Attain Wizard: The Life And Times Of Nikola Tesla: Biography Of A Genius Authored By Marc J. Seifer Formatted As Audio Books
I failed to realize when I started reading this book was how literal the title was, I was expecting a biography of the life of Nikola Tesla, Indeed there was a biography, however there is also a huge emphasis on The Life AND TIMES of Nikola Tesla, It seemed that every other page was filled with a bunch of extraneous nonsense that had little to no bearing on "the life" part of the book.
A perfect example is that almost every event ever attended by Tesla was listed, which is fine, however the author deemed it pertinent to list every other person that also attended as if the reader was supposed to know who the eff any of these old school turnofthecentury fat cats were.
Another annoying feature of the book was brought up by another review I read on this site, This review pointed out that the author filled this biographical nonfiction work with phrases such as "Nikola Tesla probably did this" or "It is most likely Nikola Tesla did that".
Well I can definitively say that the author most likely failed to do his homework and probably flunked out of biography writing class, What's worse, most people today don't even know who the hell Nikola Tesla even is he gave us the AC current system, radio, remote control, and a crap ton more and he certainly doesn't need halfassed biographies to help continue to suppress his name into obscurity.
In fact, he needs a new york bestseller, which in my estimation is entirely possible, The reason I give this book,yes, that's two and one half goodreads is that the life of Tesla is so absurdly interesting that it is almost impossible to write a book that doesn't enthrall the reader.
Therefore, I most likely probably give the life and even the times of Nikola Tesla,out ofelectricities. No review of mine would be complete without a little backstory, so I shall share it now, I've been acquainted with the genius of Nikola Tesla for a long, long time, Ever since I've come to the realization that we owe that man a lot, I've striven to inform myself about the man and his work.
I watched documentaries, attended lectures, read publications I was terribly angry when the recreated Tesla laboratory in the Technical museum wasn't open when I found a time slot to visit it.
. . heh, the only sin I'm guilty of is not visiting his house in Smiljan, I've even watched Prestige just to see how David Bowie had tapped into Tesla's role, for crying out loud,
That all being said, I have to admit that I've expected The Wizard to be a book suitable for revision of facts I already knew about Tesla.
I thought that it should be good as an introduction to Tesla's life and work, but I was a bit skeptical on what new could such a book offer to me.
You can't imagine my delight when I started reading after the chapters on Tesla's origins and childhood, which presented me with little new facts, I embarked on a very different journey.
I can only imagine the time and effort it took the author to collect so many sources, and write such a unique and complete biography.
Every passage, sentence or letter has a reference, so that readers can be directed to other sources, either for checking or simply finding new literature.
What I also loved was the inclusion of multiple tellings of some situations in Tesla's life for example, the two contradictory stories that depict Tesla's drive for money, or lack thereof, in his dealings with Edison.
Seifer pictures Tesla's life in such minute detail, that even a person with a readymade skeleton can make tweaks on the skeleton and start to construct tendons and joints, and completely flesh the structure out.
The sheer wealth of information left me very impressed, and I was a skeptic no more, Instead, I learned so many things I didn't know prior, concerning Tesla's life and struggle, Because, let's face it, people it was a battle with many admirable adversaries, From Edison, the people with whom Tesla had founded his first company, svindlers galore yes, Michael Pupin and all that mendacious crowd that had preferred to simply not mention Tesla, money investors and bankers yes, I'm talking about J.
P. Morgan and the gang which squashed Tesla's dream of free energy, plagiators yes, that is pointed towards Marconi, fires in his laboratories, to the general public during the battle of currents and also later on in life, Tesla had had to fight his way to the top.
And even though he had had his share of triumphs/, and the European tour, the fame which came in/, etc. , external factors and his own ideas seemed to work against him after all, the ideas he had later on in life were the culprits of his pendulous fall.
Not to mention that he was in a not so grateful position of an expatriate in a new country which he clearly felt, at least in the beginning, for he had written upon the demise of his Hungarian friend Szegeti, “I feel alienated, and it is difficult for me to adapt to the American lifestyle.
”. But in spite all that, he achieved great things of unsurpassed practical value, It would take me a whole book to list his discoveries, but let's mention the rotating magnetic field, polyphase electric system, lasers, fluorescent lights, wireless transmission and radio among the myriad other things we use in everyday life.
But ultimately, Tesla's life story doesn't end up on a very optimistic note, Because, it all boils down to a man who had lots of great ideas which could have brought even more prosperity to mankind, but was barred from achieving the bulk of them by people who didn't have such altruistic interests as he had.
All in all, I really liked this book, After all, it can't possibly be dull when it has such a fascinating topic! However, it wasn't flawless, The chronological structure, while logical, was perhaps one of the weaknesses of the book, I can tell that Seifer's goal was to present Tesla's life in an orderly way, but as a result of that, some chapters felt jumbled as we got to read about the different aspects of Tesla's life, consecutively.
Don't get me wrong, one of The Wizard's strengths is that it also discusses Tesla's social life, and gives proof in the form of various letters, directed either to or from Tesla, but that was tightly enmeshed in the tales of Tesla's discoveries, which made it a bit difficult for my mind to switch from topic to topic.
Another minor quibble after the chapter Loose ends and Tesla's death, the author talks about some historical issues which perhaps were not necessary.
But aside from that, the book is great and I highly recommend it,
Im still looking for the definitive biography on Nikola Tesla because rest assured this isnt it,
The author throws nonessential information about like it was confetti, I knew from the first chapter when he starts with the history of Croatia that this would be a less than promising beginning, Unfortunately it doesnt get any better, People keep cropping up who had very little contact with or influence on Tesla, Information on his discoveries are kept to a minimum while matters of who filed what patent and when go on ad nauseum, Theres very little real science involved, Its amazing how many times the author strays off the subject to bring up a trivial piece of data I couldve lived the rest of my life without knowing.
Im willing to bet that overall more of the text is not about Tesla,
I wouldnt have thought that a book about such a creative genius could be balled up to the point of practically making it unreadable.
Cripes! Please, somebody write a really good biography of this man who deserves better than the treatment here,
This was not an easy listen, Overhours dense with information, including technical descriptions of Nikola Tesla's inventions!
This being said, I am glad I bought this audiobook, It covers not only Tesla's inventions and ideas but also his cultural background, his relationships with quite a number of the luminaries of the times, as well as his physical and mental health.
For this reader/listener with no electrical engineering background, the descriptions of Tesla's inventions and postulated theories, most of which in his own words, were a little hard to understand, let alone evaluate.
However, bearing in mind that this is not a scientific appreciation of Tesla's work but his biography, the book fulfilled my desire to know more about Tesla's achievements and why he was transformed into a mythical figure.
The technical descriptions were informative enough to give the general reader/listener a fairly good insight into an array of Tesla's inventions, including both the proved and the postulated ones.
Therefore, I appreciate Mr, Seifer's efforts to do Nikola Tesla justice, separating the myth built around him from historic facts, fairly pointing out where Tesla was wrong, and thus bringing Tesla's fascinating accomplishments and ideas/postulated theories into proper perspective.
I liked how the book was organized, It was set chronologically, yet centered on Tesla's world wireless communication system Wardenclyffe, involving Tesla's desire and
efforts to make wireless transmission of power possible which seems to have stuck in the throat of the electrical engineering companies battling for their share in the market.
What I found both interesting and saddening were the descriptions of the competition between inventors, disputes about who was 'the first' and Tesla's struggles against patent infringements.
The book renders both Tesla's virtues and his weaknesses, and I must admit that some of Tesla's quirks made me dislike him at times, In spite of it, I found the events leading to the development of radio the Wireless most saddening, Tesla aimed valiantly high ahead of this time, which unfortunately led him to a blind alley and lose the battle with Marconi though he was able to recover some money in the Courts long after Marconi was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics.
All in all, I congratulate Mr, Seifer on well researched and fairly evenhanded biography of Nikola Tesla, While some of Tesla's postulated inventions, as described, left me wondering whether they were only the product of a brilliant dreamer in this context, be prepared for a bit of conspiracy theories at the end of the book, regarding Tesla's 'death beam weapon', the book as a whole succeeded to convince me that this genius deserves better recognition.
As my review refers to the audio version of sitelinkWizard: The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla: Biography of a Genius, let me say a word or two about the narration.
Simon Prebble's performance is excellent indeed, It suits the times in which Tesla lived, as well as the general mood of the book, I particularly enjoyed how Mr, Prebble voiced Tesla's personal correspondence with J, P. Morgan and others, bringing life and personality to the characters in the book,./
It has been done! This biography took me so long to read! I began in summerbut couldnt get into it, Picked it back up at the start of my fall semester this year but couldnt get into it, Picked it up again at the end of the semester and forced myself to through,
All in all his was a fascinating book that did an incredible job capturing the complicated life of an American Immigrant icon,
While I was reading the book I struggled with how in depth and technical it got with his patents and his competitors patents at times but once I decided “its okay not to retain every word” and just kept reading, these tidbits of information no longer slowed me down and by the end of the book I was excited to learn more.
It almost read like it was letting you in on a secret, at times differentiating what the world saw at a given time and what actually happened like with all of his feuds and how for decades those who pirated his work were rewarded.
What I enjoyed most about this tale was seeing how intertwined he was with the most powerful American families of all time, This was a man who worked with both JP Morgan and Jr, He was a direct rival of Edison and a pen pal of Elenor Roosevelt,
I am incredibly happy to have finally finished this book,
I'm embarrassed to admit it, but before reading this book, somewhere in the back of my mind, I had pretty much bought into the new age mythology that Tesla was a mystic genius visionary who was the victim of Edison's jealous, evil industrialist thievery and sabotage.
Now, after reading accounts of Tesla's embarrassing social, financial and professional missteps, his ridiculous pleading correspondences to J, P. Morgan and other wealthy wouldbe benefactors, and less than half baked journal submissions particularly the one that interpreted a three beat radio transmission as a communication from intelligent extra terrestrials, I'm seeing Tesla in a whole new light.
Rather than a victim of conspiratorial thuggery, I now see Tesla as a victim of his own chronic douchiness,
Tesla was clearly decades ahead of his peers, But being "ahead of your time", contrary to hipster dogma, is not necessarily a good thing, Tesla had amazing ideas. But good ideas without good execution are about useless, where as even mediocre ideas, well executed, can at least be useful to someone, Tesla was with out a doubt, an amazing inventor, But it's hard not to feel like he could have achieved so much more if he wasn't such a dysfunctional, self sabotaging, grandiose douche bag.
This book is a well done if a little long biography of a fascinating to say the least character from a fascinating time.
But the real value of the book is as a cautionary tale of how unchecked cognitive biases see: confirmation bias and magical thinking can be the undoing of even brilliant and talented people like Tesla.
Be warned if your model of reality becomes too divorced from actual reality, you may needlessly fritter away your hard work and talent on some really ridiculous shit.
Read this book, particularly if you like biographies of scientists, but if you're one of those Tesla worshipers, be prepared to deify the guy a whole lot less upon completion.
Ultimately, the book renders a portrait of Tesla that is humane and realistic, Uncovering Tesla's scammy shenanigans, unexamined self delusions and outrageous foibles, while concurrently celebrating his incredible creativity and authentic brilliance,
BTW: a film is in production starring self serious, tortured Christian Bale as Tesla, I think brilliant, trixter, clown Sacha BaronCohen would make for a better, more realistic, funner film, .