Review: perhaps someday we'll catch up with Burroughs
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 09 2, 2012
The inventiveness, double crossing, and romance in this book compare with anything in Burroughs more famous Barsoom series.  Little tidbits in Burroughs concept of the future are remarkable.  For example, he envisions that in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, one of the main sources of conflict will be the need to send periodic expeditions into the uncivilized regions of Asia.  Seems his crystal ball could be no clearer.All Burroughs scientific extrapolations are now a bit out of date, and this one particularly in so far as how he envisions life on the moon to have evolved naturally and yet now be hidden from our telescopes.  I can't tell you how without giving away what is a surprise in the book.  While I can't help you get past this one difficulty, I can honestly say that just two weeks before reading this book, I was engaged upon some mission architecture studies for America's new space ship, the Orion, which will have the capability to reach the vicinity of the Moon or asteroids.  And I concluded that due to the impracticality of lifting enough mass from the Earth or Lunar surface to construct adequate radiation shielding for a long term crew, that it might be preferable to live on asteroids in exactly the manner Burroughs proposes.  Also, Burroughs proposes some rather strange gravitational anomalies in the vicinity of the moon, that conventional thinking seems to contradict.  But a few years ago, I found by accident an exception to a famous theorem of Newton's that does allow the situation Burroughs describes.One of the most delightful things about Burroughs' novels is the short backstory, relating how the author came to know the story.  In this book, there is something strange, and though it is presented in the first few pages, still I don't want to give away a spoiler.  But again strangely, though I have investigated many strange things in my personal life, and found most to be beyond my access, making me rather a skeptic, the amazing memory trick of this backstory is something I've experienced on at least three occasions.Enough with the fact checking.  The underlying theme of all Burroughs' works are that love is the only rationale for great deeds, and without willingness to die for one's values and friends, all will be lost.  My only complaint about this book is that written later in his life, Burroughs dwells more on the loss.  But the most important thing remains.