Rating: 
Summary: Enjoyable, but the essence of the man is missing....
Review: I was surprised to learn how few biographies have been written about Alan Shepard. Perhaps this is a function of the Life Magazine exclusivity contracts; it would seem that such a pivotal character at the birth of the age of space exploration would have generated more interest. However, the lack of literary output cannot diminish Mr. Shepard's contributions which are, unequivocally, legendary.
Mr. Thompson's research appears to be of professional caliber. However, I was left with a view of Shepard as a courgeous philanderer, whose marriage survived his self indulgence. His cold, competitive detachment appears to be one of his most admirable qualities, in addition to his aforementioned intestinal fortitude.
Those of us who, as childeren, watched him hit the most famous extra-terrestrial golf shot in history, imagined a hero cut from different cloth. Courage, and an almost unimaginable grace under immense pressure, are more fitting labels.
Indeed, it may be that the author's account is more accurate than one's imagination. In fairness, the early flying exploits are exciting and intriguing; the fatality rate in training was horrific. The mere fact that those men would attempt Carrier landings, at night, is worthy of our admiration and respect.
Perhaps in an era where literature must reveal every harsh truth, no matter how tasteless, one may be forgiven in yearning for a more gentle, respectful memory.
Rating:
Summary: Decent enough, and long overdue biography of Shepard
Review: On the one hand, this is a long-overdue biography of an American hero who never did make things easy for biographers. It shows us where Shepard came from, and how he wound up riding a fifteen-minute lob over the Atlantic, and playing golf on the moon, and it makes for fascinating reading.Unfortunately, the book is somewhat marred by numerous errors of detail that any expert on manned spaceflight history could have caught, and the occasional annoyingly awkward turn of phrase that any competent copy editor should have caught. Together, these give the author a less-than-authoritative tone. Then, too, even the typography of the book is slightly annoying: for the chapter titles and the page headers, somebody picked a truly ugly and amateurish-looking font, one that doesn't belong in any book.
Rating: 
Summary: I Gave It 1 Star, 'Cause It Was The Minimum That I Could
Review: Poorly written, riddled with inacuracies. If you reaal feel the need to read it, check it out from the library- it'll be much easier to return.
Rating:
Summary: I Gave It 1 Star, 'Cause It Was The Minimum That I Could
Review: Poorly written, riddled with inacuracies. If you really feel the need to read it, check it out from the library- you'll be glad that you can easily return it.
Rating: 
Summary: Fascinating Insight
Review: The author has done a good job on this one putting together a through biography of a man who fiercely guarded his privacy. The information gathered to create this book required much research by the author and the results that he has pieced together reveal insight into one of America's most enigmatic heroes. A good read!
Rating: 
Summary: The missing link in astro biographies
Review: This is a great book and one that will fill a long-empty space on your bookshelves if your interested in the history of the giants of the space race. I won`t write in detail here, but in short, this is an excellent book that I enjoyed greatly. I`ve put my thoughts down in detail on Amazon UK, if you care to read them. Well done, Neal Thompson!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Book
Review: This is an excellent book and well worth the time and money. The author gives us detailed insight into a complex and ultimately heroic man. Although he had some faults, the author makes it clear Alan Shepard could not have been the hero he was without these faults that were more than offset by his qualities. As a former navy pilot, however, I did find several annoying "aviation technical details" the author got just plain wrong.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent book
Review: This was one of the best books I've ever read. I found it to be fair and balanced towards all the individuals involved. I have to say that the author's writing style is conducive to a good read. This writer knows how to pace a story and keep the reader's interest. I will definitely keep an eye out for his future works. This book is not the powderpuff prose that used to surround the space program. This said, I must say that my respect for these men has not wavered a bit.
Rating:
Summary: Almost an Excellent Biography
Review: To anyone but a true student of spaceflight history, this might be regarded as a superb biography of an extraordinary man, and it certainly comes very close. Neal Thompson has a punchy, smooth-running style, which obviously reflects his lengthy career as a professional journalist, but just like a journalist it seems he kept his manuscript to himself and well under wraps, and I believe this has proved a sad downfall for an otherwise excellent book. People who know their spaceflight stuff are thick on the ground, but it is very obvious that no one was consulted in order to simply verify the so-called facts about Shepard's NASA career in this book. There are so many elementary errors inherent in this part of the story that it must call into question the reliability of other areas such as his military service, and he deserves better. The author's descriptions of early spacecraft are incorrect; so too his explanations of the dynamics of space flight and the space environment. I know helicopter pilot Jim Lewis well enough to say that he would be absolutely furious with Thompson's baseless assumption that Gus Grissom blamed Lewis for nearly letting him drown after the hatch blew on his spacecraft. Quite the contrary - Lewis was elsewhere making a valiant but ultimately unsuccessful attempt to save Liberty Bell 7. Any fundamental study of this dramatic event would reveal that Lewis's helicopter did not in fact retrieve Grissom as stated in the book, and his was not the only helicopter on the scene - there were actually three involved. I also feel that far more effort should have been made to research the Mercury flight of Scott Carpenter, rather than reiterating bitter and biased recollections dominating Chris Kraft's account of this flight in his own book. Carpenter successfully brought home a flawed, badly malfunctioning spacecraft, but where is this story? It seems a much-misrepresented confrontation between two personalities is a better scenario to present than the program-saving heroics and expertise of a gentle, courageous astronaut. The author says he elicited the help of Alan Shepard's family in writing this book, and while I do not doubt the veracity of this statement, I wonder if they feel betrayed by many of the vapid sex "revelations" he felt obliged to relate, which only serve to make this book a poor man's "Right Stuff." I, for one, did not care to know the intimate details of Alan and Louise Shepard's first night together as man and wife. This was just guesswork, voyeuristic journalism at its most revolting, and has no place in such a serious biography. It would also, I am sure, have proved very distressing to the daughters, and such odious reporting is precisely why Shepard would not divulge his life story before he died, and why family members have never cooperated with journalists or biographers before now - and probably never will again. I am also firmly convinced that the author is wrong in naming Alan Shepard as the astronaut involved in a motel photo scandal that features prominently in the book. The author rebuts the whole Shepard/Glenn conflict matrix he carefully makes throughout the book by saying that Shepard was panicked into seeking Glenn's counsel on this delicate matter. This goes absolutely against the grain of both personalities, as pointed out numerous times in his own book. Research and sources please, Mr. Author, not the presentation of presumptions as facts based simply on third-party and questionable hearsay. My sincere wish is that the author had just allowed someone with a solid knowledge of spaceflight dynamics and history to read the text before he rushed this book into print, because the presence of numerous errors and typos only serves to diminish the full impact of what might have been a truly good biography. An Australian called Clive James once penned a great book called "Unreliable Memoirs," and I'm afraid this is an alternate title I would have to apply to this book. Nevertheless, it still merits 4 out of 5 for readability, and for finally bringing us the incredible (albeit author-flawed) story of America's first man in space. We can only hope that a corrective rewrite is in the offing. Then, I'm sure, I can probably add that fifth star to the overall rating.
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