Thanks Paul!
Found Leo Frankowski on Baen Books -
Conrad Stargard: The Radiant Warriorand the ebook for $10 is a steal - in 2022 dollars it is less than a comic book cost in 1960.
Yesterday I read this thread and thought about mentioning E.E. Smith, who was a Chemical Engineer, who wrote the Galactic Patrol series, the Skylark of Space series, Spacehounds of IPC, and others - he is on gutenberg.org for free - because his work strongly influenced my childhood and later, career. But as Veronique pointed out, that was then and this is the 21st century not the 20th.
In grad school I started to write a story, the protagonist of which was a Metallurgy student, who rode a Triumph Bonneville motorcycle, was responsible (self-assigned task) for the care and feeding of all the campus stray cats, and whose chance romance with a Chemical Engineering student resulted in a workable cold-fusion reaction (she was brilliant, he was just dogged). Alas! I can not write worth a hoot so the story languished and probably just as well - they were good kids, and the societal repercussions of their discovery would have chewed them up good.
Anyway thanks for Frankowski, and I heartily recommend looking at the Free Library on Baen.com as it is a path to discovering authors one might enjoy, at zero cost (until you find one you like...)
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Andrew Werner
Chief Metallurgist, Perforating - Retired
Schlumberger - Retired
East Bernard TX
(832) 563-3489
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Original Message:
Sent: 08-11-2022 02:08
From: Paul Tibbals
Subject: What are you looking to read?
re: Aaron's comment about an engineer who uses technical skills to be the hero, well the MacGyver shows are general science, physics and chemistry coming to the rescue. In the various incarnations of Star Trek the various chief engineers often contribute to victory. And there were even a couple of episodes that refer to Metallurgy/metallurgical analysis - I almost squeaked when they would mention our field! 8-)
In comics, there was a series of comics called The Metal Men, who were robots developed by a genius engineer. Each robot was largely made of and exhibited the properties of a specific metal. I can recall for sure that there were Os, Hg, Fe, Ag, Au, Pt, and I think there were a couple more. This was late 1960's or early 1970's IIRC. The robots battle various foes and the outcomes are determined by their clever use of the specific properties of the metals: Mercury can flow, Gold has almost unlimited ductility/drawability, Osmium is extra massive/dense, etc. Pretty geeky stuff!
There's a particularly applicable series of science fiction books that starts with The Cross-Time Engineer, by Leo Frankowski. The premise is that a modern engineer finds himself accidentally thrown irreversibly back in time to the Middle Ages and starts "inventing" many pieces of modern technology and, importantly, the infrastructure needed to produce that tech. Since he was stuck there/then, his goal became to give his native Poland the ability to defend itself in an upcoming war (which he knows about from history class) and to have Poland become a world-leading power. It was quite readable, and there are several follow-up volumes. I was ready to be critical but the technology seemed quite accurate and Frankowski's knowledge was in depth and included some metallurgy and a lot of other areas of engineering. The social observations were reasonable and feasible enough, and the writing was up to the task though Frankowski wasn't a top-tier author, in my opinion of course. I'd recommend reading the first one and seeing if you want to finish the series.
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Paul Tibbals
Original Message:
Sent: 08-09-2022 08:47
From: Aaron Tanzer
Subject: What are you looking to read?
How about a thriller where the hero is an engineer who uses their technical skills to save the day? Or comics: who says the Man of Steel can't be a metallurgist?
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Aaron Tanzer
Senior Metallurgical Engineer
Metallurgical & Materials Technologies
Baton Rouge LA
(407) 247-9557
Original Message:
Sent: 08-08-2022 15:47
From: Rajan Bhambroo
Subject: What are you looking to read?
Karen
I have in the past looked for information on mechanical testing and microstructural analysis of materials. While different books have the fundamental knowledge regarding various test methods and analysis techniques. There is hardly any information on how to analyze the data from various techniques.
So a book/ series on data analysis would be helfpul, particularly for people in the starting phase of their careers.
Regards
Rajan
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Rajan Bhambroo
Materials Engineer
Tenneco Inc
Plymouth MI
7346600894
Original Message:
Sent: 08-08-2022 15:34
From: Karen Marken
Subject: What are you looking to read?
Have you ever looked for information about a particular subject and wished there was more written about it? Do you think more books should be written about a particular subject matter?
Reply here with suggestions.
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Karen Marken
ASM Employee
ASM International
Materials Park OH
(440) 338-5453
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