Kent archie

The idea of using a space station for risky biology experiments is pretty interesting.
There was too much time spent on various conspiracies that lead to the main plot.
The women are not generally portrayed very positively. The significant Japanese and Indian characters are described disparagingly.
So, on the whole I don't recommend this book.

The examples were too specific to a certain set of development tools and libraries but overall it covered a lot of material in Electron development and gave me a better overall understanding.
It could have used some editing as there were many small grammar issues.

9 stories, disliked 2, liked 2-3, rest were OK. If you are a fan of Gerrolds other work, then read this to see a different side of his writing.

I can't really recommend Doc Savage books. I read some as a kid and wanted to see how they held up.
The answer is not very well. The treatment and even descriptions of women and non-Americans (or maybe non-wealthy people) are unpleasant. The adventures themselves are fun and interesting and if you can skip over the parts that were acceptable 70+ years ago but make you cringe now, then try one out. You don't have to start with the first book, these are pretty standalone and tell you what you need to know.

I only finished this book to see how silly the characters would behave. Reading books set in Victorian times is like reading about a civilization on another planet. At one point, the abductee has a clear chance to escape but doesn't because it would mean going outside in her underwear.
The adults (including the parents) go on about the poor missing child but frequently stop looking so they can have tea, eat dinner, attend some social function, change clothes and so on.
Dodgson appears useless in the beginning and near the end suddenly becomes competent.
I won't be reading other books in the series.

Hard to describe. It consists of a set of long stories, each about a single main character
and they all take place in the same city and university. The last involves the whole group and ends on a bit of a cliff hanger.
The stories are a little long and too much description of clothes and such, similar to Victorian novels. I got pretty involved in the stories even though this is not my usual kind of book.

I learned a lot about the mission and the astronauts. But I thought the author spent too much time on the religious reading during the mission and the astronauts religious beliefs. I think he was trying to make the point that the US was superior because our astronauts could read religious texts during mission but the Soviets couldn't.

My favorite of the Thing movies is the 1951 “The Thing From Another World”. It is only loosly based on the original story “Who Goes There?” by John Campbell.
So while I have seen a later, more faithful adaption, this is the first time I have read the story.
This isn;t just the original story but an expanded version that was never published before now.
Anyway, if you like any of the movies, read this.
While dated, it is still scary

For my tastes, there was too much about the U.S. Civil War and family issues. But on the whole, I liked the book and learned more about an impressive project.
After I finished, I wanted to know more about the Roebling wire company.
Their products and skills were involved in The Golden Gate bridge, the Wright brothers flyer, elevators
and other things.

Who knew that the detergent you used to clean the cloths mattered when you wiped down the weld in a titanium tank?
Or that removing contaminants would weaken a propellant tank?
Not me but I do now after reading this book.
I think the Apollo program was the greatest engineering feat in human history.
I've been reading a bunch of books in honor of the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing.
There was a little too much about org charts in this book, but enough actual engineering stories to compensate.
The lunar module is my favorite real spacecraft and I'm glad I read this book.

Typical Man From U.N.C.L.E. story.
Short, action packed, true to the characters and a little dated.
If you only know UNCLE from watching the 2015 movie, these books won't make much sense.

Very interesting story about the early days of the National Forest Service.
Sadly, the efforts of the large timber and mining companies to buy members of Congress
to remove protections on National Forests is being seen again today.
It took about another 70 years for the National Parks and the Forest Service to learn and re-learn that
leaving small fires to burn was good for the forest and prevented giant fires like the one described in the book.
Just before the section on the big fire in 1910, I saw a Nova episode about the recent huge wildfires in California. Some of the horrors of the 1910 fire are now much better understood. Like fire hurricanes and tornadoes.

A lot of interesting stories group into general categories. Somewhat similar to the Connections books.I liked that idea of ‘the adjacent possible”. There isn't a direct link between some of these inventions but the existence of one made other things possible. I also like the authors book about the acceptance of germ theory in his book [b:The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic - and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World 36086 The Ghost Map The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic - and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World Steven Johnson https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1430524696l/36086.SY75.jpg 1008989]

There will be a number of these as I am re-reading the series this year.
I thought this was pretty exciting and a good introduction to the characters.
It's been a long time since I last read it but could identify the bad guy because I didn't remember the name.
The settings and people all felt real.
It might be hard for younger people to get past the tech and cultural differences between now and the late 1940's when this book was written.
But it still expresses the excitement of science and engineering
and the characters are well defined and likable.

This could easily be a current story.
There are a number of organizations trying to land on the moon to win a challenge from Google.
You would have to change the references to radio tubes
to be some kind of custom computer interface.
It would be hard to explain Scotties military background in modern times.
Perhaps he went to a military high school?

Perhaps too much detail, but I learned a fair amount.
Parts of it would have made more sense if I as knowledgeable about the 60's British music industry.
It was nice to listen to an album while reading about it.

One the most dated of the books.
The science in this book is irrelevant today.
In the early 1960s there were a couple of satellites put up to bounce radio signals around.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Echo

The bigger problem is the portrayal of the Indians and the Mongols.
It's a pretty exciting story but very much of its time.
Modern readers would find it ridiculous that they would have to spend almost
two months just to get to their target site.

Fun mix of law and monsters. Good art work and lots of puns.

I heard this describe as a SF book set on Earth instead of in space like the authors other books.
But it took until 1/4 of the way in before the fantastical element were hinted at.
Overall, it was interesting but kind of slow.

This book has one of my favorite gags.
Where Rick tricks people with a fake cake.
This book could be used with only minor updates as there is current
work on extracting uranium from sea water.
Some pretty exciting chases and scary return of a previous villain
.

I read this because I hadn't read much Tom Swift and I was doing some archiving work on the Tom Swift Yahoo group. The super-science in the book got a little tiresome. Tom would invent entire new industries, break for lunch and then violate a few laws of physics before heading off to a square dance.
I thought it was funny that he had flying submarines, but still used a slide rule and camera film.
I know these are second generation books and I'll try reading some of the originals for comparison.

Extremely detailed history of the creation of the Intracoastal waterway in Florida.
About a third of it was a seemingly endless list of every real estate transaction in Florida.
It would make a neat interactive web site timeline with a map that gets updated as a slider is moved.
The author clearly put in a huge amount of work, nearly every page has footnotes citing source documents.
So a little tedious but very thorough. Could have used more maps.

This is one of my favorite of the series.
I think it is one of the first two books I got when I was about 8.
The story is mostly about spies and finding them.
The gizmo (not to be confused with the character named Gizmo) is plausible.
The chase though the area that is now the Mall is very exciting.

The super high tech and custom made sonar in the book can now be bought from Garmin for about $600.
The bad guys (and sometimes the main characters and the narrator) use a lot of racial slurs for the natives and the Japanese character.
The Japanese slurs are not too surprising given that the book was written a few years after the end of WW2 and the Don Scott character fought in the Pacific during the war.

The underwater archeology is still relevant.
I'm not sure paper money kept under sea water for a few years would still be usable.

All in all a pretty good adventure, with some OK science.

One of the better stories. Exotic settings, mysterious people, cool technology and Barbie has a key role.

Good adventure. The science element of the book is still mostly relevant.
Some of the language and locations need updating.
Hong Kong is no longer a British territory.