Book Review: A Plunge Into Space by Robert Cromie

This is the first Singularity & Co. book kickstarter campaigners got once it was funded.  The company's idea is to  make ebooks of out of print SFF.

Pros: Mars?, historic significance

Cons: annoying characters, bad science, racist and sexist remarks

Henry Barnett's scientific breakthrough allows him and an interesting group of travellers to journey to Mars.

The opening of the book lends itself to a great mystery.  The scientific discovery is not explained for several chapters, allowing for the building of the ship they use to travel to Mars and the introduction of the rest of the characters.  But while it's myserious, it's also quite boring.  The characters, gathered in Alaska for the ship's completion, end up hunting and wasting time as setbacks have delayed the launch (not that they know there's a launch coming).

The cast consists of: Alexander MacGregor, an adventurer, always looking for the next undiscovered land.  Sir George Sterling, who finances the mission and is looking for a new source of speculation.  Walter Durand is an author, Victor Graves an artist, Frederick Gordon a special correspondent for a newspaper and Charles Blake, a politician.

It is this motley crew that travels to Mars, and you'd think, given their interests, that Mars would be a wonderful inspiration.  Alas, it's not.  The characters are soon quite bored with the wonders of the Red Planet, a response that simply baffles me (surely the artist could find SOMETHING interesting to paint on an alien planet).  And the other characters seem to complain that what they're interested in has already been done by the Martians or the Martians have no interest in (to which I scream: wouldn't their culture/history/science/politics be worth studying?).

The characters, all from the Commonwealth, have a disparaging view of everyone from Indians (Alaskan Natives in this case), women (on Mars - and apparently Earth given some of their comments), and Martians (calling them highly advanced in one breath while then pointing out their 'childish' practices the next).  Most of this is understandable given it's publication date, 1891, when such attitudes were the norm.  Still, modern readers will find their attitudes unpleasant.

The science is laughably bad now, but again, given the date of publication, was surprisingly advanced for the time.  Also consider that this book was published several years before H. G. Wells' The First Men on the Moon.

It's easy to see how people could read books like these and become interested in science and space.  But outside of an interest in the history of science fiction, this isn't a good read.

Singularity & Co. - Save the SciFI!

My husband pointed out a cool kickstarter project to me yesterday.  They've already reached their goal, but there's still time to help support them if you're interested.  Here are the details:

Our Big Idea is a simple one, but we think it’s pretty great. So do some beyond great scifi authors.

We love books.  A lot.  And we love sci-fi books, new and old.  But mostly old.

We’ve seen too many sci-fi books that are out of print, out of circulation, and, worst of all (given the subject matter) unavailable in any digital format. Meaning, as of now, these books may never be seen in the future imagined in their pages. That’s just not right.

So here’s what we’re going to do: Each month we’ll choose one great classic, obscure or otherwise fascinating sci-fi book that’s no longer in print and not available online, track down the copyright holder and/or author (if they’re still around), acquire or otherwise clear the copyright, and publish the title both online and as an e-book, for little or no cost. Our supporters and followers will help us choose which books will be digitally rescued from copyright and publishing limbo via a monthly poll on our website, and we'll share the story behind the story, including with each ebook what we learned about the book, the author and their history along the way.

And while Singularity & Co. promises to keep our mission alive, in perpetuity, throughout the universe, we need your support to get started. This Kickstarter campaign will allow us to rescue our first four neglected works by providing for the following:

* Acquiring and curating the treasures to be found  among many, many paper copies of old, out of print sci-fi books
* Expanding our current website to allow us to display and deliver our sci-fi library - physically as well as electronically - and support voting capabilities for fans to help decide the next titles to be rescued
* Building an open source book scanner (see http://www.diybookscanner.org/ for an example) to aid in turning forgotten paper books into e-books
* Covering costs associated with tracking down rightsholders, authors and/or their estates, as well as clearing or acquiring the electronic publishing rights to our orphaned books
* Spreading the word not only to established fans but also potential supporters who love great books and ideas (may include attending conventions, creating t-shirts, prints and anything else we can think of)
* Covering costs associated with legal work to be done by our attorneys, all of whom are generously contributing their time pro bono (we’re trying to keep our costs as low as possible)

This is part adventure, part detective story, and part story about the intersection of the past and the future.  So as we dig into a particular book, and pull on the various threads that we need to to make sure we can share it without taking something that isn't ours, we end uncovering the story of that book.  That means that as part of each release, we plan on sharing that story, telling you what we learn about the book, it's author, it's history, and the adventure we had bringing it to you.

Rescuing beloved, forgotten, fondly remembered, out-of-print and otherwise lost sci-fi books by bringing them into the digital domain is more than a labor of love - it’s our way of celebrating visions of futures past that shaped the way we live now.  And it’s all in a day’s work for your average, ordinary, time-traveling bookshop. Please help us bring the past and future together - Singularity loves company.