Friday, October 03, 2008

McNeil's "Way... Way Out"


Welcome once again to McNeil's "Way... Way Out." Today McNeil wanders a bit off the subject of UFOs to call our attention to recent developments concerning "the space elevator." It, like the "particle collider," is a real thing for REAL, though "spell check" does not recognize the word "collider," which I can only assume is part of a government plot to "reassure" us. Do you recall that once, very, very long ago, I reported reading about something in the "Science" section of the New York Times that McNeil had predicted in his fiction? Well, I am now prepared to reveal that it was an elevator to outer space. McNeil thought of it first, everybody. So where's HIS piece of the pie? I do recall that in Roald Dahl's CHARLIE AND THE GREAT GLASS ELEVATOR, Charlie Bucket and Willy Wonka go to outer space in an elevator. But it is a detached and capsule-like elevator if I recall correctly and not what McNeil and the scientists had in mind at all.