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I'm currently at work on a biography of the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Luis W. Alvarez. My previous subjects include the inventor Buckminster Fuller and the science fiction writers John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, and L. Ron Hubbard. As you might guess, my interests tend to revolve around science fiction; film, literature, and pop culture; the history of science; writing and creativity; and how people think about the future.
I like to write books on topics that appeal to a passionate subset of readers, while connecting at the same time to a wider audience, and I really enjoy talking with people who want to discuss these subjects.
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During his lifetime, Buckminster Fuller was hailed as one of the greatest geniuses of the twentieth century. As the architectural designer, inventor, and futurist best known for the geodesic dome, Fuller enthralled a vast popular audience, inspired devotion from both the counterculture and the establishment, and was praised as a modern Leonardo da Vinci. Using a design strategy based on geometry, he became convinced that it was possible to provide for all humanity through the efficient use of planetary resources, which he embodied in the image of Spaceship Earth. From Epcot Center to the molecule named in his honor as the buckyball, Fuller’s legacy endures to this day, and his belief in the transformative potential of technology profoundly influenced the founders of Silicon Valley.
“Revealing…Fuller could come across as a selfless seer, almost a secular saint; in Nevala-Lee’s biography he is all too human…The strength of this carefully researched and fair-minded biography is that the reader comes away with a greater understanding of a deeply complicated individual who overcame obstacles—many of his own making—to achieve a kind of imperfect greatness.”
— Witold Rybczynski, New York Times (Editors’ Choice)
Astounding is the landmark account of the extraordinary partnership between four controversial writers—John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, and L. Ron Hubbard—who set off a revolution in science fiction and forever changed our world.
This remarkable cultural narrative centers on the figure of John W. Campbell, Jr., whom Asimov called “the most powerful force in science fiction ever.” Campbell, who has never been the subject of a biography until now, was both a visionary author—he wrote the story that was later filmed as The Thing—and the editor of the groundbreaking magazine best known as Astounding Science Fiction, in which he discovered countless legendary writers and published classic works ranging from the I, Robot series to Dune. Over a period of more than thirty years, from the rise of the pulps to the debut of Star Trek, he dominated the genre, and his three closest collaborators reached unimaginable heights. Asimov became the most prolific author in American history; Heinlein emerged as the leading science fiction writer of his generation with the novels Starship Troopers and Stranger in a Strange Land; and Hubbard achieved lasting fame—and infamy—as the founder of the Church of Scientology.
“An amazing and engrossing history...Insightful, entertaining, and compulsively readable.”
— George R. R. Martin
