Synopses & Reviews
Jetpack Dreams chronicles the colorful pop history and science of that most amazing and mysterious of machines, the jetpack. While exploring our collective fascination with flight, the tale takes readers from the first flimsy, shoulder-mounted wings to Bill Suitor's 1984 Olympic flight in front of billions of viewers around the world; from a gruesome jetpack-driven murder in Houston in the mid-1990s to the secret laboratories and government facilities of today. Journalist Mac Montandon also explores Hollywood's fascination with the subject, from the 1949 serial King of the Rocket Men to Lost in Space, The Jetsons and The Rocketeer to the cultural jetpack phenomenon represented by Buck Rogers, James Bond, and Boba Fett. He travels the world to meet jetpack enthusiasts who are readying their own personal flying machines for takeoff. Ultimately, it's the search for an answer to two simple questions: Where is the jetpack that was promised to him, and to all of us, years ago? And if it's out there, can he catch a ride?
Review
"Montandan offers an amusing collection of stories about individuals of varying degrees of eccentricity who are devoting much of their lives and personal fortunes to a near-impossible dream." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"Montandon's entertaining adventures highlight a strange footnote of the space age." Booklist
Review
"Reading this book is as fun as zooming through the sky with a rocket on your back. And better yet, you won't break your collarbone." A.J. Jacobs, author of The Know-It-All and The Year of Living Biblically
Review
"A delightful and engrossing story of the quest for one of humankind's greatest technological fantasies to strap on a device and fly like a bird." BoingBoing.net
Synopsis
A hilarious pop-socio-cultural history of the greatest invention that never was, the jetpack, and a participatory journey through the bizarre subculture of jetpack enthusiasts in search of a working model
Synopsis
Jetpack Dreams chronicles the colorful pop history and science of that most amazing and mysterious of machines: the jetpack. Fueled by a fascination and lifelong obsession with the power of flight, journalist Mac Montandon goes on a vastly entertaining search of the elusive invention. He examines the jetpacks inspiration from the first shoulder-mounted wings to Bill Suitors 1984 Olympic flight, even uncovering a gruesome jetpack-related murder in Houston. From the earliest days of the pack to its enduring role in popular culturewith Buck Rogers, James Bond, Boba FettMontandon seeks to answer two simple questions: Where is the jetpack that was promised to him, and to all of us, years ago? And if its out there, can he catch a ride?
About the Author
Mac Montandon is the editor of Innocent When You Dream: The Tom Waits Reader. He has written for the New York Times, New York, Details, and Salon, among others. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.