It's difficult to write about bad books and so much easier to be effusive about the good ones. This was a stilted mish-mash of real & fictional events around WW2, convoluted in the stories to bring these people together. The characters not quite as dimensional as they could have been. I was rooting for the author but he didn't hit the mark. ( )

4 1/2 stars

What to say? A fun read and meet with three of the twentieth centuries most prolific and creative authors, Robert A. Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, and L. Sprague de Camp. They've been put to work at the Naval Yard in Pennsylvania[1] trying to make the impossible (and highly improbable) both possible and real. Who put them to work? John Campbell. It actually turns out to be a ruse to deflect from the work being done for the Manhattan Project (Trinity).

Heinlein, de Camp, and Asimov
Who are these people?
[ai:Robert A. Heinlein|205|Robert A. Heinlein|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1192826560p2/205.jpg] Robert A. Heinlein - who wrote a large number of very popular science fiction stories and books, including The Roads Must Roll, The Green Hills of Earth, and Starship Troopers, is the leader of the group of scientist who are trying to make a ship disappear. He has a lot on his mind, with a hard drinking wife, the possibility that Nikolai Tesla may have managed to create a super weapon, and everyone trying to figure out why he quit writing for the pulps.

[ai:Isaac Asimov|16667|Isaac Asimov|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1341965730p2/16667.jpg] Isaac Asimov - who wrote the Foundation books and about robots. Working for Heinlein as his chemist, Asimov is trying to figure out the right formula for making a ship disappear from radar. Though newly married, he's finding more enjoyment writing his stories and running around with Heinlein and de Camp looking for super-weapons than spending time with his young wife, Gerti.

[ai:L. Sprague de Camp|3305|L. Sprague de Camp|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1218217726p2/3305.jpg] L. Sprague de Camp - who wrote a mix of science fiction and fantasy with his writing partner Fletcher Pratt, like the series of stories collected in [b:The Compleat Enchanter: The Magical Misadventures of Harold Shea|1992160|The Compleat Enchanter The Magical Misadventures of Harold Shea|L. Sprague de Camp|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1282286733s/1992160.jpg|894589]. His specialty is aeronautics, but in the book, he's just a good companion to have along.

[ai:L. Ron Hubbard|33503|L. Ron Hubbard|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1195072218p2/33503.jpg] L. Ron Hubbard - best known for starting a religion (Scientology) just sort of invites himself along for the ride, much to everyone's irritation. Still, Heinlein manages to put him to work and sends him off on a wild goose chase to the south pacific.

John W. Campbell - ostensibly the head of the group in Pennsylvania, Campbell is best known for his editorship of Astounding and Unknown, and a number of other lines published by Street & Smith (the same people who brought us The Shadow and Doc Savage). He's been accredited with helping to launch a number of authors' careers during the Golden Era of SF.

Mainly this book is about trying to find out whether Tesla's tower, which, if it had worked right, would have provided everyone electricity for free, might have actually been a possible weapon which could be used to protect the US from outside attack or even used as a long range weapon.[a]&[2]

Along the way we meet such people as the father of SF pulps, [a:Hugo Gernsback|460779|Hugo Gernsback|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1351417232p2/460779.jpg], various pulp legends, such as Walter Gibson (bka Maxwell Grant) and Lester Dent (bka Kenneth Robeson) and Albert Einstein, who was a consultant for the US Navy during WWII, visit Menlo Park and Tesla's testing site, Wardenclyffe, and a number of other interesting and fun interludes, all of which propels the story forward at a fast, highly enjoyable pace.


[1] Site of "The Philadelphia Experiment". The ship, USS Eldridge, was never proven to have actually teleported according to Naval records.

[a] Conspiracy theory still insists that the explosion in Tonguska was caused by Tesla's first and only test of his tower. It's been proven that a large meteor or comet actually caused the damage. Still, it plays an interesting role in the book, since it gets everyone's hopes up about the feasibility of the tower's use ...

[2] This concept has been put to good use by [a:Larry Correia|1136158|Larry Correia|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1323587082p2/1136158.jpg] in his book series, The Grimnoir Chronicles. ( )

‘The Astounding, the Amazing and the Unknown’ is a follow up to ‘The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril’ but can be read independently. In ‘The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril’, author Paul Malmont plunged pulp writers Walter Gibson (The Shadow) Lester Dent (Doc Savage) and L. Ron Hubbard (Dianetics and Scientology, but not yet) into a deadly adventure mostly set in Chinatown New York. They were joined later by ex-Naval man who was on the run from gangsters after a failed venture with a silver mine. Together they solved the mystery and saved the world (spoiler).

I enjoyed that hugely and when I learned that there was a follow-up book featuring Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, L. Sprague de Camp and L. Ron Hubbard in another adventure I bought it immediately. I’ve heard of Gibson and Dent but I’m a lifelong fan of Heinlein and Asimov and wanted to see what Malmont would do with them, and to them. I was not disappointed.

The story takes place shortly after Heinlein, Asimov and de Camp have begun work at the Naval Yard in Philadelphia trying to develop superweapons for the war. They learn of an installation built by Nikolai Tesla that might be used as a weapon and set out to investigate. Cue a lot of running around in tunnels under New York, interference from the FBI and harassment by naval bureaucrats. There’s also some talk about pulp fiction and a few guest stars pop up along the way. When you’re having fun with famous people you might as well enjoy it so Malmont has pilot Jimmy Stewart fly Hubbard to the Aleutians when Heinlein wants to get rid of him. Sam Moskowitz and Ray Bradbury get walk-on parts.

It’s pretty clear that Heinlein is top man as far as the author is concerned, a well-rounded figure, physically, mentally and morally superior to his peers with L. Sprague de Camp second. Asimov’s physical timidity is shown but that’s something Asimov admitted himself. As in ‘The Chinatown Deathcloud Peril’, Hubbard is portrayed as a flawed character rather than evil. He was on the downhill slide from success as a pulp writer to success as a second rate Messiah.

It’s well researched and the adventure plot is secondary, for me, to the insights into the characters. As this is faction it has to be taken with a pinch of salt but I’ve read biographies of the leads and the portrayals seem fairly accurate. Asimov’s knee-trembler on a New York rooftop was going a bit far though.

Entertaining and worth a look for fans of Golden Age science fiction who like a laugh.

Eamonn Murphy
( )

A book with Isaac Asimov as one of the characters? Oh yeah!

It was fun to read as a novelty, but the actual story and writing style were not very good. ( )

3.5 stars really--might have been higher if the author hadn't strained my suspension of disbelief on more than one occasion in this book.

An interesting conceit--Pulp science fiction authors (Campbell, Heinlein, Asimov, de Camp, and Hubbard along with a host of cameos and drop-ins by older and contemporary WWII pulp writers) try to make science fiction into fact for the War Department...and everyone suspects their intentions and abilities...and I loved the way the author worked Tesla's "failed" tech and the Philadelphia Experiment into the plot.

Not having met any of the principal people in any way beyond their fiction or essays, I can't say whether or not the characters match them. Still, while a few coincidences and strains to credulity nearly derailed my reading, the ending delivered on a fun premise. ( )