For those who may have missed my recent New York Times op-ed, which added some present-day context to the legacy of Sealab, it can still be viewed online. Gotta love digital archives.
SEALAB on BookTV
My “SEALAB show,” as I’ve come to call it, is being broadcast on C-Span2’s BookTV program this weekend – Saturday, April 14, at 11 p.m. and Sunday, April 15, at 4:30 p.m. (Eastern U.S. times). During this hour-long presentation and Q&A at the Barnes & Noble Bookstore in Santa Monica, Calif., I talk about the making of the book and give an overview of the U.S. Navy’s SEALAB program, aided by archival photos, most of which appear in the book (including one of Sealab III’s arrival in 1968 at Long Beach, just south of Santa Monica). I also use some rare audio and video clips, as you’ll see (and hear). This was actually the very first “show” on my book tour schedule, and it definitely felt great to be out talking about SEALAB after quite a few years spent living with it at my desk (without such a nice audience). And many thanks to C-Span and BookTV for their interest in what I have always believed to be an incredibly significant and compelling story that’s never received the attention it deserved.
‘Big Picture Science’ interview
My interview with the radio program “Big Picture Science” began airing this week on stations around the country and can be heard anytime in this 11-minute podcast. Nice to have my segment follow the interview with Neil deGrasse Tyson – another 11 minutes well spent! Tyson, a familiar name to many, is an author and astrophysicist at the American Museum of Natural History. He’s developing a new incarnation of Carl Sagan’s famed “Cosmos” TV series. Perhaps he might consider an episode on ‘inner space’ . . .
Q&A with U-T San Diego
My Q&A with U-T San Diego made the paper’s front page today – fitting, I must say, considering Sealab’s special place in SD history. The piece is also available online, at utsandiego.com, and looks like it was getting some good comments from readers, which was nice to see.
Discover review now online
Discover magazine’s great review of SEALAB in its March issue is now online. It’s in the good company of several other new books: The Life of Super-Earths, That’s Disgusting, and World in the Balance.
Parade mag picks SEALAB
I couldn’t have written 50 nicer words myself about SEALAB than those that appeared today in Parade magazine’s “Picks” for the week: “During the same period that NASA was working toward putting a man on the moon, the U.S. Navy was testing ways for people to thrive underwater. This tale of the ill-fated Sealab project (whose impact is still felt in deep-sea diving) is as captivating as an adventure novel.” And my book shared the venerable magazine’s weekly honor with the latest album by Leonard Cohen, no less.
Sci-fi and Hard-sci
SEALAB is a selection of both the Scientific American Book Club and the Science Fiction Book Club – a testament, I’d like to think, to the book’s effective blending of hard science and history into a nonfiction narrative that’s as readable as a good novel, with a great cast of characters to boot.
Discover’s thumbs up
Truly wonderful review of SEALAB in the March issue of Discover, on newsstands now. Doesn’t seem to be online yet, but if you subscribe to the magazine or would like to pick up a copy – a great issue with the upside down caricature of Einstein on the cover – the review is in the books section on p. 21.
Success at Failure Magazine
My Q&A about SEALAB, posted over the weekend, is currently No. 1 on the “most popular” list at the web site of the impressive and informative Failure Magazine. Who says there’s no success in Failure?
A.V. Club weighs in
My thanks to The A.V. Club for this very thoughtful and complete review. It’s interesting to read some of the A.V. reader comments that underscore fears about nonfiction that’s filled with “wonky minutiae,” as one person put it. The feedback I’m getting is that SEALAB is not such a book. I certainly wrote with an eye toward keeping the narrative lean and brisk. I’m pretty sure that most readers, like the savvy A.V. reviewer, will appreciate that.