[.ca] Strange Angel: The Otherworldly Life of Rocket Scientist ... (ISBN 015100997X)

Revealing portrait of a man and his time:
An interesting book this. I came upon it quite by accident in my local bookstore and after lookingthrough it I naturally went to Amazon to get a better price. Parsons was a rocket scientist, but not your typical white coated lab rat. For a start Parsons was interested in rockets long before the establishment gave a damn. He and his colleagues, known as the 'Suicide Squad' because of their dangerous experiments, were building rockets in Los Angeles before the Second World War and long before Wernher von Braun and the other German scientists made it over here. Secondly he was self-taught, gaining his inspiration from sci-fi comics and writers such as Edgar Rice Burroughs. Thirdly he was the leader of a religious cult. Yup, John Whiteside Parsons was a pretty unusual guy. Strange Angel tells his story from gilded youth through scientific glory to his mysterious death. The book is very good at portraying the times in which he lived as well as the city of Los Angeles, a weird place to live if ever there was one. I'm not an occultist or anything but even those parts about religious cults and the like were pretty interesting. It must have been the Californian sun but everyone was dreaming big dreams at that time! It seems Parsons had two dreams - one to fly to the moon (something which most scientists thought was an impossibility), the other to become a great practicioner of black magic and travel to other dimensions (something which most people thought, and still think, was crazy). The author is good at drawing together these two parallel stories and by the end of the book you can't help but feel sorry for the poor guy. In effect he was the ultimate LA dreamer, but his dreams weren't always appreciated in the real world. Check this book out if you want to know a little bit more about an unexpected character from an exotic time.

Fact stranger than fiction! Scientist worships devil!:
Enjoyed this tremendously. I didn't know what was stranger - Parsons' life or the fact that he's been forgotten. Parsons has one of those stories that you truly could not make up. Rocket scientist, science fiction geek, occultist, possible spy...the list goes on and on. If you're interested in any of these worlds (and particularly that of Los Angeles in the 1930s), you'll enjoy this book, and discover the strange links between science and science fiction. Not too sure who wrote the review posted below but he appears to be a bit doo-lally if you know what i mean...Pick up this book for a good fun weird read.

What a waste of Trees in this one:
WHAT A WAY TO MISS THE WHOLE POINT !!!! Pathetic PROLOGUE is an incoherent shambles with no point. Chapter ONE focuses on MOM. Chapter TWO focuses on Pasadena. Chapter THREE, "Erudition" focuses on a lot of scientists. Chapter FOUR focuses on Parsons friends. Chapter FIVE is all about communists and SF writers. Chapter SIX, "The Mass" is all about Crowley. Chapter SEVEN regurgitates everything we have known from John Carter's book SEX AND ROCKETS. Chapter EIGHT is all about rocket tests, told with 1/10th the humanity of the film OCTOBER SKIES Chapter NINE is called "Degrees of Freedom" and is about Communism in the 40s. Chapter TEN is about the machinations of the Ordo Templi Orientis. Chapter 11 just reprints all the information we have from www.babalon.net. Chapter 12, "Into The Abyss" has nothing that isn't already on Babalon.net or in Sex and Rockets. Finally, the EPILOGUE has some new information, but not $25.00 worth. And in the acknowledgements some of the people he interviewed (Ausbrooks? Foreman's daughter?) are ludicrious sources. And the guys in the front house before the explosions? Christ, who cares about tenants? THE POINT- the entire book has NOTHING about Jack Parsons. Parsons is the most important scientist of the 20th Century after Einstein. A native genius, who lived 15 amazing years before blowing up mysteriously in 1952. He is genuinely elusive as a character and PENDLE doesn't even bother to try here. YOu won't know anything about Parsons when you read the book and you'll not know him when finished. You'll no facts about his life but this lame book is more about his friends and his world than about him. In fact, the interesting stuff in Jack's life starts when he meets L. Ron Hubbard. This happens over 200 pages into a 300 page book. Pendle spent two weeks with Helen Parsons before she dies in 2003. BUT SHE IS A COMPLETELY UNTRUSTWORTHY SOURCE. Dumped by her husband for her little sister, she married Jack's best friend Wilfred and once he died spent 50 years in Truckee wasting away. She doesn't know anything about Jack. Using her as a primary source fails us all. The history of Parsons research is amazing. Check out APOCALYPSE CULTURE ed. Parfrey for the seminal essay on Jack. Then check out SEX AND ROCKETS by John Carter for the first book about Jack. It is an extremly badly written book with a ludicrous insinuation (Jack having sex with mom and dogs) but you get a better handle on Jack and what he was on about than you do in this book. Then check Shedona's site www.babalon.net which links to excellent sources on Jack. Don't go on her message board as she censors opposing viewpoints. The author of this book has committed a crime against all of us since another, better book on the subject will likely not come out anytime soon. AVOID THIS SAD FAILURE OF A BOOK IF YOU VALUE YOUR TIME.

Explosive Tales from the Early Days of Solid Fuel Rockets:
As someone who has long been interested in rocketry, I had been aware of the pioneering work of Robert Goddard and how that work was eventually superseded by a variety of pioneers in the West. Having grown up near Pasadena, I was very aware of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory there and its pivotal role in space exploration. I have also read a number of biographies that mention unexpected explosions at Cal Tech. Having long been a science fiction fan, I know the writings of many of the classic authors . . . but not much about them. What a nice surprise it was when I stumbled onto Strange Angel, which provides much helpful perspective about all those interests of mine in the context of the short and explosive life of John Whiteside Parsons. George Pendle is quite successful at capturing the times -- distrust of rocketry as a research area, paranoia about Communism, fascination among the wealthy with the occult and the undeniable appeal for some of unrestrained sexual activity. Beyond that slice of time, the book also appealed to my sense of how many new sciences develop . . . by lots of painful trial and error. I was especially intrigued by the problems of creating stable solid rocket fuels that wouldn't fail in painful ways. Mr. Pendle also does a fine job of explaining how the early trial-and-error pioneers are eventually superseded by those who can develop the theory and practice in more advanced ways. John Whiteside Parsons lived a life that screamed for a strong hand to take him in the right direction . . . but which wasn't available. There's a classic element of human tragedy to the story that will intrigue almost any reader . . . and leave the reader with a vastly enlarged sense of what the human mind can contain. For those who are interested in the occult, they will probably be disappointed in the book for its taking a neutral tone in regard to this subject. For those who prefer a strong religious perspective on every spiritual issue, they will be disappointed that the author isn't overtly disapproving of Mr. Parsons' involvement with the occult. Ultimately, biographies rise or fall on the intrigue that the life of the subject presents to the reader. It's hard to imagine a more intriguing (but not exemplary) life than the one described in Strange Angel. Don't miss this story!