"A Mind Bender in the First Degree"
February 12, 2010
“I have to start by saying how immensely I enjoyed this book,” so begins Micah. A. Hanks’ review in The Gralien Report of Nick Redfern’s Science Fiction Secrets: From Government Files and the Paranormal. Writes Hanks: “From strange FBI tales involving the apparent paranoia of Sci-Fi writers like Phillip K. Dick, to weird parallels he draws between the terrorist attacks of 9-11 and television programs that predicted the disaster before it happened, this book is a mind bender in the first degree…The old adage ‘truth is stranger than fiction’ comes to mind often when reading this gem, and if you ever doubted it, this will be the manuscript that will finally change that perception. Read it, enjoy it, and be prepared to never see the world around you quite the same way you once did.” Sounds like Hanks liked the book, don’t you think? Considerably more reserved about the book, as expected, is Peter Rogerson at Magonia: “It is…a moot point whether any of the bizarre tales one encounters here and elsewhere are deliberately circulated by governments to baffle foreign intelligence services and to protect real secrets and scandals with a bodyguard of cranks, or as black propaganda…There is no doubt that Nick Redfern gives us an exciting read, but it has to be said that if there is a bodyguard of cranks, he doesn’t half help it along… A jolly good read but keep a full salt-cellar handy.” Of course, Rogerson fails to mention that Redfern actually points out that many of the stories do stretch credibility. Redfern, in fact, is not afraid to detail the failures, the flaws, and the character eccentricities in the stories he recounts; in no way does he suggest that all the things in the book are valid. And just what these stories represent is not a moot point.