Inventor of the Future audiobook

I wonder if Alec Nevala-Lee will get a reputation as a visionary killer. After his book Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Gold Age of Science Fiction came out, John W. Campbell’s name was removed from the award created to honor him, and the reputations of Asimov, Heinlein, Hubbard, and the science fiction Golden Age declined. As I read the first part of Inventor of the Future: The Visionary Life of Buckminster Fuller Nevala-Lee made me strongly dislike Buckminster Fuller by carefully chronicling Fuller’s personal faults. But by the end of the book, I was willing to overlook them. Bucky never redeems himself, but Nevala-Lee’s excellent biography brings everything into perspective. It brings closure to some of my hippie and New Age fantasies.The rest of my review is on my blog:https://classicsofsciencefiction.com/...

My reaction to this book is going to be conditioned by the fact that Fuller was never a hero of mine. Sure, I probably noticed the Dymaxion Car by the time I was 12 (1970), and became aware of the man's architectural achievements by the time I was in high school (the mid-1970s). But, by the time I was in my twenties, and old enough and educated enough to have some engagement with the Fuller's writings, my hot take was that I was looking at a lot of double-talk. This is not to mention that I tended to lump Fuller with the rest of the architects who were being criticized for the failures of the "International" Style (see the writings of Peter Blake).Fast-forward forty or so years, and we have this new life of Fuller, by an ostensible admirer, and Nevala-Lee finds much to be dubious about. Too much hard drinking, too many dubious sexual adventures, too much exploitation of other folks' intellectual property, and too much personal myth making. My overall reaction; so what? This all seems par for the course for a self-invented American man of affairs of the 20th century: "There is no such thing as an original sin." Still, there is the critique that Fuller's personal style might be one of the man's most notable lingering influences, and he basically created the template of entrepreneur as public philosopher, as exemplified by the Silicon Valley Set. However, that Nevala-Lee can trace Fuller's continued influences in the worlds of architecture, the physical sciences, and applied humanities is what impresses me most; this is considering that Fuller's real original goal was to become the Henry Ford of private housing, not the guru of geodesic domes. Keeping in mind that this is a rather dry read, there is much food for thought here.

UGH! So much to say. Perhaps a proper review later…. But for now….The old adage “You should never meet your heroes” crept into my mind, as I read this excellent, painstakingly detailed biography of one of my heroes. Indeed, I’ve idolized Buckminster Fuller my entire adult life, and I’ve read a number of books about his work. Some of my own work and interests have been directly inspired by things he produced or proposed throughout his career. (Things I’ve come to learn, we’re not always his ideas… more on that later.)Yet nothing I’ve read about R. Buckminster Fuller, until THIS book, has really told me much about the MAN. The person… the human being he was, apart from his work and ideas.I am sad to say that I am very disappointed in this old “hero” of mine… this human being whom I finally “met” in this book. For all of his tremendous achievements during his firecracker career, this accounting of his life left me sad and wondering why I idolized him for so long, without knowing the HUMAN that he was.Quick book summary, in a few short words…. Bucky Fuller was a GENIUS. He was also a LIAR… a FABULIST… and certainly a THIEF of intellectual property. He was a serial ADULTERER, who abandoned his family often… as easily as dropping a coin on the sidewalk. He was, in the very textbook definition of the word, a NARCISSIST. Power hungry, a control freak, a BULLSHITTER, and famously thin skinned. Oh, and a GENIUS.I could go on, but I’m still in shock about what I’ve learned about this hero of mine.

Review on the way...