Tech Transfer is a self-published first novel.
If that rings alarm bells, silence them. Daniel S. Greenberg knows science, especially science funding, administration and politics in the US, better than anyone else alive today. Add the book’s subtitle — Science, Money, Love and the Ivory Tower — and the package is not too different from a couple of his other titles: Science for Sale: The Perils, Rewards, and Delusions of Campus Capitalism and Science, Money, and Politics: Political Triumph and Ethical Erosion. The difference, of course, is love, of which there is precious little in Tech Transfer, although plenty of lust. Greenberg has taken the stuff he’s learned in more than 40 years of reporting about science, and written about in sober analysis and non-fiction, and used it to embroider a very slightly different picture.
He’s done this before, sharing snapshots from the life of Grant Swinger, erstwhile director of the Center for the Absorption of Federal Funds and recently President of the University of Avarice. Swinger returns the favour with a backhanded puff for Tech Transfer, which is the full-length portrait.
It is a truly delightful romp through the modern American university and its multitude of relationships, internal and external. I won’t say more here — except to point out that my judgement may well be clouded because Greenberg is a friend of long standing. There are other reviews and an interesting review cum interview out there that you may want to check. Or you could trust me, something that could hardly be said of anyone in Tech Transfer.
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Jeremy, I’m delighted at favorable notice for TT on your spry blog. Re self-pub, not only does it have a great future via digital, but it also has a glorious past, as noted in the Feb. 10, 2011, NY Review of Books, “Books: Onward to the Digital Revolution,” by Jason Epstein: “Milton published “Areopagitica” himself and Whitman self-publlished the first edition of “Leaves of Grass.” When he could not find a publisher for his first novel, “Maggie, A Girl of the Streets,” Stephen Crane published it himself. James Joyce in similar circumstances published “Ulysses”…. “The Joy of Cooking” was first published by its author…. and so were such recent best sellers as Richard Evans’ “Christmas Box” and Tom Peters’s “In Search of Excellence.”
Best regards. Dan
Thanks Dan. I looked for that Jason Epstein piece, and found it here: Onward to the Digital Revolution, behind a paywall. $6 for a week’s access would be fine, if I thought I’d have time in the week to get my money’s worth. But I’d be happier to be able to pay 10 cents to read that one article. the Digital Revolution has a little way to run yet.