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Summary: Sagan Bio's: Poundstone compared to Davidson
Review: Quick-name a scientist!. Was your answer Carl Sagan? It probably was-no other person has brought so much science to the public. His loss to a rare disease four years ago left a void still unfilled by anyone else. His life in science and the workings of science itself are worthy of exploration by any educated person, and two biographies that have appeared over the last year serve that purpose well.I sampled Carl's life through William Poundstone's Carl Sagan: A Life in the Cosmos (Henry Holt, 473 pages, paperback, $16) when it first appeared, just before the other book came to print. Having my appetite whetted, I purchased Davidson's book but let it sit on the shelf awhile-after all, how different could it be? How wrong I was! Poundstone's book indeed introduces the reader to all of the details of his life, but with a somewhat detached viewpoint, a workman-like effort. This is reflected in the chapter breaks arranged by years and location. Keay Davidson's Carl Sagan: A Life (Wiley, 540 pages, paperback,$18), on the other hand, gets emotionally involved with the story of Sagan's life, and weaves some themes among the details-not quite judgmental, but observant. Davidson makes his logical breaks at Sagan's projects and ideas. While this makes for some jumps and repeats, these are forgiven for his more interesting overall flow. Both authors are science writers of some note, and not scientists themselves. Read Poundstone for the science-it is complete and detailed. Particularly well done and relevant to recent NASA discoveries is the story of Carl's involvement in the Viking probes that looked for life on Mars in the 1970s. The disagreements on the choice of landing sites and the critical decisions on which experiments to repeat or change a bit between the limited number of runs reveal the tough choices that have to be made in science, often with insufficient information. Davidson's forte', however, is the flare for interpreting Sagan's vibrant personality and his personal life as revealed through both his public presence and private affairs. The author spends more time on Carl's books (including Pulitzer-winning Dragons of Eden), TV works (popular visits on Johnny Carson and his PBS hit, "Cosmos"), and movie (Contact, featuring a performance by Jodie Foster that would have pleased him greatly had he lived to see the film's completion). Yet, Carl's entry into the public arena was not always looked favorably upon by his peers. His having been rejected for tenure at Harvard and blackballed for membership in the prestigious National Academy of Science are certainly partially attributable to his limelight activities. I suspect his colleagues, with their nose to the grindstone of their often boring sub-sub-specialties were secretly envious of this rising star and generalist of science. Here was a man who studied the stars, warned of nuclear winter, got arrested in a protest, developed a "best of Earth" album to affix to the starbound Voyager probe, and debunked pseudoscience. He appeared in NASA press conferences as comfortably as on the Tonight Show. Published articles in the Astrophysical Journal and in the Sunday supplement Parade magazine. If you want a taste of how modern science operates, and of the personal hustle necessary for success, Poundstone's work covers the bases, and does so with more depth. Davidson appears to have more details with an extensive list of reference notes, but it is mostly in the form of quotations that are of low impact in the unfolding story. He also has an annoying habit born of the word processing age: familiar phrases, and other chunks of text that are repeated a bit too frequently to not be noticed. For the person intrigued with the romance of science, and romance in general, Davidson's A Life is for you. Not to be sexist, but if women are truly from Venus and men from Mars (and Sagan made fundamental contributions to the study of both planets), the female readers would want to read Davidson and the men Poundstone. I'm not sure whether Carl would approve of this advice-while he was obviously a chauvinist at home, at least with his first two wives, he was a promoter of female scientists at work! If you read them both, I would read Poundstone first, for the science. With that as a basis you can allow your self to be immersed in the personality developments presented by Davidson. In either book you will find rewarding reading about a man sorely missed by those of us who appreciate both doing good science and bringing it to the public.
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Summary: This One and Its Sister Should Stir Controversy
Review: This book, and Davidson's sister biography will and have undoubtedly stirred controversy. There will be much argument about which of the two is "fair" and how each author chose the material they include, not to mention its tone. We have a number of reflective biographies and memoirs that entice us here at the end of the millenium-- Sagan, by Sagan, AND by other, Nabokov's Blues, Goodall with Reason for Hope, even John Glenn. All these have in common the widening not only of the biographies of these celebrities, but their own reflection, to wit, "advice" actually on how we should view the millenium and continue. It is inevitable that celebrities of this calibre get this kind of a century-end "send-off" but I think Sagan's will be the most controversial. Goodall is still alive to defend herself; Nabokov has established a firm mythos-- but, all of this is still up for grabs with Sagan. Poundstone does elequent job of making Sagan extremely interesting and doesn't appear tempted to "potboil" {?} with a lot of negatives that might be attributed to Davidson's treatment. Both books are worth reading, but Poundstone's seems to be one that has taken "the high road". Both books will be talked about for some time.
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Summary: no hidden agenda
Review: This reads like a simple relation of facts without hidden agenda, amateur psychoanalysis, pompous moralizing, etc. I think that is what a biography should be. Avoid Keay Davidson's conniving diatribe; stick with this book.
Rating:
Summary: Good, fair read
Review: You can add me to the list of people who was about 7 or so when I first saw Cosmos, and it was a major influence (along with 2 scientist parents of my own) to go into science (not astronomy). Carl Sagan, and the way he made science poetic, influenced me greatly. I feel that an absolute must in a biography, is fairness. I neither want to read idolatry, nor a muckracking book. This book was fair in its depiction of Sagan: a brilliant scientist, who cared about the world, science, writing, and his own ego. I especially liked the sections on his work with NASA on the various Mars missions; where do we land, what experiments do we perform, and just what do the results mean, anyway? There was enough information about his background and personal life to keep it interesting, but not so much that it bored me. I was unaware of his first marriage to Lynn Margulis; a famous scientist in her own right. This biography moved very quickly; I always wanted to pick it back up again. Lastly, you do not need any type of science background to understand this book. It is a biography, not a science text at all.
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