Re: Ben Bova's Immortality book.

Damien Broderick (damien@ariel.ucs.unimelb.edu.au)
Mon, 26 Oct 1998 12:10:01 +0000

At 05:39 PM 10/25/98 -0700, Duane Hewitt wrote:

>The fact that "Dr." adorns this cover prominently when it does not appear on
>many of Bova's other publications strikes me as a cheap marketing ploy. It
>is later made clear in the preface that Dr. Bova is "not a scientist by
>training" nor is he a medical doctor as the unsuspecting might believe due
>to the byline.

I dug into this, since the details are mysteriously absent from the book and its jacket. Bova has a doctorate in education. Fans of Heinlein's THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST-- will recall some amusing (and doubtless unfair) discussions about this species of qualification. (Not that Heinlein would have been any kinder about my own doctorate, which is in discourse analysis.)

Damien Broderick