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Preview
  • Strange Angel

  • The Otherworldly Life of Rocket Scientist John Whiteside Parsons
  • By: George Pendle
  • Narrated by: James Langton
  • Length: 11 hrs and 16 mins
  • 4.6 out of 5 stars (36 ratings)

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Strange Angel

By: George Pendle
Narrated by: James Langton
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Summary

Now a CBS All Access series: “A riveting tale of rocketry, the occult, and boom-and-bust 1920s and 1930s Los Angeles” (Booklist).

The Los Angeles Times headline screamed: ROCKET SCIENTIST KILLED IN PASADENA EXPLOSION. The man known as Jack Parsons, a maverick rocketeer who helped transform a derided sci-fi plotline into actuality, was at first mourned as a scientific prodigy. But reporters soon uncovered a more shocking story: Parsons had been a devotee of the city’s occult scene.

Fueled by childhood dreams of space flight, Parsons was a leader of the motley band of enthusiastic young men who founded the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a cornerstone of the American space program. But Parsons’s wild imagination also led him into a world of incantations and orgiastic rituals - if he could make rocketry a reality, why not black magic?

George Pendle re-creates the world of John Parsons in this dazzling portrait of prewar superstition, cold war paranoia, and futuristic possibility. Peopled with such formidable real-life figures as Howard Hughes, Aleister Crowley, L. Ron Hubbard, and Robert Heinlein, Strange Angel explores the unruly consequences of genius.

The basis for a new miniseries created by Mark Heyman and produced by Ridley Scott, this biography “vividly tells the story of a mysterious and forgotten man who embodied the contradictions of his time . . . when science fiction crashed into science fact. . . . [It] would make a compelling work of fiction if it weren’t so astonishingly true” (Publishers Weekly).

©2005 by George Pendle. (P)2019 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.
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What listeners say about Strange Angel

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Tony lawless

Good history, covers a lot of characters, Alister Crawley, L Ron Hubbard even Howard Hughes and all the space rocket history, intend to listen again sometime,
nice to go back in time theses days .

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Uncomfortable narration

Refreshing to hear a pleasant English voice but the narrator’s intonation and inflection did not reflect what he was saying and was almost unbearable! That, along coupled with my own disinterest in the technicalities of rocket propulsion caused me to tune out for large chunks of the book. I enjoyed the personal story of Parson’s life although it seemed to lack depth and I felt that I had only a vague understanding of the man himself.
Given that Parsons was such an unusual character and lived such an extraordinary life the story was not that rich or exciting. I suspect that maybe that was down to the narration but I won’t buy a hard copy to find out.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

A very enjoyable listen!

This is a fine account of a truly extraordinary life. Jack Parsons was a genuine one-off, and Pendle's book neatly captures the many twists and turns his life seemed to take, weaving the story of his scientific career together with his occult and philosophical passions. The performance is lively, and the whole thing is well produced. A real pleasure.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

It makes you carry on listening

For me its worth a listen, very good some times you have to go back.

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