An Early 20th Century Book Written by a Marine Engineer; Not About Extra-Terrestrials
359091
Perhaps I can help some prospective buyers by saying that this book was published by Doubleday in 1918 and is now in the public domain and therefore, freely available without charge.  It is not a story about an invasion of earth by beings from other planets.  Aliens is essentially a story of revolt against hypocritical conformity and snobbish sentiment, with detailed and powerful characterizations, particularly that of a character who never actually appears but whose sinister shadow nevertheless causes calamity.
Before the author, William McFee, became a writer, he went to sea as a marine engineer.  He was a very "hands-on" individual with personal experience working in skilled trades and great respect for those in such trades, as well as for seamen.
The fact that he was writing in the early 20th century helps explain his extremely leisurely approach to writing prose and the absence of all vulgarity, profanity and explicit description of sexual behavior.  His experience as an engineer and on ships at sea underlie his great depth and breadth of detail regarding such matters.
These characteristics, which I find extremely appealing, lead me, at 79 years old, to greatly enjoy his works.  They also lead many in the general public nowadays to view his works as aimed at the YA or "Young Adult" market.  I think that this work (and his works in general) can be more fully appreciated by more mature people.  Reviewing Aliens at the time of its publication, Life magazine called it original, skillfully contrived and technically successful.  I agree, and I would add that it is very adult in the true sense of the word: that it can be understood best by mature and experienced minds.
1925299
George Trinkaus is author and publisher of some half-dozen books on Nikola Tesla, and related subjects. While I have written this review specifically for Trinkaus's, "Tesla - the true wireless," some observations apply to Trinkaus's other books as well.
This is a softbound book - a booklet really - of about 24 pages. The book is moderately priced (well under ten dollars). And while Trinkaus's books do have a slightly primitive, self-published look, the printing and production quality are adequate - no color or photos, though.
This booklet is mainly a reprint of Tesla's article of 1919, "The True Wireless," with introduction by Trinkaus. The Tesla article is very interesting, but sadly shows the great scientist in decline. It begins with Tesla describing a trip he took to Bonn to see Heinrich Hertz. That he was coolly received is not surprising, in view of the fact that Tesla's mission was to tell Hertz that he (Hertz) was completely wrong on how radio works. Curiously, while Tesla claims that his version of radio is capable of transmitting power "billions of times greater than with the Hertzian" version of radio, he is concerned with developing "the most delicate wireless detector known."  (Why would he need it? Or is it to help out Hertz with his anemic version?) There are also some errors. For example Tesla claims that, unlike Hertzian radio, mountains have no effect on his radio. But this is not true. If Tesla radio works by conduction through the earth (as he claimed), a mountain would act like an antenna/receiver, thereby influencing other nearby receivers.
Certainly Heinrich Hertz was only human and capable of his share of mistakes. But science requires that theories be constantly tested and re-examined. We may thus be certain that subsequent reviews have noted Hertz's share of mistakes.  But to say - as Tesla cultists do - that Hertz led radio completely down the wrong path is not reasonable. How could engineers possibly communicate with a spacecraft at the edge of the solar system based on a completely erroneous theory? Isn't it much more likely that Tesla, outstripped by his colleagues in the race to develop radio, was overcome by rancor and lashed out at them?
3124974
This book was first brought to my attention when it was being discussed on NPR. Diana Preston sounded like she was actually gushing when she talked about William Dampier. After reading this book, one can certainly understand why. While there are many gaps in the historical record - we know virtually nothing about Dampier's personal life, Diana and Michael Preston weave what is known into a highly enjoyable narrative that moves at the speed of an action novel.

William Dampier, a Scot, was a fascinating person. Like so many young unattached men of his time, he naturally turned to the sea as a means of livelihood. Like most sailors, he was a keen observer of the world around him. However, unlike many of his peers, he documented those observations, kept his papers in good order, and published his observations as sort of a half scientific journal/half travel story. He became sort of a folk hero to the large portions of English population who were wealthy enough to own his books, but not to experience the larger world first hand. His keen scientific observations deeply influenced meteorology, biology, and cartography for the next two hundred years. His charts were still in use as late as WWII.

Today, it is difficult for a layperson to be taken seriously by scientific community. Thus a common sailor and buccaneer who is also at the cutting edge of scientific study seems somewhat incredulous to the modern reader. Yet, in this sense, the 16th and 17th century scientific community was a bit more egalitarian then the current one. Yet this is a world where slavery was accepted as a fact of life and basic human dignity, especially for non-whites, was a luxury vice a fundamental right.

Likewise, Dampier himself was a case study in contradictions. A keen observer and analyst of the natural world, he seems completely unable to understand human nature. A gifted planner, navigator, and tough fighter; he fails at every leadership role that life thrusts upon him. Despite the fact that he was almost a folk hero at the time of his last expedition, he is more or less forgotten to the modern world with the exception of Western Australia. He was, after all, the first Englishman to visit Australia - sorry Capt Cook.

This book will appeal to anyone who is interested in the age of exploration, the history of science, or British history in the late 17th Century. The main drawback to this book is that there is very little insight into William Dampier's personal life. For example, the authors do not know when Dampier's wife died or much about her life when he was not at home. Regardless, this is a history book that is as readable as any novel.
4287181
I actually worked on the production version of the Exp MPN-1 GCA radar system this book deals with. Very interesting read. I only just learned of the existence of this book. I have never read any of Arthur Clarkes other books as I am not too much into SciFi. I don't understand why someone who enjoyed his SciFi books would put down his attempt to illustrate his actual experience with a real life Science project. These early GCA radars saved many air crews lives. The production units consisted of a Operational Trailer towed by a 2.5 ton prime mover (Truck) which also carried the diesel generator to power the radar equipment. I understand from talking to early British GCA Radar Technicians that there was an experimental version installed in a fixed structure at Heathrow towards the end of WW2. Possibly this was where Clarke experience this early GCA system.
4195152
The Martian is a sort of space age Robinson Crusoe in which a member of a NASA crew is stranded on Mars when the crew is forced to leave. Mark Watley is left behind and presumed dead. But he survived and is in a precarious position with no way to contact the outside world and a limited supply of food and water. Undaunted, he sets about trying to stay alive until some means of rescue can arrive. The people at the Johnson Space Center come to realize that he is still alive and the story switches back and forth between Watleys survival efforts and NASAs rescue plan. As a layperson I found it difficulty to understand much of the action. There is really no suspense involved since we know Watley will be saved in the end. His upbeat personality and humor makes for interesting reading, but not enough to offset my lack understanding of what he is doing and why. He ends the book with the comment: The cost of my survival must have been hundreds of millions of dollars My thought on reading this comment was to consider how many more lives could have been saved with this sum, lives of children dying from neglect, lives of refugees from war, etc. Sure it is only fiction and no real money was involved, but it does make me wonder about priorities.

The book will be of primary interest to those who are knowledgeable about the technology. My feeling is that the movie version might be more entertaining than the book. Accordingly I rate it at three stars.
3565061
Aldous Huxley was born in England in 1894 and saw his first novel - "Crome Yellow" published in 1921. He is best known for his anti-utopian novel "Brave New World", which was first published in 1932.

"Brave New World" set in the year 632 AF - 632 years after the first Model T Ford has rolled off the production lines. (Henry Ford has, it would seem, become the world's main deity, and the "Sign of the T" is commonplace). The 'civilised world' has become a radically different place - although everyone is, technically, happy it's cost a certain amount of 'free will'. The family unit no longer exists, with children now being created in a laboratory. Since the overwhelming majority of women are 'created' sterile, the entire population's physical and intellectual development can be carefully controlled from conception. This level of control ensure that - with only very few exceptions - people are happy fulfilling their pre-determined role in society. (Members of the 'Epsilon Minus' class are bred for menial labour, while - at the other end of the scale - members of the 'Alpha Plus' class are bred for their intelligence). Promiscuous sex and recreational drug use is encouraged, and only a deviant would consider abstaining from either. Similarly, spending time alone is considered abnormal, while monogamy is practically a perversion. One of the book's key characters is Bernard Marx - an Alpha-Plus, who has some rather dubious tendencies. He's planning on taking a rather unusual trip to a "Savage Reservation" : in these places, the primitives who live there have children and raise families in the time honoured fashion. They also grow old and don't consider cleanliness to be "next to fordliness".

I've slightly mixed feelings about "Brave New World". I was a little disappointed - though, with the constant comparisons to "1984", I think my expectations of it were maybe a little off. The elements of the book dealing with indoctrination, conditioning and bio-engineering are certainly relevant to today's world - however, the book just didn't make the impact it could have. Part of the problem, for me, was that the book's focus shifted so often from one character to another - next to Winston Smith, the characters that appeared here were a little flimsy. Similarly, I didn't find Huxley's Brave New World quite inspiring the same depth of feeling as Orwell's Oceania. Nevertheless, it's certainly worth reading, and I can see why it's so highly thought of.
3630971
This book is pseudoscience masquerading as the real thing. It is in the tradition of Plato's Atlantis, Velikovsky's Worlds in Collision, and any number of fantasies in between about cosmic catastrophes. Although lead author Richard Firestone writes well and has impeccable scientific credentials, in this book he becomes an advocate for the dark side of popular science. Some of the assertions in this book are reasonable, but many are not. Among this biggest howlers is the assertion that more than 100,000 of the elliptical depressions called the Carolina Bays are the result of recent cosmic impacts - impacts of a size that we know happen on Earth individually only once in several millennia. Alternatively, this book suggests that the Carolina Bays are the result of secondary impacts by ejecta from a single super impact that also created Hudson Bay. This impact, which they propose happened only 12,900 years ago, would thus have been much larger than the hit 65 million years ago that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. Needless to add, no geologists have found any of signatures of impacts in Hudson Bay. Another weird notion is the assertion that mastodons living on Earth 34,000 years ago were exposed directly to a huge hypervelocity blast wave from a very nearby supernova, imbedding cosmic particles in their tusks. The issue of how these almost microscopic particles made it through the Earth's atmosphere without being slowed apparently does not worry them. Judging by other reviews posted here, a lot of non-scientists liked this book. I am again reminded of Velikovsky, whose work was highly praised by nonscientists but immediately rejected by scientists. If you want to read this book for entertainment as imaginative science fiction, fine, but don't confuse it with real science.
4402379
If you want detailed technical information about modern submarines, there are probably better sources--Janes, for example.
That is not how I would approach this book.  We all know that Tom Clancy is a great historical novelist.  This book (and how much he actually wrote is debatable) is like a little "hornbook"--giving you the kind of atmosphere and technical details you could use to start thinking about writing a story--a story about humans with their frailties and courage, with the sea and submarines as a backdrop.
Sure. there are inaccuracies, but that isn't the point.  What is mostly correct is there, and in enough detail to give one a fundamental understanding of submarine warfare, and the nature of "going down to sea in ships." I used the book to help my father, an ex-naval ordnance designer, in recovery from a stroke. It served well.
After all, it IS important to know the difference between a Mark 14 and a Mark 10 torpedo, is it not?
A fun read, not to be read at one sitting, and will enhance your enjoyment of films such as "Hunt for Red October" and "U-571".  And the Janes series, while technically flawless, won't do that. You'll understand why Clancy has cornered this genre.
4098100
This was my first Stanislaw Lem book. I was curious about the author who is renowned for thoughtful science fiction writing about social and ethical concepts. This book was written in 1959 in Poland. It is difficult to analyze the book without taking into account the writer.  My perception of what his life was like and how his experiences may have been shaped is the basis for my review.  First off, the book comes across as dated.  There really is little attention paid to the science aspect of science fiction.  There is no attempt at imagination here; Lem envisioned the future with technology that existed in 1959.  He seemed to conceive of 1950's technology being used to create weapons and space travel, but did not actually conceive of any technological advancements that would aid in space exploration or advanced weaponry etc. In a way it seemed bizarre in a science fiction novel that his imagination just didn't go there.  Some "robots" and a ray gun with no real explanation as to that science is not exactly imaginative. The science in this novel is beyond dated, it's just plain nonsense. But the novel is more about mood and philosophy and less about science.  The novel is largely successful in creating a mood that exudes anxiety, paranoia, strangeness, confusion, and ambiguity. After only a few pages, the reader does begin to feel claustrophobic and restless and confused. By the end of the book I found myself unexpectedly involved and concerned about the choices confronting the explorers. From a philosophical point of view, the novel was much less successful. It never gets around to describing why they were out in space in the first place. They crash landed on their way to where or what is never stated.  Hard to judge or even contemplate the reactions of the crew when you don't know why they are there.  Lem identifies each character based on their occupation:  Chemist, Engineer, Captain etc.  Why was this particular occupational group assembled?  Are they military?  If so we can better understand their reaction to kill first differently than we would if they were an expeditionary group.  Frankly, throughout the novel I found myself baffled by the choices the characters made. Taken as a whole, I don't think this was an entirely successful novel, but it has some very good things in it. There is very likely another Lem novel in my future.  This one is only recommended for readers who are anthropological and are seeking information about mindset of people during the late 1950's.  When viewed as a sort of time capsule item or a glimpse into that decade, I think the novel may have more value.
2264663
Looking at the cover art I asumed it was about some U.S. Carrier Pilot, but no it was written  by a British pilot. One of the top 10 books I have read and I have in my long life read 1000s milatery history is one of my passions.
3559392
It came from nowhere and had no cause that the scientists could put their finger on.  It could have been unusual solar winds some researchers suggested, but really they were only guessing.  It began as a stiff breeze, then increasing at a steady five miles an hour a day.  It became a storm, then a hurricane, then a ground-stripping fury of titanic, unearthly proportions that threatened to wipe man off the planet.  Traveling from East to West it circled the globe, strongest near the equator, weakest at the poles.  It resembled those mighty gas flows that hurtle around Saturn.  It threatened to completely alter the planet beyond recognition.  Amid this natural fury Donald Maitland (doctor), Andrew Symington (radio expert), Steven Lanyon (submarine commander), Patricia Olsen (NBC reporter), Simon Marshall (TV expert) and Deborah Mason (secretary) will all increasingly struggle for survival as the storm grows.  Their paths will cross and intermingle.  Some will survive, but not all.  What is to be the fate of these characters, and indeed of human kind?

This is J. G. Ballard's first novel and it is a fine effort, certainly worth reading.  Many will remember this writer as the author of the memorable, social-realist novel&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Empire-of-the-Sun/dp/0743265238/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Empire of the Sun</a>, but Ballard began his career writing science-fiction short-stories for British magazines like <New Worlds>.  Some indeed consider his best work to be the early sci-fi short stories.  Knngsley Amis tipped Ballard as "the most imaginative of Wells's successors" and he indeed went on to write a number of memorable sci-fi novels, including&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/The-Drowned-World/dp/1857988833/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">The Drowned World</a>,<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/The-Crystal-World/dp/0374520968/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">The Crystal World</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Crash-A-Novel/dp/0312420331/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Crash: A Novel</a>.

By writing a number of interconnected plots Ballard manages to make this book interesting, exciting and yet realistic.  We do not feel that an unbelievable number of catastrophes, and slim escapes, happen to any one person.  We are rather given the impression of a disaster on a grand scale that affects the lives of many people in various different ways.

Despite there being so many characters most people are described well and have an individuality, though it should be pointed out that some are the more important than others and are more clearly defined.

Like most science-fiction stories this book requires a certain "willing suspension of disbelief" and I do not recommend it to you if you prefer 'real life' stories, but if you have imagination and a free-ranging mind you will enjoy this novel.
2512001
Stand by For Mars!: A Tom Corbett Space Cadet Adventure. By Carey Rockwell, Willy Ley Technical Adviser.  New York, Grosset & Dunlap Publishers. 1952 224pp. ISBN: 978-1258205638

Recently an article about the German-American, Willy Ley crossed my path and it created an interest in the science (and science fiction) writer. Kindle offered a cheap version of this particular book so I downloaded and read it.

The book is a science fiction novel of which Ley and Rockwell collaborated on a number of occasions. The story is an inspirational book for young men in the same vein as my grandfathers Horatio Alger, my fathers Booth Tarkington and my own Clair Bee. I wrote a graduate thesis on these sort of books so for a change feel qualified to discuss the topicnot that qualification is necessary for me to opine.

The writers listed above all told tales of moral high ground and the requirement of team building which Stand by for Mars! did as well. Rather than sports being the focal point for the story, this one was about saving passengers on their way to Mars on board an apparently doomed spacecraft. The three heroes, as students of the elite Space Academy circa 2350 came together and worked as a unit under the direction of Tom Corbett. It was not always easy.

Unknown to Tom or the Venusian Astro, their third partner was the son of the man who first made a Martian settlement. But Rogers father died in the process and he was left impoverished along with his mother as a result. Roger had a large chip on his shoulder making the threesome a difficult group with which to build a strong team of space cadets. In 1952, Space Cadet meant something entirely different than the concept that I have known since the late 60s. It was then, an honorable term.

As one might guess, their acumen and skills as students under extreme pressure, came to the fore and the bitter feelings that were preventing them from success were tossed aside during their perilous though successful rescue mission. They became heroes and if we can live another 234 years as so many futurists suggest, we may be reading about the threesome in whatever method mass media has at that time.

So, while they were experts in their occupations as space cadets there was some time for sport and one of the games was Mercuryball which will be played in a fashion of soccer but with three players to a team, a twelve inch ball and one that is filled with air but also with a mercury filled capsule to ensure flight unpredictability. Imagine, a small ball with a guarantee of inaccurate arcs for its mercury capsule being kicked by its players, 60 yards!! These boys were not only very smart and scientifically adept but also monstrously good athletes.

As this genre goes, trouble and tumult prevail until everyone recognizes their moral imperative and then they do the right thing and everyone gets their medal in the end.

Willy Ley died young by todays standards. He was 62 and when this book came out 17 years prior to his demise, the characters considered people in their 60s to be elderly. Clearly I am in my dotage. Willy named one of his daughters Xenia.
2211913
The book is heavily illustrated, with photographs or diagrams on nearly every page; there are many tables of technical and operational data.  However, it is also very readable, filled with odd anecdotes, for example, poor Kapitanleutnant Rolf Mutzelberg, commanding U-203 south of the Azores, who decided to join his crew bathing in the ocean (U-boats got pretty smelly after weeks at sea), but "totally misjudged his dive off the bridge, hit the saddle-tank head first, broke his neck and died."

The book (like Gaul) is divided into three parts.  Part 1 summarizes U-boat operations during the First World War and the interwar period.

Part 2 describes the various types of U-boats, from the early Type IA to the advanced Type XXI and XXVI, which served as the basis for several postwar US and Soviet submarine designs.  I found the details of the construction program of the Type XXI surprisingly interesting -- it was built in sections at various steelworks.  The sections were transported by canal and river to shipyards for assembly.  Welding two sections together took about 8 hours, and in order to ensure a continuous weld, the workers could not stop even for bad weather or air raids.

Part 2 continues with descriptions of the torpedoes (some of which were programmed to follow patterns, while others used acoustic homing devices), mines, guns, and even rockets which the U-boats carried.  Radar, sonar, electronic warfare, and the Enigma machine are treated next, followed by engines.

Part 3 gives a brief overview of U-boat operations during WWII, followed by sections on U-boat officers and crews; the (lack of) air support for U-boat operations; replenishment at sea by "milch cows"; weather-related missions to the Arctic; transports to the Far East; and the fate of the U-boats at the end of the war.  An appendix lists all U-boats lost at sea.

All in all, this is an excellent resource for a military history buff.  A general reader may not have much use for the technical details, but they help give a better understanding of the Battle of the Atlantic, the longest campaign of the war.
54211
Yes, the book was written a long time ago.  Hence, the language is very difficult especially the dialogues and the monologues of which there are plenty.  I also skipped some of the more pedantic parts about whale genuses. But I did mostly read the whole thing and a lot of it was very interesting.
810779
"Star Gate" is a fairly early example of Andre Norton's science fiction (1958), and its brevity shows the demands of the "juvenile" label under which it was originally published. The use of what was originally a pseudonym of Alice Mary Norton was another example of such demands; a publisher wanted a "masculine" name for adventure stories. The author obliged, but later legally changed her name; and always omitted the diacritical mark that indicated that "Andre" was French, and masculine.

This limit on length did nothing to limit the author's imagination, however, and the book is crammed with themes which another writer might have scattered among a dozen books. Whatever the original Harcourt Brace hardcover jacket said, the Ace, and, later, Ballantine (Del Rey), paperback editions were both targeted as much at adults as children and teenagers. A reader of any age can probably find things to enjoy over the course of several readings. I must have read it for the first time in the early 1960s, and have returned to it with pleasure at intervals of ten or fifteen years.

In the midst of a crackling good adventure story, the narrative touches on issues ranging from "benign" colonialism ("The White Man's Burden") to racist imperialism to inter-species (read: inter-racial) sex, to religion, all distanced from 1950s censorship by the strange planet Gorth and alternate timelines. As a bonus, the naive hero sometimes compares his own adventures to those in old songs -- for which we often can fill in the cliches of pulp fiction, and juvenile novels likely to have been found on the same shelf as the original hardcover.

The choice of a young and ignorant point of view character allows Norton to explain some things to the reader through answers to the hero, such as the brief presentation of a basic quantum mechanics theory of the equal reality of alternate states. Meanwhile, the reader is more subtly informed about a new and alien society through the same character's expectations about the world. This may seem a common enough technical device, but Norton was using it with precision when many adult as well as juvenile titles tended to belabor things. Not only are two versions of Gorth explored through these two devices, but we learn about the "Star Lords" from Earth mainly through indirection and arguments. (One remembers, in contrast, Heinlein tossing in a Margaret Mead imitation to  give an anthropology lecture in "Citizen of the Galaxy".)

Although Norton has not returned to the Gorth setting (in any of its time lines), she did introduce alternate-world versions of other planets, most notably in "Android at Arms" (with a similarly rich mix of themes) and "Perilous Dreams." What appear to be mutually exclusive alternate time-lines are launched in some of the later volumes of the (original) "Time Traders" series. Some readers also enjoy the alternate Earths of the two "Crosstime" books, although I personally consider these "minor Norton".

For some reason, Norton titles seem to be picked up for movies and television, but only titles: Neither "Beastmaster" nor "Stargate" had anything much to do with the Norton novels of the same name, although the former made a few glances in the direction of her story, and, if one squints one can see the idea of "Gods from the Stars" in the latter. "Stargate SG-1" has made a few uses of alternate worlds, but any Norton influence on that seems unlikely.

(Reposted from my "anonymous" review of September  5, 2003)
4126069
XXXXX

Beginning in this century, news accounts painted a dire picture that captivated the world: images of drifting plastic masses, of marine mammals, sea turtles, and birds choking on plastic bags.  Young entrepreneurs clamoured to clean those mythical islands of trash, while industrialists rose to defend plastic.  From this melee, a new field of science emerged to sort fact from fiction.

A cast of characterssailors turned scientists and scientists turned activists, and activists who turned to politicsset the stage for a dramatic comedy of fossil fools, as behemoth petrochemical corporations rose like phoenixes to counter a public relations nightmare.

The above comes from this well-written, passionate book by Marcus Eriksen, Ph. D.  He is the co-founder and director of research for the 5 Gyres Institute, with firsthand experience from more than fifteen ocean-crossing expeditions.  Eriksen has written and published research on the impact of plastics pollution in the worlds oceans.

A gyre (mentioned above) is a massive, large-scale circular system of wind-driven ocean surface currents.  There are five main subtropical gyres located in the North and South Pacific, the North and South Atlantic, and the Indian Ocean.

This book firstly tells the exciting 2008 story of how the author and his now wife used 15,000 plastic water bottles and an abandoned airplane fuselage to build a Junk Raft, which the author (and another male adventurer) used to sail 2000 miles from California to Hawaii (straight through the North Pacific Gyre) to raise awareness about plastic marine pollution.

(It was in 2009 that the author and his now wife founded the 5 Gyres Institute to investigate unanswered questions about plastic pollution.  They also got married in 2009.)

What is the relationship between gyres and plastic pollution?  Plastic is trapped within the gyres, taking at least a decade to cycle back out assuming it doesnt first get eaten by marine life or sink to the ocean bottom.

How much plastic is in the ocean?  Consider this fact: by 2050, there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish!!

Marine plastic pollution is both an animal rights issue and a human health issue.  This book tells you why.

This book also gives significant detail on other subjects such as the science of plastic and plastic pollution;  our obsession with stuff;  the recycling myth; the plastic bag lobby; the fantasy of ocean cleanup; the plastic smog; and the linear versus the circular economy.

Personally, I thoroughly enjoyed this book since it combined adventure on a raft with other important topics.  Some people may not like this expecting this book to be only an adventure story.

Finally, the only minor problem I had is that this book uses quite a few abbreviations.  What they stand for can be found in the index but I would have liked to see these listed on a single, easily-accessible page.  My major problem was that there were no pictures (except for the picture of the Junk raft on the cover).

In conclusion, I agree with filmmaker and deep-ocean explorer James Camerons assessment of this book:

This book combines many of my favorite things---adventure far from shore, the spirit of exploration, and a fight to save our oceans.

(2017;  prologue (ix-xi);  16 chapters;  epilogue;  main narrative 195 pages;  acknowledgements;  notes;  index)

<<Stephen PLETKO, London, Ontario, Canada>>

XXXXX
791048
The book is good in parts where the author writes about the "craft of literature", and narrates the history. Otherwise the book is forgettable if you are looking to read on climate change and cli fi. The book is seriously short on research and clarity of understanding on climate change and cli fi.
In particular, his assumptions about climate change is questionable. Reading the book I had the impression that he considers every natural disaster ever happened anywhere anytime is caused by climate change. In the book, writing about closure of Port Canning in India, he writes for instance, "Piddington thus (Henry Piddington successfully predicted in 1850s that a cyclone can devastate a newly established port, Port Canning, set up by the East India Company near the Sunderbans in the mid 1850s, and within a few years of his prediction, a devastating cyclone damaged the Port and it was subsequently abandoned, but that disaster was not the only reason for the abandonment of the port; besides Piddington did not make this prediction on the basis of greenhouse emissions or global warming as an associative factor) became one of the first Cassandras of climate science"). I'd say passages like this in a serious text betrays his misunderstanding of the core issue he is writing about.
The book opens with a wrong year for the limnic eruption of Lake Nyos disaster in Cameroon (it was in 1988 not 1986).
He has also displayed shoddy research on climate fiction as a genre. About cli fi, he wrote, "After all, there is now a new genre of science fiction called climate fiction or cli-fi. But cli-fi is made up mostly of disaster stories set in the future, and that, to me, is exactly the rub. The future is but one aspect of the age of human-induced global warming: it also includes the recent past, and, most significantly, the present" (Part I: Stories section). This is not quite correct for regular readers of cli fi, and this is more opinion than research or a well-considered argument.
These are serious errors and misunderstandings and not expected of an author of the caliber of Amitav Ghosh. Other than these, I'd say this is an outstanding text on the craft of writing novels. To that end, it is beautifully written.  If you are serious about "writing" and the "craft of writing" your next novel and understand the theory of "continuity", you must not miss this book.