There have been over twenty-one thousand readings of the reviews in the present blog from readers in one hundred and twenty-two countries. I have reviewed over two hundred and sixty books and movies. Regarding my review of Hitchcock’s The Paradine Case, Bill Krohn, American author (Hitchcock at Work [1999]), critic, and since 1988 the Hollywood reporter for the seminal French movie magazine, Cahiers du Cinema (“…the most prestigious and influential film journal ever published”–Goodreads), wrote: “(It) captures better than any I have read the essence of the film.” John Updike commented on my review of his novel, Terrorist (2006): “Dear Mr. Clarkson–Thank you indeed for your kind and shrewd review of Terrorist; I think you read the novel very well…. I was cheered and encouraged….” For the book, The Button: The New Nuclear Arms Race and Presidential Power from Truman to Trump (2020), co-written by former Secretary of Defense, William J. Perry, and Tom Z. Collina, Director of Policy at the Ploughshares Fund, Amazon Books has chosen my review, “The Most Authoritative Treatment of THE Existential Threat,” as the Top Review out of a total of one hundred and twenty-one reviews of that book from readers. An amended version of the Amazon review of The Button is included in the present blog and of which William J. Perry has written, “This is the definitive review of our book.” William A. Hogan, author of Physics for Artists and Poets and You (2024), has written, “I am pleased to announce that my book has been reviewed by the internationally known author and critic, Albert Clarkson. Mr. Clarkson has had thousands of readers worldwide, and his blog reviewing books, movies and other media is followed globally.”
My books: I was educated at Gilmour Academy and Santa Clara University, worked in the Defense industry on arms control and on artificial intelligence applications, started a consulting company in Silicon Valley, and have been writing seriously since the 1970s. My own books consist of two novels and a nonfiction book on applications of new information technology to national security strategizing. Based on my second novel, Heaven Engine (2004), I have been selected by a Barnes and Noble panel as one of thirty-six featured authors whose work includes Other Science Fiction (a hybrid genre blending traditional novels and science fiction novels) ranging from the medieval period to 2099. Among these featured authors are Jane Austen, Joseph Conrad, James Joyce, Mark Twain, E. M. Forster, Arthur Conan Doyle, George Eliot, G. K. Chesterton, Marion Zimmer Bradley, John Sandford, Bram Stoker, Jules Verne, H. G. Wells and Ray Bradbury. Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, with its early version of the time travel plot device, is exemplary here.
Cloud 9 Booksellers has priced a first edition of Heaven Engine as a collectible at $1,000 and a British bookseller has priced a first edition as a collectible at over 1,100 pounds.
The present blog also contains some reviews of general culture and jazz.
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