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October 19, 2009
Space Travel
5 comments |
Category: Fiction Writing Books
Product Description
Take a tour of space with “Space Travel” that explains science to help readers make fiction plausible. Readers will see what is real today and what may become real tomorrow.
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I have to agree with the other negative review on this site–if you know so little about the mechanics of current and near-future space flight, it’s hard to imagine what business you have trying to _write_ science fiction. The book focuses heavily on the technology we have _today_, and maybe extrapolating 50 years or so into the future, which terribly limits its scope. Even so, the presentation of this material is at such a simplistic, primitive level that it’s hard to derive a lot of value from it. The other reviewer noted serious flaws in the presentation of the material (no metric units!), and, indeed, flat-out factual errors. The time-dialation miscalculation is a real howler. Even the presentation of the history of real-world space travel leaves much to be desired (Bova calls the cancellation of the Apollo program “short-sighted” on the part of the administration…without considering how many tens of billions of (adjusted) dollars were pouring into a national prestige program to bring back the world’s most expensive dirt and gravel.) A shallow work of marginal value. Learn everything in here, and more, with a book or two explicitly on _real-world_ space travel, the solar system, and a few astronomy magazines.
Rating: 2 / 5
You can learn more off the internet than what’s in this book. The premise is basically make up your own stardrive and call it a day. The stuff in this book is fluff. Sorry Ben Bova !
Rating: 1 / 5
Ben Bova and his team know of what they write…As an avid space buff and budding sci-fi writer, I was very impressed with the accuracy and detail of Space Travel…Not only were the technical details on the money, but they were presented in an easy-to-read format that would have even a novice up to speed very quickly…Anyone serious about reading or writing science fiction needs to add this to the bookshelf…
Rating: 5 / 5
If you have no time to dig online for free facts and SF tendencies, this is the ideal tool for you. I highly recommend it to all serious wannabe writers, especially to those oriented more into “speculative fiction” (SF) rather than “science fiction” (sci-fi). If you don’t know the difference, made by Isaac Asimov in the previous century, then know that SF speculates with most-likely probable and down-to-earth theories of space exploration, hi-tech, and all-together “futuristic prognostication” (e.g., Michael Crichton’s Sphere, The Andromeda Strain, even Jurassic Park, which are not necessarily “directly space-related”). Sci-fi, on the other hand, is more into distant-future tendencies, allowing even a bit spicy and far-fetched Star Wars’ ideas, which go quite beyond Star Trek’s “sober fantasizing.” To learn more or share your ideas, join Sci-Fi Almanac, at [...] (a community publication for writers and artists).
Rating: 5 / 5
Ben Bova and his team know of what they write…As an avid space buff and budding sci-fi writer, I was very impressed with the accuracy and detail of Space Travel…Not only were the technical details on the money, but they were presented in an easy-to-read format that would have even a novice up to speed very quickly…Anyone serious about reading or writing science fiction needs to add this to the bookshelf…
Rating: 5 / 5