Customer Reviews

Space

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

James Michener's "Space" is a novel (historical fiction) on the scientific development of rocketry and space travel. He begins at the very beginning, with American and Russian interests trying to lure fleeing German V-2 scientists into their war/weaponry programs before the fall of Hitler's Germany. Michener then goes on to chart the developments in the budding space program, from the launch of the Russian satellite "Sputnik", to the space race, to the moon landing, the development of the space shuttle, and finally interplanetary travel to Mars.

Give Michener credit for being a prophet: He predicts the problems we are now facing with the heat tiles on the space shuttle, and he predicts the interplanetary interest in Mars.

Michener uses fictional characters based after the original 7 NASA astronauts. One character has a strong resemblance to John Glenn. These characters are the focus that the developing story revolves around. It is a good story, probably suited for the reader with an interest in space exploration, NASA, and space travel. I have read it twice and was engrossed both times, but then I love Michener. It seems there is no in-between opinion on Michener's writing style - you either like him or you don't. I happen to be in the former category and enjoy his lengthy and in-depth writing prose.

"Space" is a good read for those with an interest in space travel.

Jim "Konedog" Koenig

It was a timely coincidence I decided to read this book in 2004, twenty-two years after it was originally published. Ordinarily I am put off by 800 page books, especially historical fiction. However, this one was different. It grabbed and held me. Challenging, absorbing, dramatic, stimulating, and meaningful are a few of the adjectives that come to mind.

Michener has dramatized the first advent of man into space in a marvelously cohesive and illuminating fashion. The characters he creates are not meant to be historical, but instead they represent the richness and variety of human nature that almost miraculously have to come together in order to achieve an important and demanding task.

Alongside these brave men--and occasionally in front of them-- we find their unique wives and their families, sometimes with values agonizingly different from their parents. But the main task is to harness all of their energy to the pressing and onerous task of doing something nearly, but not quite, impossible -- lifting tons of metal far beyond the grasp of Earth's gravity and guiding it unerringly to bull'seye targets millions of miles away.

Michener's story begins during World War II where American war heroes and German rocket scientists alternately share the narrative. Their diverse lives are seamlessly woven into a rich tapestry that eventually becomes the spectacular American space initiative.

In exploring the scientific and engineering conquest of space the danger for an author is that it could become monotonously technical. Michener neatly avoids this danger by interspersing a running commentary on the revolution in social conditions that germinated and developed in American during this turbulent time. Not only is outer space explored, but also, the inner space of life in America.

Michener examines the widely varied backgrounds, goals, and motivations of the astronauts, their wives, their families, and their political and social leaders. An amazing assortment of contemporary social issues are brought in: minority representation, fragmented but successful marriages, the politics of funding science, the devisiveness of the Vietnam war, homosexuality, and the effect of religious fundamentalism on science are but a few of the issues. All this is in addition to the thrilling resourcefulness of the highly select group of astronauts as they skillfully battle the elements of nature-- not always successfully.

This book is a spectacular amalgamation of science and society. Like a masterful painting it captures many essential elements that could never be present at one time in a even the most carefully posed photograph. From these many strands Michener weaves a fascinating fabric of the most courageous scientific and engineering accomplishment of man-- the conquest of outer space.

Space is a tale that takes one from the battlefields of World War II to the Moon. Not many other books can make that claim, probably fewer still can do it with the finess that Michener can. As a sugar coated lesson in the history of rocketry I doubt that there is a better substitute. The final trip to the Moon as told by Michener is one of the most exciting sequences that I have ever read and well worth the wait. It is a little hard to get used to the imaginary state of Freemont- perhaps the story and characters involved were (to a point) renamed in order to protect the privacy of the real people they represented. Or maybe that is just what Michener wants us to think.

The con artist Professor who becomes a born again Christian is just hillarious. I really enjoyed the humor that he brings to the story. The reflection on America is a little embarrassing, but it is still funny.

The Space is a book that I was sorry to see end, with all of Michener's other loong novels I would have easily tolerated an extra hundered pages or so in this one.

This was the first Michener book I read, and I loved it. His books fascinate me with their blending (or is it blurring?) of fact and fiction, and do an excellent job of paralleling their historical subject to the people. While I have to agree with the reviewer that the non-standard creation of a fictional state (Freemont) was a bit bizarre, it doesn't detract from the book in any way, and frees Michener from having to totally parallel certain historical characters (or omit them to make room for his own). Having decided early to be an aerospace engineer, I truly enjoyed this book, even though it may have at times presented a romanticized view of the field. The only trick was having to remind myself of the difference between fact and fiction in this book.

Near the end of SPACE, published in 1982, the engineer-scientist Stanley Mott says that his pro-science political remarks are addressed to the world of 2002, which, as I write, begins 19 days from now. Having myself been integrally involved in the political fight here in Kansas [Fremont] against a true-life embodiment of the book's anti-science creationist, Strabismus, I was astonished when I read in SPACE the same tactics that have been used here the past few years. In 1999 the Kansas State School Board temporarily abandoned teaching legitimate science in favor of teaching the same fundamentalist doctrine described in this book. Astonishing foresight by Michener.

SPACE is spot-on accurate for its review of the history and poltics of the American space program, in which I worked from time to time. Tragically, it was always foreseeable that once the Moon was reached the program would falter. It took thirty years after the Moon flights before we finally had a space station, though it is only a shadow of what designers wanted.

I mention, because some reviewers do not know, that the fictional State of FREMONT is in-part a tribute to John C. Fremont and his wife Jesse Benton Fremont, about whom James Michener had previously written a book. Fremont's wife was from Missouri, where her father Thomas Hart Benton served as Senator. Little remembered now, a century-and-a-half ago John C. Fremont was America's most famous explorer-adventurer, political propagandist for "Manifest Destiny," and a Presidential candidate. The comparison with the "Manifest Destiny" of space is apparent. John Fremont spent much time in Kansas and his writings about Kansas's glories inspired many to move here. Michener's choice of name was apt.

The map in the novel indicates Fremont is the same shape as Kansas, straddling the States of Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, and Iowa. The map's indicated locations of the families correspond to the childhood homes of President's Hoover (Iowa), Truman (Missouri), Eisenhower (Kansas), and Ford (Nebraska). In general, the fictional state is intended to represent where most of our real astronauts from this era were from -- small towns in the Mid-West.

Many of the book's characters are real (such as Wernher Von Braun) and the history is accurate, though necessarily some characters are composites and some events are consolidated.

I highly recommend SPACE for anyone interested in the history, politics, and personalities of the roughly thirty-year era when the U.S.A. first went to the Moon. This would be suitable adjunct reading for a university course on this topic. In SPACE, Michener also expressly praises (not criticises) Tom Wolfe's, Norman Mailer's, and Michael Collin's books about the "Moon race."

Although we officially said that we went to the Moon "in peace for all mankind," we went mostly due to short term cold war domestic politics. Fortunately this enabled the true visionaries to live their dream of sending people to the Moon.

I have not seen -- and somehow had never heard of -- the six-part television mini-series SPACE, based on this book. I do hope that it is re-broadcast sometime, or eventually made otherwise available.

This is about the only book of Michener I like since the ones with multi-generational sagas leave me cold. Here it is in all its glory, triumph, personal pain, sacrifice and unbelievable scientific achievement: The Story of man's attempts to transcend these "earthly bounds."

The characters are simply awesome - the only word possible. The sHuntsville setting was of particular interest since it was presented as a normal town with all its quirkiness and not as a "Southern" city with all that implies. The story of the German scientists was captivating but the emotional heart of the story was the love story between the main character and his wife which survived the disappointing choices of his children and his profession.
The mixing of real and fictional characters (along with real and fictional places, i.e. Fremont) only added to the authenticity of the story. Yes, there were some technical mistakes but these were nothing compared to the overall arch of the story.

The repeated question, "What is the role of man in space?" was never really answered. Speculations abound and it seems we will always have the "but we have so many problems on Earth" crowd with us. In the end, this is not only a tribute but a requiem for a heroic era.

Needless to say, the television version was about as close to the book as a GI Joe action figure is to a real Marine. The emphasis was on (what else?) SEX and all the little intrigues that seem to monopolize TV land. The science, the wonder, the awe that one found in, for example, CONTACT, were conspicuously absent. Skip the show, buy the book.

SPACE is spot-on accurate for its review of the history and poltics of the American space program, in which I worked from time to time. Tragically, it was always foreseeable that once the Moon was reached the program would falter. It took thirty years after the Moon flights before we finally had a space station, though it is only a shadow of what designers wanted.

I grew up during the space race and watched all the space flights with great interest. I remember when Apollo 1 burned and the shock everyone felt. I remember when Apollo 13 almost didn't make it home and the entire world breathed a collective sigh of relief when those astronauts returned home safely. I remember the first moon walk -- in fuzzy black and white. I wouldn't have missed it for anything.

Michener's "Space" captured the excitement of the times and allowed me, the reader, to participate in all the details that have made space travel an American passion.

I have read this book many times and just re-read it again. I seem to never tire of the energy and imagination that Michener so clearly captured in this wonderful book.

This is about the only book of Michener I like since the ones with multi-generational sagas leave me cold. Here it is in all its glory, triumph, personal pain, sacrifice and unbelievable scientific achievement: The Story of man's attempts to transcent these "earthly bounds."

The characters are simply awesome - only word to explain. The setting (mainly in Huntsville) was of particular interest since it was presented as a normal town - not as a "Southern" city with all that implies. The story of the German scientists was captivating but the emotional heart of the story was the love story between the main character and his wife which survived the disappointing choices of his children and his profession.

The mixing of real and fictional characters (along with real and fictional places, i.e. Fremont) only added to the authenticity of the story. Yes, there were some technical mistakes but these were nothing compared to the overall arch of the story.

The repeated question, "What is the role of man in space?" was never really answered. Speculations abound and it seems we will always have the "but we have so many problems on Earth" crowd with us. In the end, this is not only a tribute but a requiem for a heroic era.

Needless to say, the television version was about as close to the book as a GI Joe action figure is to a real Marine. The emphasis was on (what else?) SEX and all the little intrigues that seem to monopolize TV land. The science, the wonder, the awe thatone found in, for example, CONTACT, was conspicuously absent. Skip the show, buy the book.

Mr Michener is justly famous for the amount of research he put into his many fine books. And 'Space' is no exception. He gives us an excellent microcosm of the political, scientific and social happenings in America during a forty year period. It seems that America itself is a character in this novel. And that we are to be rightly reminded that America's space program was and is an important part of society and what shaped it from the late fifties to the early eighties. The characters are drawn with fine, masterly detail but because of Michener's prose style, we often feel detached from the emotions and trials of the characters. There is only one major flaw with this novel: While rich with relevant, never intrusive technical detail, the fictional Apollo 18 mission is clinically portrayed. A Lunar mission should be richly emotional and exciting, but Michener gives it to us like a 'textbook' retelling. While reading it, I almost wished the style would switch to a more conventional thriller genre. But would that have been out of place with the rest? Perhaps. All scholars of the American space program should read this book. And when will the overlong, yet spectacular Television mini-series made from this book finally become available on DVD? A word of advice to the producers: Cut it down from 12 hours to about 8 by removing a lot of the soap-opera stuff that wasn't in the book.