Astounding
"Astounding is the landmark account of the extraordinary partnership between four controversial writers--John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, and L. Ron Hubbard--who set off a revolution in science fiction and forever changed our world"
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2recommend
2mentions
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2018–2019years
100% recommend
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Non-fiction I read this year:
Michael Benson - Space Odyssey - The detailed story of the making of 2001: A Space Odyssey. If you're a fan of the movie, or of Stanley Kubrick and/or Arthur C. Clarke in general, you should read this.
Atul Gawande - Complications - Fascinating look at life in the medical profession.
Christina Thompson - Sea People - Detailed, well-researched history of Polynesian-Western contact and relations. As a New Zealander I was interested in this, although American or European readers with no personal connection may be less so.
Peter Singer - Marx: A Very Short Introduction - What it says on the tin.
Robert C Allen - Global Economic History: A Very Short Introduction - Also good, but inaccurately titled; it should have said "Global Economic History Since the Industrial Revolution".
Fraser A Sherman - Now and Then We Time Travel - A thorough if somewhat superficial survey of time travel in the movies.
Alec Nevala-Lee - Astounding - A history of the magazine Astounding Stories, and the four men most closely associated with it: John Campbell, Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, and Ron Hubbard. Very thoroughly researched and annotated; it reveals a lot of new information and debunks a lot of old myths. (Whichever version of the "FBI visits Campbell to complain about A-bomb stories" you've heard, I can pretty much guarantee it wasn't the real one.)
Elizabeth Sandifer - Tardis Eruditorum 1: William Hartnell - The first volume of a thorough study of Doctor Who, with a combined fannish and scholarly point of view that I enjoyed.
Randall Munroe - How To - It's by Randall Munroe, what else do you need to know?
- There's a recent history book out called "Astounding" by Alec Nevala-Lee if people are interested in how the the science fiction scene in the 1930s and 1940s brought together scientists and mystics, including Jack Parsons, the JPL rocket scientist who also was into the occult, the science fiction writer Heinlein, and the chemist/writer Isaac Asimov.
