ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, January 26, 1997 TAG: 9701280100
SECTION: BOOKS PAGE: 4 EDITION: METRO
Aloft and `part of the crystal blue sky'
Reviewed by DAN GRIBBIN
SKY ADVENTURES: Fantasies of Free Flight. Edited by Jim and Maggie Palmieri. Sky Dog Publications. $14.99
"Sky Adventures" is a book of short essays by hang gliders about the excitement (and the danger) that they encounter pursuing their sport.
The ideal reader for this is a hang glider who has lived to read about it - someone capable of deciphering the frequent technical references to wind, clouds and equipment.
There are plenty of good descriptive passages for the rest of us, of course.
The writing is uneven but on the whole, not bad. A diver myself, I have read quite a lot of what scuba divers write, and I would say that the prose of hang gliders stands up well, combining the diver's awe at the natural world with the surfer's flair for description. Be prepared to encounter the adjective "cool" in its superlative mode - "way cool" - rather more often than you might ever have expected.
Jim (Sky Dog) and Maggie Palmieri are area hang gliders who have certainly done the sport a service by putting together this book. Beginning hang gliders will get the benefit here of a world of experience from seasoned pilots. Those with more experience will certainly be delighted by the accounts of the beauty of soaring on borrowed wings. Lay readers might even be moved to take up the sport.
Historically, hang gliding contributed to the development of the airplane. Peeled willow wands and waxed cotton cloth have given way to aluminum poles and tough, light synthetic fabrics, but the spirit of hang gliders remains the same. I'd like to think that Otto Lillienthal looks down on today's gliders with the satisfied smile of the pioneer who knew, almost a century ago, what it meant to give himself up to the experience of flight. As Kevin Caldwell says in "Sky Adventures": "I have been part of the crystal blue sky: I will carry a stolen piece of it with me always."
"Sky Adventures" is available in area bookstores, or it can be ordered from Sky Dog Publications at 6511 Deepwoods Drive, Roanoke, Va. 24018-7645 for $14.99 plus $4 shipping.
Dan Gribbin teaches writing and film at Ferrum College. He has a brother-in-law in Utah who hang glides.
Bookmarks is a regular feature of the book page that focuses on books, writers and literary events of local and regional interest and importance.
Benefits of space are waiting to be excavated
Reviewed by PAUL DELLINGER
MINING THE SKY. By John S. Lewis. Addison Wesley. $26.
In "Rain of Iron and Ice," John Lewis gave us a book warning of the perils of uncharted asteroids, comets and other heavenly debris unless we got busy cataloging and finding ways to change paths for them. In "Mining the Sky," he shows us how. But he warns that we may be throwing away our chance to use this cosmic debris for long-term benefits to our civilization.
He starts with a telling historical example of how European colonization of the world starting in the 15th century was not as inevitable as we might now think. China's Ming dynasty had a head start on European nations, but, as its fleets were on the verge of breaking into European waters and discovering the entrance to the Mediterranean, the emperor died and the ships were recalled.
Subsequent rulers resisted calls for continuing exploration by destroying the treasure fleets along with their records and isolating their country from the rest of the world.
In our time, after the moon landings, our government scrubbed the last of the scheduled Apollo missions and canceled production of the boosters needed to carry human beings to the moon and beyond.
Lewis cites the long-term visions of rocket pioneers from Tsiokovskii to Goddard, proving that concepts for "mining the sky" came early in our century. What we have found on the moon might not be enough to establish an independent base, but moon materials could contribute fuel to other space missions. Mars holds out a few more possibilities. But it is the comets and asteroids - despite the threat that some represent when they come close to Earth - that contain the water and other materials promising real benefits to our world in the form of fuel components, minerals and other kinds of wealth. They could also open the way for us to reach the outer planets, the gas giants with their energy-rich atmospheres and promise of clean, inexhaustible power for our descendants.
Probably those who buy this book will be those already converted to the promise of space for our own world. They might want to buy additional copies to send to their congressional representatives.
Paul Dellinger covers Pulaski and Southwest Virginia for The Roanoke Times.
The Earhart legend lives
Reviewed by LYNN ECKMAN
I WAS AMELIA EARHART. By Jane Mendelsohn. Knopf. $18.
"I Was Amelia Earhart" is brief enough to read in one sitting and is assured of success by lyrical prose that soars as high as the aviators it tells about.
Almost 60 years after she disappeared, Amelia Earhart remains a legend. Her daring and her charisma dazzle us still.
Jane Mendelsohn's first novel fantasizes about what happened to Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, on their flight over the Pacific Ocean in 1937. She almost convinces us that the two landed on a deserted island and that there they found the real meaning of life.
Shifting from Earhart's first-person narrative to third-person observations, the book relates their struggles to survive, to become friends and to accept their fates.
A darling of the media, Earhart married the publisher G.P. Putnam, but she loved flying beyond all else. Her passion for the sky and the freedom it allowed make her seem immortal. The past tense of the title, however, gives a hint of the nuances used in this fairy tale and of the changes that occur in the heroine as she thinks about her past: "Whether life is more real than death, I don't know. What I know is that the life I've lived since I died feels more real to me than the one I lived before."
Strangely enough, Mendelsohn makes it clear that Earhart will never die.
Enigmatic and glamorous, she lives, not in a dream world, but within each of us.
Lynn Eckman teaches English as a second language for the Office of Refugee and Immigration Services.
In-flight turbulence
Michael Crichton continues his man-vs.-technology theme with ``Airframe.''
Reviewed by SIDNEY BARRITT
AIRFRAME. By Michael Crichton. Knopf. $25.
It is almost sufficient to say only that Michael Crichton is the author.
Twenty-five years ago, his string of wonderfully readable novels began with "Andromeda Strain"; it ran through "Jurassic Park" and continues now with "Airframe."
Crichton is as sure-footed as ever. He knows how to construct a believable, well-paced narrative, but the skill that places him above similarly gifted storytellers is his mastery of technology and the ability to communicate complexity in understandable terms. Deep character development is not his forte, so he may not write a novel for the academics to praise, but he will surely delight legions of readers.
"Airframe" begins when a foreign-owned charter airliner experiences severe turbulence during a trans-Pacific flight. Considerable damage, severe injuries and several deaths result. The plane eventually lands, and the manufacturer begins an investigation. The media howl for an immediate answer. An ``ambulance chaser'' sues. The machinists union is worried over a rumored company sale to China. Further machinations abound in the company's topmost levels. Into this cauldron, Crichton throws a plucky woman with an engineer's eye for technical detail plus a negotiator's tact. Working under great pressure, she solves the problem of the plane's aberrant behavior and foils the bad guys to boot.
Surely, there will be a movie from the book, but you may not want to wait.
On second thought, you may want to wait until you get home from your next plane trip.
Sidney Barritt is a Roanoke physician.
* * *
Reviewed by MARY ANN JOHNSON
BOOK PAGE EDITOR
AIRFRAME. By Michael Crichton. Read by Blair Brown. Random House AudioBooks. $24.
Suspense is lost in the audio abridgement of "Airframe." Blair Brown tries to inject life and drama into the reading, but her voice lacks the tough tone the subject requires. Description of airplane parts and mechanical minutiae will meet the expectations of those who relish Crichton's technological detail, but those who look for action will find this conversion to tape slow to get off the ground.
Mary Ann Johnson is book page editor.
Books in brief
HOWARD HUGHES: The Untold Story. By Peter Harry Brown and Pat H. Broeske. Dutton. $24.95
Rarely has a biography been more completely or meticulously documented than Brown and Broeske's "Howard Hughes." Almost 100 pages of notes are added to the end of the volume, which prompts the question of why so much research and effort went into writing about a man who avoided publicity so assiduously. Serialized in Vanity Fair and also a selection of the Movie Entertainment Book Club, it claims to be based on interviews with "over 600 people who were close to Hughes." Now that does boggle the mind.
Reclusive and eccentric, Hughes was close to no one after his mother's death. His wealth, his exploits in the bedrooms of Hollywood stars, his careers in business and aviation and his weird lifestyle all made him fodder for the media long before the heyday of television and the demise of privacy for the rich and famous. And now, 20 years after his death, anyone who wishes to do so can learn about his deafness, his obsessive-compulsive disorder and his years of living as a drug-dependent, filthy exile.
Painful and prurient, "Howard Hughes" is a story that should have remained untold.
- LYNN ECKMAN
LENGTH: Long : 185 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Cover of "Sky Adventures. 2. Michael Crichton continuesby CNBhis man-vs.-technology theme with "Airframe." (headshors) 3. Hughes.
4. Earhart.