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Fotografie: Author photo by Miriam Berkley

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This was a very humorous take on the beginnings of the world, told through the experiences of Death personified. A really interesting view of angels, souls, the afterlife, love, and life itself. The jokes are very understated but there were points where I was just cracking up.
If you don't think it's funny, then you're probably missing the point.
 
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brittaniethekid | 11 andere besprekingen | Jul 7, 2022 |
I'm just here to say I love the idea that anyone went into this book thinking it had a scrap of truth in it. There is at least one indignant review out proclaiming outrage at having been mislead into buying this biography of Millard Fillmore. Dude is riding a UNICORN on the cover. 'The Remarkable Millard Fillmare' was a welcome break from mid-term madness for me at the time and worth picking up if you're a history student in need of a laugh.
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ManWithAnAgenda | 2 andere besprekingen | Jun 10, 2021 |
Having come across Jack Parsons several years ago, I have wanted to read about him in more depth for some time. So, recently I purchased both 1999's Sex and Rockets: The Occult World of Jack Parsons by John Carter and 2005's Strange Angel: The Otherworldly Life of Rocket Scientist John Whiteside Parsons by George Pendle. I then read them back-to-back, starting with Pendle's and finishing with Carter's. It's instructive to read multiple biographies of a subject, not only to compare the bios, but compare the interpretation of the subject.

Pendle's Strange Angel: The Otherworldly Life of Rocket Scientist John Whiteside Parsons is the superior of the two biographies. Pendle's writing is tight and focused, with no chronological jumping back and forth. He deftly introduces background material (on California, rocketry, CalTech, Crowley, and the like) into the text. He did his research capably and thoroughly. Where Carter often wonders and says "perhaps" and "maybe," Pendle definitively proves and states authoritatively.

Pendle tells a good tale, explaining Parson's psychology, education, rocketry, friendships, loves, lusts, science fiction fandom, magick, and life. Parson's life was interesting and in ways he was important and accomplished; in other ways he was a naïve, hedonistic failure. He could have done so much more if he had discipline and ethics.

Oh, and L. Ron Hubbard makes an appearance. Look it up.

Pendle has some nice images, but there could have and should have been many more. There are citations, he did his research, but I didn't think a citation format could get worse than the new-fangled "page number-quote snippet-source citation" style. Here there is just a "quote snippet-source citation." At least they're separated by chapter, otherwise, without page numbers, there is no real way to find a citation other than brute force reading the whole chapter's list of citations. It's stupid. No separate bibliography.

Buy Pendle's book first, it's definitive, and only buy Carter's if you are a completist or like reading loads of thelemic magickal doggerel.
… (meer)
 
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tuckerresearch | 8 andere besprekingen | Aug 7, 2020 |
A Stranger Angel than Fiction
Review of the Audible Audio edition (2019) of the original Harcourt hardcover "Strange Angel: The Otherworldly Life of Rocket Scientist John Whiteside Parsons" (2005)

I normally give things related to the occult a miss, but when Strange Angel came up as an Audible Daily Deal on Oct. 7, 2019, I couldn't resist giving it a tryout and was not disappointed. This life story not only covers the beginnings of the American rocketry program (with a group of sometimes hapless amateurs who called themselves the Suicide Squad) and the American branch of Aleister Crowley's magick worshippers but has some fascinating cameos by later famous science fiction writers. Everyone from Ray Bradbury to Robert A. Heinlein to L. Sprague de Camp put in an appearance. The notorious science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard plays an especially prominent role in these early years before he founded Scientology, but he was already scamming people even then, especially his supposed friend John Parsons. You can well understand how they could turn this into an ongoing television series which is also the reason for this new tie-in edition release.… (meer)
 
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alanteder | 8 andere besprekingen | Oct 30, 2019 |

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Werken
3
Leden
718
Populariteit
#35,342
Waardering
½ 3.7
Besprekingen
24
ISBNs
21
Talen
1

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