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Allen SteeleOn Sunday - January 26th, 2003 - our guest on Hour 25 was Allen Steele, one of my favorite authors. His stories celebrate our efforts to explore space. But unlike the stories of so many other authors, his focus on the 'working stiffs of space'; the blue collar workers who sweat and toil out on the vacuum filled frontier. His stories not only ring true with technical details, they are filled with believable people who have to work for a living. I enjoyed his first novel - Orbital Decay - and all the ones that followed. |
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 The cover art for Allen's newest book was done by Ron Miller, our last guest on Hour 25. Small world isn't it? |
We had the chance to sit down with Allen and chat for a while at the 2002 WorldCon in San Jose. Our conversation happened just before the publication of his newest book Coyote, and this just whetted my appetite for his newest book. So I was glad that I didn't have to wait long after ConJose to get my copy of Coyote. In writing Coyote Allen set himself a most difficult task. He wanted to show how an interstellar mission could be mounted using the technology that might be available during the coming century. No warp drive or magic wormholes here, just believable technology. And he succeeded in showing just what a challenging task interstellar flight will be and just how difficult it will be to establish human colonies on other worlds. And while doing this he told a fascinating story filled with people who behaved believably. |
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They didn't always agree with each other, they didn't always act reasonably, they sometimes were stupid. In other words, they were real and that reality made this a good book. I enjoyed Coyote a great deal and recommend it to you. Sex and Violence in Zero-G is another of Allen's books I want to commend to your attention. This is an anthology of his 'Near Space' stories covering the next hundred years or so of space exploration and development. The stories in here are exciting or interesting or sad or thought provoking or funny or, well you get the picture. And one of the stories in here, The Return of Weird Frank is funny and disgusting and impossible to put down. |
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A couple of years ago I was recovering from some surgery and wanted something to read while I lay in bed recovering. I pulled out Sex and Violence in Zero-G because I knew I could depend on Allen to provide me with a good read. Something to take my mind off the stitches and other indignities of the medical profession. And it worked. I was enjoying the stories and relaxing, not exactly enjoying my convalescence, but comfortable. And then I got to the story of "Weird Frank". I would laugh so hard that I was afraid I was going to rip out the stitches from my operation and the pain from my over-stressed stitches made me stop reading. But after a minute or two I just had to get back to the story. And I'd start laughing again and the pain would come back and I'd stop reading again. For a couple of minutes. Then I'd start reading again and the whole damn cycle would start up again. This went on till I didn't know if I wanted to thank Allen for being such a good writer or whack him up side 'da head for causing such uncontrollable laughter and the associated pain to my stitches. Which I guess is my way of saying he's one hell of a good writer. |
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The above three books show a sample of Allen's space novels. Lunar Descent, part of his 'Near Space' series, deals with people working on the Industrial Moonbase and how they break away from their Earth based corporate bosses. Labyrinth of Night is set a few years later and deals with astronauts exploring the remains of an alien base on Mars and what they find there. Tranquillity Alternative is a part of his 'Chesley Space' series and is one of my favorite Allen Steele books. This one deals with an American space program that followed the blueprint laid down by von Braun and others in the 1950's but by the turn of the century lies on the verge of termination. This story follows an American voyage to the Moon for the purpose of turning over their abandoned moonbase to a foreign industrial conglomerate and the destruction of nuclear missiles that were based there. But unknown to the American space agency, a spy has joined the mission in hopes of seizing those missiles. This is a very good book and is most highly recommended. As are virtually all of Allen's books. And as a side note. The covers for the above books were all done by Bob Eggleton. Click here to listen to an interview that we did with Bob a couple of years ago. |
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If you enjoyed this show and would like to know when other interviews are uploaded to the Hour 25 web site, then send an email to me at [email protected] and I will add your name to the free Hour 25 Newsletter mailing list. That way you'll get a brief notice in your email every time a new show gets uploaded to the web.
The Great Hour 25 Disk Crash of 2002 - On-Going News
As a result of our recent hard disk crash the Hour 25 newsletter mailing list has vanished into the digital darkness. It would be very helpful if subscribers to the Hour 25 Newsletter would resend their email addresses to me {[email protected]} so I can reconstitute the Newsletter mailing list. {If you have done this "post-crash" then I have your email address and you don't need to do anything.} New editions of the newsletter will start coming out "real soon now". In the same vein, if you previously sent in an entry for the Karen Willson Five Word Challenge, now would be a good time for you to fish around in your "sent mail" folder and resend your entry. Or come up with a new one and send it in. {And please put "Five Word Challenge" or some approximation thereof in the subject line of your email to make it easy for me to keep track of your entry.}
Links for more information relating to this week's show
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Allen Steele
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Current Space News
The Shenzhou Project For On-Going Updates on Space News ISS News | |||
Ron Miller
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On Thursday - January 9th, 2003 - our guest on Hour 25 was Ron Miller, noted space artist, writer and artistic representative of the late Chesley Bonestell. We chatted with him about space art, Chesley Bonestell and his truly wonderful books The Dream Machines - A Pictorial History of Spaceships in Art, Science and Literature and the Hugo award winning The Art of Chesley Bonestell, which he co-authored with Frederick C. Durant III. We had a chance to sit and chat with Ron at the 2002 WorldCon and though the time was short, it was delightful getting to spend some time chatting with an artist whose work I have long admired. And it gave me the opportunity to thank Ron for his fabulous books. The Dream Machines and The Art of Chesley Bonestell are two of the finest books I have ever laid my eyes upon. |
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The Dream Machines had to have been a labor of love on the part of Ron Miller. Nothing else could explain why a rational man would expend the effort to create a 700 page compendium of just about every rocket and spaceship concept that has ever been mentioned in print. I can easily imagine the amount of work it took to create this book. {Which is why I'd never undertake such a monumental effort!} But I'm glad that Ron did, because this book truly is "the stuff that dreams are made of". From steam powered pigeons in ancient Greece to NASA designs from the early 1990's, this book describes all those ships that have sailed the seas of our imagination or been a part of the real exploration of space. |
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Spaceships from science fiction movies appear alongside NASA conceptual designs and real spaceships. The book is laid out in chronological order and presents a fascinating study of the evolution of our thoughts about spaceship design. There is something here for everyone. Science fiction folks will be treated to descriptions of the vehicles from the movies and TV shows they've enjoyed. People interested in real spaceflight will find a fascinating chronology of spacecraft and launch vehicles. And engineers will benefit from studying the various spacecraft concepts that have been proposed in the past. This book gets my absolutely highest recommendation. It is one of the most wonderful books I have had the pleasure to read and is a book that I return to whenever my imagination needs to be uplifted. Thanks Ron. You done good. |
 Science Fiction spaceships, such as this one from Men Into Space, are described in some detail. |
 Real space vehicles, such as the various versions of the X-15, are covered at length. |
 And spacecraft that might have been, such as the Lockheed Starclipper, are not left out. |
All Rights Reserved. |
In the limited time we had for the interview Ron and I didn't get to talk much about his own paintings. But let me assure you, that he is one of the preeminent space artists of our age. His works have an accuracy and imagination that never ceases to delight. And even when new discoveries cause us to rethink our past ideas about astronomical subjects, he manages to approach them with a spirit that brings a smile to your eyes. To take just one example... In 1944 Chesley Bonestell did a painting of Saturn as seen from its largest moon, Titan. Now at the time that painting was done it was known that Titan had an atmosphere, so Chesley did that painting featuring a clear blue-green sky. This painting became one of the most famous pieces of astronomical ever and inspired generations of new space artists. | |
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But subsequent astronomical discoveries showed us that Titan's atmosphere is thickly clouded and you would not be able to see Saturn from the surface of Titan. Not to be deterred by that bit of astronomical inconvenience, Ron hypothesized that there might be a place within Titan's atmosphere where you would be above the major cloud layers, but below enough of the atmosphere so that you would still see Saturn in a blue sky with clouds. And what was Ron's name for this artistically magical layer within the atmosphere of Titan? The Bonestellosphere, of course. | ||
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It is hard for me to believe, but today there may be people who do not know who Chesley Bonestell was or understand the importance of his work. They may have seen his paintings in books or used as matte paintings in movies, without realizing just what a revolutionary artist he was. I am glad to know that Ron and others are working to keep alive his memory and artistic tradition. Before Chesley Bonestell, astronomical art was rare and seldom did it attempt to produce a realistic portrayal of astronomical scenes. But in the 1940's Chesley Bonestell decided to combine his interest in astronomy with his technical training in architectural rendering and matte painting for film to create pictures of astronomical subjects as they would appear if you went there with a camera and took a picture of them. |
 Pictures Copyright © Bonestell Space Art |
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With the publication of his paintings in Life magazine in 1944 he took the world by storm. Nothing like his pictures had ever been seen before. His art took our imaginations on voyages to worlds beyond the sky and set a thousand careers on a course for the stars. Including mine. | ||
Space Art, All Rights Reserved. |
In the 1950's I was a child who had learned to read at a very young age and was devouring "adult" books from the library. The librarians would not let me check out those books with my "Child's Library Card", so my grandmother took me to the library every few days and she checked out the books I selected. On one of these library expeditions I discovered the book The Exploration of Mars by Wernher von Braun and Willy Ley with illustrations by Chesley Bonestell. My imagination was hooked and we checked this book out so I could read it at home. At the time we were living on an Air Force base in New Mexico and on the walk home I noticed something. The deep blue sky with the high Cirrus clouds and the distant mountains and flat desert landscape looked just like one of the pictures in that book. | |
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And then it hit me. Mars was a real place, not just a setting for science fiction movies or something that only existed between the covers of a book. Mars was real and it was a place you could go to! With that simple realization my life was set on the course that it would follow for the rest of time. I had to be a part of the exploration of space. And now, many years later, I'm an engineer doing orbital mechanics and designing spacecraft and launch vehicles. Thank you Chesley, from the bottom of my heart. |
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The Art of Chesley Bonestell by Ron Miller and Frederick C. Durant III with Melvin Schuetz is a compilation of Chesley Bonestell's paintings and is wonderful beyond words. Seldom has a Hugo winning book been as deserving of its award as this one was. It is over-flowing with wonderful color reproductions of Bonestell's illustrations and filled with biographical information about Chesley Bonestell and the historical background for his art. To spend time looking through this book is to give your imagination free reign to fly beyond our world and to delight in the wonders of our solar system and the stars beyond. This book is a delight and amazement to read. It, like Ron's book The Dream Machines, is one of the most wonderful books I have ever read. It gets my wholehearted highest recommendation. | ||
 The Art of Chesley Bonestell. |
The Art of Chesley Bonestell would not have been possible without a lifetime of work by Frederick C. Durant III. His 25-year relationship with Chesley and Hulda Bonestell gave him an insight into Bonestell's art that few people can match. He made this book possible by securing the rights to Bonestell's art, but more than that, he combed through thousands of photos, slides, sketchbooks, albums, scrapbooks, files of correspondence and more, all so that this book would reflect the depth and range of the work of the world's premiere space artist. His Hugo for this book is but a small symbol of the appreciation that we all feel for his unflagging efforts to make Chesley Bonestell's art available for our pleasure and amazement.
His work on this project has given us a book that will take our imaginations to the stars. |
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I cannot conclude this brief discussion of the works of Chesley Bonestell without mentioning the work of Melvin Schuetz, the Archivist of the Chesley Bonestell Collection. As such he has traced the history of Chesley Bonestell's paintings, noting where they originally appeared, where they have been reprinted and where the original art now resides. He has collected this information in A Chesley Bonestell Space Art Chronology, which is an essential reference for anyone who is interested in the art of Chesley Bonestell. He also worked with Ron Miller and Fred Durant III on the production of The Art of Chesley Bonestell and was rewarded with a well deserved Hugo for his efforts. |
 Melvin H. Schuetz - holding the Hugo he received for his work on The Art of Chesley Bonestell. |
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| I would like to note that all of the Chesley Bonestell illustrations appearing on the Hour 25 web site are copyright © Bonestell Space Art and are reprinted with their kind permission. Thanks Ron for letting us share these illustrations with our audience. | ||
Listen to this show |
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If you enjoyed this show and would like to know when other interviews are uploaded to the Hour 25 web site, then send an email to me at [email protected] and I will add your name to the free Hour 25 Newsletter mailing list. That way you'll get a brief notice in your email every time a new show gets uploaded to the web.
The Great Hour 25 Disk Crash of 2002 - On-Going News
As a result of our recent hard disk crash the Hour 25 newsletter mailing list has vanished into the digital darkness. It would be very helpful if subscribers to the Hour 25 Newsletter would resend their email addresses to me {[email protected]} so I can reconstitute the Newsletter mailing list. {If you have done this "post-crash" then I have your email address and you don't need to do anything.} New editions of the newsletter will start coming out "real soon now". In the same vein, if you previously sent in an entry for the Karen Willson Five Word Challenge, now would be a good time for you to fish around in your "sent mail" folder and resend your entry. Or come up with a new one and send it in. {And please put "Five Word Challenge" or some approximation thereof in the subject line of your email to make it easy for me to keep track of your entry.}
Links for more information relating to this week's show
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Ron Miller and Chesley Bonestell
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Current Space News
The Shenzhou Project For On-Going Updates on Space News ISS News | |||
Copyright © Warren W. James, 2000-2003. All rights reserved.