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Title: Captured by Aliens: The Search for Life and Truth in a Very Large Universe by Joel Achenbach ISBN: 0684848562 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: 1999 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.66
Rating: 5
Summary: Entertaining, informative, irreverent
Comment: The title involves a pun on the word "captured." It is our imaginations that are captured by aliens, not our nubile bodies. The title sets the quasi-satirical tone for the revelations to come.
Achenbach's book, to my mind, is an outstanding work of journalism, clearly in the personally-involved tradition of people like Hunter S. Thompson, Gay Talese, Tom Wolfe and Truman Capote, but more playfully done. More than a scientific quest, what Achenbach reports on here is a sociological phenomenon of staggering proportions. It's "the alien question," which is many things to many people: a new religion in the making, the manifest destiny of an entire species, the most important scientific quest of all time, or simply a project that Congress won't fund. It is also "a bottomless pit," as Achenbach describes it on page 355, "a drop-off into nothingness, just mist and vapor," something that "is likely to remain a matter of infinite possibilities and zero certainties" for years to come.
To write this book, Achenbach visited and interviewed scores of people including the illuminati of space science like the late Carl Sagan and Frank Drake and the head of NASA, Dan Goldin, as well as assorted lesser lights like Henry Harris, a non-PhD working for JPL, and Jill Tarter, who was the inspiration for Jody Foster's character in the movie Contact. But he also broke bread with an assortment of fringe looneys from those who claim to be part alien to those who committed suicide to catch up with the space ship companion to the comet Hale-Bopp. Achenbach's attitude throughout is serious, yet his style is irreverent, even flippant at times. He treats the Roswell aliens and the Face on Mars with the same respect as the Copernican Principle and the Drake equation. He tells the story of the rock from Mars with the same enthusiastic but polite reserve he employs when talking to a certain Jan Bingham, a "Starseed" from Las Vegas, Nevada, who sometimes travels interdimensionally.
He has a gift for the language and can sum up an eye-popping situation in a memorable phrase that suddenly reveals a different perspective. Thus he writes on page 33, "You can take everything conclusively known about extraterrestrial life and fit it on the period at the end of this sentence (with room left over for about seventeen angels)." He quotes Bob Forward (inventor of the light-sail idea of propulsion) who is describing the scoop on a ramjet that would have to be infinitely strong to withstand collisions with particles, but would have no mass, as saying, "Therefore...it would have to be constructed from a special element: ‛unobtainium'" (p. 247).
This is journalism at its best, on a par with PBS's Nova and Frontline, and a full stride ahead of most of what we see on network TV, and of course light years beyond the tabloids. Achenbach asks all the serious questions as he looks into every niche and cranny of the alien phenomenon. He even asks my favorite question on page 341, a question like a Zen koan, "Why is there something rather than nothing?" Asking this question with a sufficient measure of wonder leads immediately to satori, while reading this book with a sufficient measure of light-hearted openness will lead to a whole lot of fun.
By the way, did you know that the first five letters of Neil Armstrong's name spelled backwards is "alien"? (p. 335)
Rating: 5
Summary: Where are they ?
Comment: Joel Achenbach brings a sense of humanity to the search for the inhuman. He ties together the many issues associated with our ongoing search for life in the universe in a comprehensible way, and then brings it all home with enough emotional force to make you want to wake up your sleeping child and hug him. Achenbach does this by combining the best tradition of un-biased reporting with a profound lack of pretentiousness and a wicked wit. Whether the subject is the head of NASA or an alleged UFO abductee, Achenbach treats his interviewees with respect and brings out the humanity within. His technical descriptions of everything from Fermi's Paradox (where are they?) to the evolution of the universe are clear and concise. His clever prose infuses the book with warmth and an appreciation that behind the words is a real person who is struggling with the some very profound questions. Are we really alone? Are we smart on a galactic level or rather stupid? By studding his writing with such conceptual gems as "the water cooler principle" and "the assumption of mediocrity" Achenbach brings these seemingly esoteric cosmic questions down to earth. At the end of this book the reader feels that he has connected with the subjects, connected with the author, and, most importantly, connected with our deeply human need to, well, connect.
Rating: 5
Summary: Laugh-out-loud funny, yet deeply moving
Comment: In his peripatetic career, Achenbach has always delivered quirky, amusing takes on a wide range of subject matter--from 'genius grants' to the odd, magical symbiosis between John Lennon and Paul McCartney, from Thomas Harris's horrific gifts to the bittersweet joys of fatherhood. But until now, Achenbach has contented himself with small subjects. With "Captured by Aliens," though, Achenbach has transformed himself from one of the very best newspaper writers in the country into an author of the first rank--a writer with a startling command of grand themes and complicated theories and a sense of wonder (and humor) that never fails. Plus, he's a real smart guy who treats language with delicacy and respect. Whether writing about quantum physics or nutcases in the desert, Achenbach conveys a sense of the majesty and absurdity of life. This book is an absolute delight.
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Title: Why Things Are & Why Things Aren't by Joel Achenbach ISBN: 0345392884 Publisher: Ballantine Books (Trd Pap) Pub. Date: 1996 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
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Title: It Looks Like a President Only Smaller: Trailing Campaign 2000 by Joel Achenbach ISBN: 0743223489 Publisher: Simon & Schuster (Paper) Pub. Date: 1901 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: Why Things Are: The Big Picture by Joel Achenbach, Richard Thompson ISBN: 0345377982 Publisher: Ballantine Books (Trd Pap) Pub. Date: 1993 List Price(USD): $10.00 |
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Title: Why Things Are: Answers to Every Essential Question in Life by Joel Achenbach, Dave Barry ISBN: 0345362241 Publisher: Ballantine Books (Trd Pap) Pub. Date: 1991 List Price(USD): $10.00 |
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Title: The Culture of Fear: Why Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong Things by Barry Glassner ISBN: 0465014909 Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: 2000 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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