 |
| Amazon Look Inside Link |
This is my first “historical fiction” based largely in an era that I grew up in, was influenced by and still to this day blog about. One of my entries was titled: “Sputnik’s Children,” and I serendipitously searched the term on Amazon’s site. I immediately purchased the book.
The turbulent 60s were preceded by the precedent event now immortalized as “the Sputnik moment” and Jackie Cone’s date of “birth”: October 4, 1957. For the US, it was a panic for sure, but a unification behind the ideal of preparing for the future that affected not just science, but fiction – science optimism and dystopian – and gave us cell phones, flat screens, the Internet, the Human Genome Project and automatic doors in grocery stores. No “warp drive” as yet.
Jackie, Steve, Katie, Stevie and Stephanie: their verisimilitude is palatable, I was absorbed into their lives, Katie’s optimism that science could solve all problems and make life on earth a “heaven” – for her a faith and dogma she could tangibly believe in.
Jackie and her fictional husband Steve were created by the author Dr. Fred Ledley as complete “polar opposites”: science enthusiast/medical doctor; agnostic and devout Catholic; public relations/public prayer. Their lives were not perfect, and the book does not have thankfully the “happily ever after” feel. It ends, yet it doesn’t. Anyone reading this will find themselves pulling for the best for oldest child Katie, suffering in the story from the real-life autoimmune ITP disease. It is a shame we can’t all learn to work as polar opposites, agree where we can and agree to disagree on other points to move forward as a country. A highly recommended, enjoyable and entertaining read whose proceeds go to benefit the nonprofit Space Foundation
No comments:
Post a Comment