|
|
