Customer Reviews

The Collected Works of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century

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4 star:		(2)
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I owned a copy of this book when it came out in 1969 and sadly lost it somewhere along the decades since. I am so happy to find it again.

I agree with what the previous review has to say about the book; it certainly does give us insight into the social mindset of the times. Not only does Buck Rogers represent a compendium of social mores, it is worthy for the art and shows us a time line of changing artistic styles and conventions.

If you are a fan of social history, this is a grand addition to any eclectic collection.

I must have held the record for check outs of this book in our public library. I was fortunate enough to even get the 1st printing that I read in 1970. I read it many times from cover to cover and in 8th grade we used the transcript of the first Buck Rogers radio show for an English project. Anyone who ever read Buck Rogers to people into "steam punk" will enjoy this book. It is really a hoot to see what the future would look like from the 1920s through 1950s perspective. This book is a great value for the money, my rating, A1 plus. Collected Works of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century

The book is an excellent introduction to Buck Rogers. Its first segment shows a good-sized chunk of the start of the strip. That part especially allows readers to realize that the technology of the future will be more advanced than, and different from, the technology of the present. And remember, the "present" was 1929, when the technical level was far below our level. For most of the public, this was its first introduction to future advances, and to any science fiction other than Verne and Wells. And of course the future technology in the story wasn't meant to be what will come about, but just an indication of the degree of advance that can be expected.

A previous post says that the book gives a look at the customs of the times, and it does, but so would any collection of comics from the period.

It also says the strip was racist, but what it had wasn't racism as such, but hatred of an enemy. Believe me, during World War II, we didn't think well of the enemy. Why? Because they were the enemy. We felt like the Western character who has shot someone, and says, "It was either him or me." We felt that way because it was.

I give the book four stars. That first segment deserves five, but some others, like some that came out during the war, drag it down.

This book has been a considerable help in a book I've written about Buck Rogers (not yet published).

When you compare it to modern comics, the design, dialog and story lines of the Buck Rogers cartoon strip are very weak. You read phrases like, " Well - jest watch what I do t' Dual an' Namtac fer pullin' this little surprise trick." Therefore, to enjoy this collection, you must adopt the mindset of the times. They were drawn in the early thirties, so you also see some of the racism so rampant in the United States at that time.

The first section of the collection deals with the threat from the Mongols, a demonstration of the perceived threat from the Asiatic masses. The Mongols are brutal, bloodthirsty, deceitful and cowardly and the American forces are noble. This is a demonstration of what I liked best about the collection, in that it demonstrates some of the collective mindset in the United States at that time. It is easy to see why the Japanese-Americans were interned after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

The next section features a Martian attack on Earth. As was the case with the Mongols, the Martians are evil brutes who know only war and conquest. There is nothing about them that is redeeming or appealing. The cartoons are written for the masses, whose thoughts concerning aliens, whatever their point of origin, cannot see them as anything but barbarians.

To most people, Buck Rogers is science fiction, but to most readers of the genre, the cartoon is simplistic pulp and not science fiction. The themes are simple and the technology demonstrated in the strip is rendered without regard to the laws of physics. However, I enjoyed reading them, they were very popular in their time and high technology is still referred to as "Buck Rogers kind of stuff." The book is worth reading, but only if you accept the mindset of the time when they were created.