Customer Reviews

Rod Serling: The Dreams and Nightmares of Life in the Twilight Zone/a Biography

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This is the second Rod Serling biography I've read and it is terrible! Engel claims to be a fan of Serling's work but the entire book is just a lame depiction of Serling, claiming that any good idea he ever had was stolen from someone else. Serling the man is also depicted as a bumbling, inept, insecure fool without an ounce of integrity. Perhaps this biased, negative approach stems from the fact that Engel is a journalist and the media tends to fixate on the "sexy" underbelly of life.

Also, it's surprising how little Engel knows about the fiction writing process. It's the writer's job to take what is going on around him or her and spin it into a tale, but whenever Serling is shown doing this, he is stealing. Well, as Mark Twain said: "Good writers borrow, great writers steal." The legendary Max Brand used to say: "When reading a story, stop halfway through, figure out how the thing will end, write a new beginning to support your ending and, boom, you have a story." Is this stealing or is this being inspired. As a writer myself, the latter is the right explanation. How Engel misses this, I don't know.

At any rate, this is a poor exploration of Serling's life, written in a style that fails to captivate. There are better books on Serling. Avoid this one and read those.

I'm a professional writer, also, and I think that this biography does not rate the slams it has inexplicably received. The author claims that Serling was sued more than once for plagiarizing the works of other sci-fi writers, including the great Ray Bradbury. Engel does not castigate Serling for this. He points out that Serling was a voracious reader, the ultimate workaholic, who wrote approximately half of all Twilight Zone episodes (an amazing output). Engel feels that if Serling did plagiarize at times, he did so inadvertantly. Even one of the Twilight Zone's main contributors admits that writers such as Ray Bradbury left "big footprints" and that it was difficult was any sci-fi writer who came after him not to pick up some of his ideas.

Case in point, the episode "Nothing in the Dark," featuring a very young Robert Redford as a wounded police officer calling out for help to the only person who can hear him--an old woman who has shut herself up in her apartment because she fears death and keeping the door close will keep death from catching her. She even orders her groceries and refuses to open the door until she's sure the delivery boy has left (in case death is coming in the guise of a delivery boy). Well, Bradbury wrote a short story that has exactly this premise, including the manner in which she gets her groceries. This is what Engel is referring to.

Rod Serling was an incredibly gifted man, who had a winning personality. But, like anyone else, he had flaws and fears, and Engels addresses these.

That's why this is called a b-i-o-g-r-a-p-h-y.

This is another work done by an author who obviously did it only for the money. While the book does have some interesting points, the rest is accusatory of Rod Serling, being a talent less hack that only becomes famous by sheer luck and modest talent. In addition, Engel is of the camp that Serling was a plagiarist and constantly stole others work and published them as his own. Engel's constantly uses one specific pattern to abject monotony throughout this book; say something good about the man, and then immediately butcher him thereafter. As a writer, I understand the need to tell the whole story. But I am also keen to realize when an author isn't interested in his or her subject but for any other reason other than to sensationalize only the perceived bad, while only modestly telling of the subjects greatness. Furthermore, Engel's does not back up all these tales of Serling being pathetic and theft-prone, only taking 'word of mouth' accounts by those who obviously had an axe to grind, while ignoring Serling as the great writer he so obviously was. Engel's gave no benefit of the doubt. The crime committed here is, Engel's obviously did not like Serling as much as he claimed and sacrificed Serling's great contributions to our world, for his own love of money. A subject Serling himself covered in depth at different times in his life. Engel's calls Serling a thief and a sellout, all the while trying hard to sullying his reputation. This book goes a long way in trying to tarnish, unsuccessfully, I might add, Rod Serling's reputation. I found it disgusting that in the end of the book, Engel's tries to vindicate himself, by then speaking with respect and reverence about the man he spent endless chapters promoting libel against. Joel Engel, a journalist, should stick to writing news columns about the criminous acts of others and leave those he would butcher, such as Serling, to the real investigative writers who know the process and art of biography.

One of the better biographies I have read. It is obvious the author interviewed a lot of Serling's family/friends/acquaintances and had access to much of his private correspondence. Serling's struggle to live up to his early successes haunted him most of his life, and this book does a good job of depicting his efforts to live up to those successes while trying to mask his shortcomings as a writer. I went into this book a Serling fan, and came out a fan. But with a better understanding of what made the man tick.

This book is an eye-opening biography of Rod Serling, creator of "The Twilight Zone." Though it aired (in its original form) only from 1959 to 1965, "The Twilight Zone" is still regarded as one of the best television series ever produced. Serling's casual public persona, displayed during the brief narrative segments that ended each episode of his famous show, masked a deeply troubled soul. Engel's biography portrays him as a neurotic, conflicted man plagued with low self-esteem and a chain-smoking habit that was his ultimate downfall.

Serling's art imitated his life. He had great potential as a writer, a potential that he pursued with workaholic zeal. He never could say "no" to a project; this tendency proved just as lethal as his smoking habit. "The Twilight Zone" achieved a popular following, but disappeared into the twilight after five seasons. His theater production, "Requiem for a Heavyweight," was well-regarded, but achieved only limited success.

Ultimately, this book tells the sad tale of a man unable to achieve inner peace and consumed by his own talent.