[X] My Assistant

[Drkskywxlt]

Thought it would be interesting to get a sense of how MSL is being covered in the popular media, particularly since the board's residents cover so many different cities and countries!

CNN covered the landing live, which I was pleased to see. NBC has also had some semi-regular coverage on the evening news for the last few days. The NBC Today Show this morning mentioned the rear hazcam anomaly and how the crazies on the internet are abuzz over it (also mentioned the likely true cause/s of the "blob").

[dvandorn]

Ah, the voice of someone who actually knows the man. I'll never argue with superior information to my own.

Thinking about it, my own reactions to Mr. Lee probably come from him having the arrogance to think he could write sequels to A.C. Clarke's "Rendezvous with Rama" and putting out what struck me as not excellent sf in the Clarke style but inferior pot-boilers reminiscent of Jacqueline Susanne's work, just not as well written. As an old Clarke fan, I suppose I would regard with mistrust anyone who would try and take up Sir Arthur's mantle, and the attempts I have made to read Mr. Lee's works have always bogged down in disgust. (Again, while I've done film criticism professionally, I'm not a literary critic, so I'll say once more that YMMV. There's no accounting for some peoples' tastes -- including my own.)

I did find one short sequence in "Mega Mars Rover" involving Mr. Lee quite interesting. It was what looked like a design review meeting of some stripe, with John Grotzinger chairing the meeting and Gentry Lee pushing hard on some point or another (the only part of the discussion shown was Lee insisting that the design specs are one thing but what they're discussing now is something else again), and Grotzinger saying he's extremely unhappy and pointing at Lee as he said it. The editing of the discussion made it impossible to tell whether Grotzinger was upset at Lee for pursuing with great energy something that Grotzinger didn't want to pursue, or if Lee was pointing out some problem in planning that no one else had perceived up to this point.

-the other Doug