Hydraulic Fracture Mechanics Book

Humberto Fontova seems a fun guy, and he's done good work politically in helping to expose the lunacy of idolizing tyrants like Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. I first became acquainted with his writing through libertarian web sites. As a memoirist, however, Fontova apparently loves his own prose. Exhibit A: the title of this book. It's not just a spearfishing adventure; it's a "deadly, extreme" spearfishing adventure. He (and his editors) would have done better to let readers supply the adjectives in their own heads.

On the plus side, kudos to Fontova for writing about the early life of Captain Jacques Yves Cousteau, who (as many people do not know) was a spearfishing legend before he hit it big with National Geographic specials about the ocean in the Seventies. It was also amusing to find out that oil rigs have become havens for marine life, and that polyester suits and other disco-era regalia can be usefully recycled as wetsuits-on-the-cheap.

On the minus side, what wore me out about about this book after awhile was its "party all the time" ethos and occasional sloppiness. It's not a Cuban thing, it's a Fontova thing. I suspect Fontova's subsequent writing about Che Guevara and Fidel Castro, while equally impassioned, is better.