Strange Angel: The Otherworldly Life of Rocket Scientist John Whiteside Parsons - Hardcover

Pendle, George

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0297848534 ISBN 13: 9780297848530

Publisher: Orion, 2005

Synopsis

BRILLIANT ROCKET SCIENTIST KILLED IN EXPLOSION screamed the front-page headline of the Los Angeles Times on 18 June 1952. John Parsons, a maverick rocketeer whose work had helped transform the rocket from a derided sci-fi plotline into a reality, was at first mourned as a tragically young victim of mishandled chemicals. But as reporters dug deeper a shocking story emerged. Parsons had been performing occult rites and summoning spirits as a follower of Alesteir Crowley, and he was promptly written off as an embarrassment to science.

George Pendle tells Parsons' extraordinary life story for the first time. Fuelled from childhood by dreams of space flight, Parsons was a crucial innovator during rocketry's birth. But his visionary imagination also led him into the occult community thriving in 1930s Los Angeles, and when fantasy's pull became stronger than reality, he lost both his work and his wife. Parsons was just emerging from his personal underworld when he died - aged thirty-seven. In Strange Angel, Pendle recovers a fascinating life and explores the unruly consequences of genius.

About this title

Review:

Pendle's superbly detailed and addictively readable book makes the reader fall in love with these young men's energy and enthusiasm. (DAILY TELEGRAPH)

...readable and engrossing. (Bryan Appleyard LITERARY REVIEW)

You couldn't make it up. (PHYSICS WORLD)

It's a cracker, that rarest of things a popular science book that's a page turner too (popularscience.co.uk)

elegantly written... Pendle with his graceful, measured prose... skilfully steers us through the quagmire of Parson's personal life (THE OBSERVER)

fascinating... we are introduced to a surreal 1930s world where dreams of space flight were inspired by popular science fiction... (FOCUS)

entertaining... intriguing... (CHEMISTRY WORLD)

Book Description:

The other worldly life of rocket scientist John Whiteside Parsons (1914-1952)

About this edition

• Publisher: Orion
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0297848534
• ISBN 13: 9780297848530
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 368