(A review, just posted to LibraryThing, re-posted here with some minor adjusting and additions …)
I’ve made a point of keeping this one within arm’s reach. If I’m making pancakes on a weekend morning, why not learn a bit about America’s pre-NASA space program at the same time? If I’m grilling a rack of turkey burgers, perhaps the blue flames will put me in the perfect mood to read all about Dr. Von Braun and his rocketing aspirations?
After all, this is a National Geographic book. I had a subscription to National Geographic World for most of my pre-teen and teen years. And my parents would buy me these bi-monthly hardback books, large and in-color and full of information about inventions or nature or computers or robots. Most of my nascent trivia knowledge can be traced most likely back to one of those National Geographic volumes.
However, I think I’m ready to call it a day on Epic Rivalry: The Inside Story of the Soviet and American Space Race. The writing is well-meaning, but cloudy. The American side of the race is treated cursorily and off-handedly, as if the reader is supposed to have already heard most of the stories previously. For those rare times when an event is really something spectacular, the authors quote from Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff instead of attempting their own narrative. The Soviet side of the race is presented as some Great Journey of Mystery. All of the Soviet scientists might as well be presented with wizard hats and magic wands.
(Okay, that was hyperbole …)
All in all, Epic Rivalry is a decent book, but it deserved to be an even better one.
I would go on to say that one would be better off getting the American side of the story from a first-hand account. I read Gene Krantz’s Failure Is No Option just prior to starting Epic Rivalry, and Krantz comes off as the superior storyteller. Of course, Krantz is concerned almost entirely with the American side of the race … and I guess there is a certain lack-of-availability where hands-on Soviet space engineers are concerned … so maybe I’m being a bit unfair.
But come on. Remember who published this book. And so I say …
National Geographic: Step Ya Game Up!
