Reviews for Prairie state social science coach

The average rating for Prairie state social science coach based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2010-06-11 00:00:00 Kim Huynh In younger days, I was never much a taker for sci-fi. Movies like Star Wars had me yawning away to glory and I have watched none of the greats in the powerful lineup of movies in this genre. The first brush of something different was Ridley Scott's cult classic Blade Runner but even then I never became an avid fan. In the matter of books it was even more worse for I have read hardly anything by the old or new masters in the field. I am a person who would rather prefer walking through a castle talking to the king or watching a knight fend off a dragon. I would also prefer having my pants scared off by any of the horror maestros but space travel, extraterrestrial life forms and such terminology hadn't affected me a lot till a short while ago. Dan Simmons's Ilium cycle was the series that changed the tide for me but my interest in sci fi was truly and totally heightened by Asimov's Positronic Robot series. I truly loved it and when I came across a book that offered his views on the field of sci fi, I never had second thoughts. It is a collection of essays,editorials and articles penned by Asimov in span of many a decade. Asimov is no master wordsmith for he does not mesmerize with intricately woven wordplay. His voice is the common man's voice which makes the reader comprehend every single word that he is using. His ideas never felt to me to be enshrouded in the mist of pretension which needed to be hacked off to understand the principles beneath. It is as simple as pushing a button and getting coffee in your paper cup. You don't have to make the coffee yourself ! Asimov, Heinlein & Clarke pioneered the movement that led to the world wide acceptance of sci fi as a genre which means that the author has this ethereal,booming voice that can lecture us mere mortals on the development of this fascinating genre. Asimov would have been a swell teacher for the way he writes made me imagine him sitting poised on the edge of a table and talking to a jam packed hall full of sci fi fanatics in the backdrop of absolute silence. An area were he spends considerable time on is the developmental phases of this genre. Here came my only grudge with the content for it repeats many a time. The points on John Campbell, Hugo Gernsback were so often repeated that I lost count of them. Just a minor thing but still a deterrent. There are a few articles on writing and his views on how best to do it. Asimov stresses on the need for consistent and unrelenting focus on writing as the secret to be a successful writer. I relapsed to thinking of personal favorite Stephen King's On Writing here for the principle essentially was the same there too. I would pick the review of 1984 by Asimov as the best in this collection. The author does a brilliant dissection of the Orwellian masterpiece and showed quite a few angles which I had not earlier looked at it in much detail. Other well written pieces were the one co-authored with Ben Bova on the development and usage of the brain in literature, the machine and its future in human society and on prolific writing. As an aside, I think Asimov would have been an exceptionally self-centered person to which his words stand testimony !

Review # 2 was written on 2012-04-29 00:00:00 James Frye This is a nice collection of articles, editorials, and essays by Asimov about science fiction. Many of them are introductory or elementary in nature, and there's quite a bit of overlap and repetition, but his clear and friendly style makes it a fun and painless read with an occasional gem of insight or information that makes it all worthwhile. His comments about writing, films, and the importance of getting scientific and historical details right and consistent are worthwhile, too. He genuinely loved the field, both from a professional and fannish perspective, and that feeling shines through.