In September 1967, I started working at NASA in Houston, at what was then called the Manned Spacecraft Center. I worked on Apollo missions. In November 1971, I left NASA and moved to Denver to work on the Viking Mars lander project at Martin Marietta Corporation. By the time I left NASA, Apollo was winding down. Manned spaceflight beyond Earth orbit was dying. There would be no lunar bases or missions to Mars. In a mere four years, the future had died. Fifty years later, I still can't shake the sadness. Of course the "We" in the title of this book is not literal. Only the handful of men who have actually been on the moon can talk about "when we landed on the moon" and mean it literally. I'm using "we" in a general sense, to refer to all of the 400,000 people who worked on the Apollo Project, to all of America, and to the entire human race. As the plaque on the side of the Apollo 11 Lunar Module descent stage, which still stands on the moon's Sea of Tranquility, proclaims: "Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon, July 1969 A.D. We came in peace for all mankind." This is the story of my part in Apollo.
Sherlock Holmes meets H. G. Wells, discovers the secret of immortality, hunts Professor Moriarty across time and space, and manipulates the destiny of mankind, all with the unflinching support of the stalwart Dr. Watson, who is coping meanwhile with finding and losing the love of his life. "A lot of fun." - The Arizona Republic "Doyle to Wells to Dvorkin - nice triple play " - New York Times Book Review
This is a work of nonfiction plus some speculation. It's largely about drones and their very rapid miniaturization, their present and coming use in law enforcement and war, and a potential future in which spy and communication equipment will literally be the size of dust motes, almost impossible to see and impossible to escape. It's also about the complete lack of privacy that is coming in the future. Parts of the book are encouraging, detailing how such devices will help rescue people after disasters, help people escape the control of repressive governments, and simply communicate more easily with one another. But most of the book is chilling indeed, portraying a future that will be very, very different from our past. What's really important is that this is NOT a work of science fiction. Many of the devices described here either exist already or are in the development stage. No matter where you fall on the political spectrum, you need to read this book, because to know the future is to help yourself prepare for it.
When aliens remove the sun, life survives in military bunkers under the earth and in lunar bases. Underground America devolves into a religious-military dictatorship.Jonathan Holroyd escapes to the surface and finds a new world warmed by an artificial sun, and only slightly more freedom than in the dying world he left behind. He rises to a position of power.But now the aliens are coming back.
Worldwide, the number of people who call themselves Jews is about 14 million.They may all call themselves Jews, but what they mean by that name varies widely. These self-described Jews range from the most Orthodox, who have submitted themselves entirely to the imagined dictates of an imaginary god, to those who practice various forms of Judaism that are so watered down that they scarcely qualify as a religion, to those who observe no part of Judaism at all other than the celebration of a festival that they may call Hanukkah but that is in reality merely a Judaized version of Christmas.In this short book, I focus on the United States, which until recently had the largest Jewish population in the world--just under six million self-identified Jews. Although it was recently surpassed by Israel, America arguably still has the most politically, socially, and theologically influential Jewish population in the world.According to a survey conducted in 2013 by the respected Pew Research Center, of those almost six million American Jews, 22% "describe themselves as atheist, agnostic or having no particular religion .]" In the case of the youngest adult American Jews, the so-called Millennial generation, "32% describe themselves as having no religion and identify as Jewish on the basis of ancestry, ethnicity or culture."This large group of Jews, which is a growing percentage of American Jewry, as the above Millennial number shows, is commonly referred to "secular Jews," although some of them prefer the label "atheist Jews." These are the people I want to discuss in this book.I contend that they are not Jews in any meaningful sense of the word. They may wish to call themselves Jews for a number of emotional reasons, but I call upon them to be intellectually honest and accept that they have ceased to be Jews. They are ex-Jews.The contrary argument is based on the idea encapsulated in the phrase "once a Jew, always a Jew."For the anti-Semite, this phrase is used as a slur. It refers to negative character traits supposedly possessed by all Jews.To Jews who think that there can be such a thing as a secular Jew, the phrase refers to some innate quality, entirely apart from religion, that distinguishes Jews from their non-Jewish neighbors.What is that innate quality? That's the crux of the issue. Let's go hunting for it.
Fleeing the mob he worked for in Chicago, Tom Hamilton returns to his Colorado hometown. When a singer is murdered during a local opera performance, Tom tries his hand at finding the killer. But this draws him back into the passions and hatreds of earlier years and puts his own life in danger. "Fast-paced and exciting...wonderful writing style" - Charlotte Austin Review. 3 stars - Romantic Times.
Three hundred million strong, the Third Reich dominates the world. With its booming industry, its advanced science and technology, its fearsome war machine, and its colonies on the moon, the Reich is envied and feared by the rest of the world and invites imitation.Matters almost didn't turn out this way. During World War II, German troops only narrowly averted disaster at Stalingrad. But after the F hrer's death on the Russian front and the subsequent accession to power of more reasonable men, Roosevelt and Churchill agreed to a peace treaty that left Germany in control of Continental Europe and free to prosecute the war against the greater threat of Bolshevism.Now, decades later, America tries to convince itself that it is still the world's greatest power, even while its government and society, increasingly influenced by the Reich, devolve into something that would have horrified the Founding Fathers. America made its deal with the Devil in 1943, and now it is paying the price.Chic Western works as a government spy within U.S. federal agencies. He is adept at assuming new identities and earning the trust of fellow employees so that he can uncover wrongdoing. He tries not to think about the results of his work. Punishment is swift and harsh in this America.When anti-German subversion is detected in the American embassy in Berlin, Chic is posted to the mighty heart of the Reich to uncover it. He is finally forced to confront the conflict between his conscience, his Jewish ancestry, and the reality that hides behind evil's seductive face."An involving anti-utopian thriller." -- Booklist"A 'what if' that works. Budspy is smart, fast, and mean." -- Kirkus"One of the best explorations of a Nazi victor state that we have. The work of a writer of mature insight, moral subtlety, and no little sheer writing craft. Budspy is superior to just about everything short of The Man in the High Castle." -- Norman Spinrad, Asimov's Magazine"A well-told tale of crime and conscience." -- Indianapolis News"Well-told adventure. There is a degree of subtlety and insight working in this novel that one encounters rarely." -- SF Chronicle
Once, North Hill was the commercial and social center of Piketon, a growing city in the Rocky Mountains. Now it's a place of boarded-up stores and roaming gangs.But even-deadlier predators have arrived . . .Local residents have been disappearing for weeks, and the city's political elite blame wild dogs. But a local zoologist suspects another cause--mutated bears, small in size but intelligent and immensely strong, that have come down from the mountains and hunt in packs. Deaths mount until the final bloody confrontation between man and beast."Lots of gore, a nicely controlled pace." - Kirkus Reviews"Believably frightening." -Rocky Mountain News
Trapped in the underground tunnels of Colliery, James Benton struggles to find his way back to the surface and the life he knew before. "A headlong trip over, under, and through worlds of greed, sex, politics, intrigue, and adventure, of miners and mindpickers, cavesnakes and triple-crossers. An absorbing mix of hard science and action sf, with the unmistakable Dvorkin touch." - Connie Willis
A cowardly simian in the White House, dopey ex-presidents, scary televangelists, assassinations, cute little monkeys, sinister old men with long, sharp teeth, and in the middle of it all, Malcolm Erskine, who thought he had such a clever idea and who also thought he could safely ignore the politics of Bush-era America. Malcolm is an unsuccessful science fiction writer with an overly high opinion of himself. He yearns for fame and fortune. He wants his books to sell the way the flood of New Age woo-woo books and business self-help books do.Then he has his great idea. He writes a book of nonsensical business advice that he claims was beamed into his mind telepathically by the spirit of a top-level alien corporate executive who lived long ago in a galaxy far away. His book, Business Secrets from the Stars, is a monster success. But success is a monster that threatens to destroy Malcolm. He hasn't just changed his own life. He's changed the world, and not for the better."A broad and bitter political satire. I was laughing out loud."- The Denver Post"Dvorkin has a savage wit, and he employs it relentlessly."- Analog Magazine
This wasn't your run-of-the-mill zombie apocalypse. The dead were digging their way out of their graves, but they weren't after brains. They wanted their homes and families and jobs back. Not that they would object to the occasional nice serving of brains, especially if it came with a side of pickles. "Go in there.""Hell, no. I'm going to send someone stupid in there with a pickle."It's brains served with a side of pickles, hold the mayo. A terrifying tale of parents, children, brothers, sisters, friends, bosses, employees, wives, ex-wives, friends' wives, Republicans, studly bacteria, zombies, tentacles, politics, religion, giant screaming earth mothers, and the armpit and other regions of Hell. And pickles.A social and political satire disguised as a comic novel about zombies and pickles. Or possibly the other way around.
